Author Topic: Sample Pad Pro - 5 months on, my verdict  (Read 4703 times)

Sample Pad Pro - 5 months on, my verdict
« on: October 04, 2015, 03:49:48 PM »
I have had my sample pad pro now for 5 months, before that I had (still have) a performance pad pro (now gathering a bit of dust). So I just wanted to let you know the good and the bad.



So the big one is crosstalk, it both is and isnt an issue. If you are using it as a sampler then you just put the sensitivity down and hit it a bit harder. By harder I dont mean you have to belt it, a faily light tap will trigger it without crosstalk, but if you want to trigger a sample by resting your stick on it (and it will go that sensitive), then you will of course get crosstalk.

By putting it on a stand the crosstalk was reduced massively, it hardly weighs anything, so all I did to mount it was to get an old microphone stand, take the telescopic part out the middle with the boom, and put a mapex clamp on it angled down slightly.

It does look good though, I quite often have people asking what the funky little thing is lit up in neon blue, the choice of screen locations is questionable though, I have already hit it a few times but no sign of it breaking, the unit is certainly built well, certainly feels solid.

A sampler was not the main reason for me getting it however, Once a week I play somewhere with limited space, by the time you get the singers, guitarists, bass, keyboard etc, left over for me is this 3 foot wide space, not a chance I will get my kit in there, id struggle with just a snare, literally thats how small, yeah I can play a djembe in that space but its not that kind of music.

So my thought process went down the performance pad pro route linked through AD, so I got one and tried it, it worked but the pads werent sensitive, those ghosts and buzz's were getting lost, the bass pedal was a switch so was the hi hat control, so it worked but I never really got on with it. What I will say about the performance pad pro is it has some great sounds hidden away in there, some of the bass sounds are great as well, so I was never going to part with it.

Then the sample pad pro was released, so I got it as it had all those missing features I wanted, and to be honest, its been every bit what I wanted. Initially when I heard the crosstalk I was disappointed, but I did have it on the floor and hitting it square on (not angled), once I had updated the firmware and mounted it I was much happier.

The sensitivity on the pads is great when you get it right and they feel good to hit, and I really do give them a pounding as well as the lightest of ghosts and buzz's on the snare and it picks them all up. The key is to work out which pads crosstalk to which other pads, the bottom left I use for a snare just so happens not to suffer from crosstalk, so you can put the sensitivity up, the ones I have the toms will crosstalk if you put them too sensitive, so I have those lower, but how sensitive do you really need your toms, when I say lower I dont mean you have to belt them, a light tap and it will still pick it up. The top two pads you can have have quite sensitive where I have a crash and a china (I do love a china), so you can roll happily on those.

I use it with variable hi hat pedal (Roland FD-8) and I use a triggera krigg on the bass pedal (its like a wedge with a piezo in it under the bass pedal so you dont need a beater and pad, making it more portable), I have it linked through USB to a surface pro 2 tablet running AD and back out to an E-MU 0404 USB sound adapter running at about 2ms.

So for me the sample pad pro means an 8 pad + 2 pedal drum kit that I carry around, sample pad pro in a laptop bag in one hand (yes the sample pad pro fits quite snug in a laptop bag) Plus the two pedals in the other hand, and it fits in my little 3 foot wide allocated space when I play there, and you can imagine how quick it is to set up.

So for those venues where you cant fit your kit in, for me its worked out quite well, and when its at home I can use it as it was intended as a sampler.

Happy I got it? Absolutely

Re: Sample Pad Pro - 5 months on, my verdict
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2017, 08:51:26 PM »
Great post, and thanks for sharing your thoughts.  I'm trying a very similar setup: Sample Pad Pro into Addictive Drums 2 with Roland FD-8 hihat and KT-10 kick pedal.  Unfortunately, the hihat is giving me trouble. AD2 has a special mode (HiHat Setup C in the manual, page 41) that responds to MIDI Pedal Position (CC #04), but I can not figure out how to send that data from the SPP.  Are you using this?  If not, would you please describe in detail your hihat MIDI and global options setup?  Thanks!