MAKING TRACKS STUDIO…HARDWARE…SOFTWARE…
ROLAND SPD-SX-SE: POWERFUL SAMPLING PAD SPD-SX SE: Useful for the stage or studio.
DJ TIMES
FALL 2018
By Chris Davis
30
In 2003, Roland released the first-ever SPD-S sampling pad, providing tech-savvy percussionists a reliable way to trigger loops, samples, and full backing tracks alongside their main drum kit. The SPD-S was met with high praise, and the SPD-SX was introduced eight years later, jampacked with new features. Fast-forward to the end of 2017, when Roland announced yet another SPD-S iteration: the SPD-SX Special Edition (aka SPD-SX-SE). Many musicians, DJs, and producers took notice along the SPD-S’s 12-year journey, realizing that it could add a unique element to their studio workflow or fill a gap in their live performances. My own entrance to the electronic-music industry was from the perspective of a percussionist, so when I heard that Roland was releasing an updated version of the SPD-SX, I was taken back to fond memories of marching band, jamming on the SPD-S pads to the killer factory preset loops and sub-bass drops. This time around, my mind was filled with ideas for using the SPD-SX-SE in my home studio and using it as a supplemental instrument when DJing. Instead of just mixing back-and-forth between tracks, a percussion multi-pad provides the opportunity to interact with the music and supply a unique energy to a performance. Aesthetics & Build Quality: Roland is upfront about the fact that the SPD-SX is identical in functionality to the original SPD-SX, yet the new unit features much more internal storage—16 gigabytes (GB), to be exact—plus a shiny new coat of sparkling red-and-black paint. (And that’s always a good color scheme.) Other visual features include a blue LCD screen with settings for backlight brightness and contrast. The blocky iconography and 128x64 dot display
resolution are where the SPD-SX-SE begins to show its age, but hopefully, you won’t be staring at the screen as much as you will be hammering away at the nine pads. The SPD-SX-SE’s rubber buttons on the lower half of the unit have a nice matte-black finish that feels quite nice to the touch, but I wonder if hard plastic buttons would have been a better design choice, given that my review unit had two minor issues. The black, silkscreen finish for one of my review unit’s buttons was bubbling up slightly, and a different button wasn’t stamped cleanly during manufacturing, leaving a bit of extra rubber sticking up which I mistakenly scraped off at some point, thinking it was dirt. These are minor grievances, but my limited usage left me with concerns about how these buttons will fare under years of heavy usage. Inputs & Outputs: A standard USB-type A-toB cable is required for connecting the SPD-SX-SE to your computer. This is only necessary if you plan to use it with the included copy of Ableton Live Lite or as a MIDI controller. A USB flash drive can also be connected to the SPD-SX-SE to load in samples, and there are dedicated MIDI inputs and outputs to sync up other gear. The SPD-SX SE has two separate mono ¼-inch audio input jacks and two trigger input jacks, supporting up to two additional pads per jack, for a total of 13 pads. These trigger jacks allow you to connect a number of external electronic drum pads or electronic cymbals, a kick trigger pad, or even drum triggers mounted on acoustic drums. If the pads are more than enough for your arms to handle, you can extend your limbs further with up to two footswitches supported through a single footswitch input. These footswitches can trigger their own sounds, or they can be set to execute
a particular function of the SPD-SX-SE, such as cycling through your drum kits or effects. For audio output, the unit offers ¼-inch master outputs, ¼-inch sub outputs, and a single ¼-inch stereo headphone jack. Effects: The SPD-SX SE has dedicated “master effect” buttons to apply a filter, delay, or a short loop. There’s also a custom FX button that can be configured in settings. Options for this custom effect include a stereo delay, sync delay, tape echo, chorus, flanger, step flanger, phaser, step phaser, equalizer, compressor, customized filter, filter + drive, isolator, “touch wah,” distortion, ring modulator, pitch shifter, vibrato, reverb, and slicer. Only one of these four “master effects” can be applied at a time, but with two control knobs, users can modulate two parameters of a chosen effect at once. For instance, if you select the master filter effect, you can simultaneously change the frequency and vary the depth of the effect. Performance Pads: Since its inception, the SPD-S has featured nine easy-to-play, velocity-sensitive rubber pads with LED illumination for dark stages. The pads are laid out in a 3x3 grid, with the lower six pads being of a square shape.The top-row pads are rectangular, very slim, and have a raised edge, making them easy to be played like the rim of an acoustic drum or a cymbal. If you’re programming a particularly involved live set, you can creatively link two pads together, so that hitting either of the pads will play both sounds simultaneously. You can also set a default volume and tempo for each of your kits. Supported time signatures include 1/4 through 16/4 and 1/8 through 16/8, with the number of beats per measure supported between one and a whopping 999. I’m honestly not sure what you
