Thanks for the exhaustive answer, fortunately in the meantime I found a solution to the issue I was facing without ultimately needing a firmware upgrade (my computer was not registering the MIDI notes sent from the samplepad, turns out the USB cable was too long, lol). The senstivity threshold improvement in 1.0.14 would have been nice to have, but I can live without that. The kit editor apps you linked seem useful, I'll check those out.
EDIT: Out of curiosity I went through my order history and it seems like I bought my Samplepad 4 in 2021 and it came with firmware v1.0.5, while the screenshot you posted shows "LDSP v1.0.21 2018-04-11". It's possible that Thomann had it sitting in a warehouse for years before it was sent to me. Also, my Samplepad 4 only shows the version number and in your screenshot the line starts with "LDSP". LDSP_UPD.dat and LDSP2UPD.dat are the names of the firmware update files for the Samplepad Pro and when trying to do an update my S4 was throwing an error about a missing "LDSM" update file. Makes me wonder if there is some sort of sneaky way to get the Pro firmware update to install on the 4...
The Samplepad Pro and Samplerack (Discontinued) were basically the same except for the onboard pads..
however they did not have the same Firmware/Updates..
LDSP...vs
LDSR..so the chances of the SP Pro working on the SP4 are slim to none..
The Firmware for the Pro would be for 2x the inputs and settings than the SP4...The missing "M" might also have been added during the updates...going from v1.05 to v1.19 may be too far a jump..
I got the image for the Samplepad 4 Firmware years ago from my archives.
I would need to dig around and see if I still have any full images somewhere of a higher version.
I did see a lower version and there was a
post/member with v1.04 about a year or so ago..I haven't messed around with these as I sold all of my Samplepad gear including the Samplerack nearly 8-9 years ago and purchased one of the initial STRIKE Multipads.
The websites have been changing over from Alesis to Alesis Drums , however registered products were migrated from Alesis to inMusic profile where all of the downloads should be listed.I found nothing for the Samplepad 4.
I would expect eventually ALL products from ALL Brands going to the inMusic Software Center.
Older Products have been categorized as other Devices..
Alesis Products..including Drum Modules/Multipads etc are Class Compliant (USB1.1..Manufacturing Standard since 1999) which has a cable length restriction of 9.6ft before MIDI RTL starts to time out.It is best to use the shortest cable possible.
MIDI 2.0 was released in 2020 , however I haven't seen much in the way of implementing into Drum Modules or change to the Class Compliant drivers (Just the "In The Works" rumors).
There are keyboards with MPE and specific USB drivers to download.
EDIT:Added Images..Links
