SamplePad Pro - Percussion and Sample-Triggering Instrument with 8 Velocity-Sensitive Drum Pads, 200+ Built-In Sounds

Loads of fun. Sort of old technology but who cares. I like that you can use your own samples. And reverb too! Lots of options. This is a great substitute for the non-drummer that just wants to add some real druming to his/her recordings. Banging on pads is a lot more fun then adding "qunantization, groove, humanizing" DAW otions. I'm old school and like to use my body to make music. ;-)

I've had this for around a year now. Use it live exclusively. So far, I've had ZERO problems. IT's been a very solid piece of gear. I downloaded all the Alesis sounds onto the card, but mostly I use the built in sounds. I don't need a ton of samples these days, but I do need things like handclap. I could get tamborine/cowbell setups, but our mixer is out of inputs, so I use these electronic versions. Nice that it has built in reverb! I've yet to use an external trigger, but I"m thinking about it. I could use a small pad, right honey? Pros: good clean sounds, small size fits anywhere. Pads are nice. Solid construction and dependable performance. . Cons: I'd like a brighter view screen for outdoor shows. Not a big con, but I thought I'd mention it. Once in a while, the SD card pops loose, and I have to push it back in. This happens when casing / uncasing it, User error, but if it were inset somehow where one couldn't accidentally hit it, it would be better. Wish list. Make the same item with two more bar shaped pads along the bottom with a couple of more inputs, and you could built an entire drum set with this. Would be cool if it came in a roundish shape.

Coming from a Yamaha M-12, the Alesis is very simple and basic, but it suits my needs better. The pads are firmer and respond better to my playing. You can layer a sound, but only 2 per pad, not 4 like I was used to. I'll be using it mostly with vst's, so that won't be an issue. Size is good, construction quality seems OK for the price, and overall I'm happy with it. If you don't need all the fancy bells and whistles, this might work for you.

Purchased this used, and its condition reflects that to be sure. However, its functionality is excellent! Despite being used and a little banged up, the triggers still work excellently and respond to pressure well. It's a super reliable device. Would recommend it to others, and would trust a purchase from this same vendor again.

So I purchased this controller as a means to add drum tracks to my recordings WITHOUT spending a fortune on a Roland, even though the reviews were.. eh.. OK. So, out of the box and running directly into the DAW via USB worked well from a MIDI standpoint, but where this things starts going to the darkside is the outputs and SD card. Make no mistake, it IS quiet IF you run it into a audio controller (Focusrite, Presonus) on a LINE input without any pre-amp or gain, Literally had to nearly max all inputs.. Now if you run it into the MIC connections via the 1/4 or XLR that has gain, it will work better.. The only way I got any decent output out of this device was to run a Radial J48 active DI and running phantom power off the Focusrite, gave the device a good amount of head room where when dialed in about 1/3 to 1/2 gave very good output. WIth that being said, I should NOT have to use two pre-amps (focusrite and J48) to get good output. Now the second issue and a biggie being the SD card reader. This is KEY if you want to add many samples on the pad. Alesis gives a great zip files with tons of samples, thus the SD card. My SD card reader on the sample pad lasted one week and the would give a "Card Read Error" and would no longer read ANY SD card. Contacted support and this seems to be a common issue, which yes, they will cover it under warranty, but unless I was just using this for studio work would not be a good option on the road, especially if I needed multiple kits available on a SD card which seems to have a mind of its own. Returned. I am going to give Alesis one more opportunity with the strike pad, yes its more, but I guess you get what you pay for..

I really wanted this to work well. I like the compact form factor and the look. I like the light up pads. but the the pads are awful and not responsive enough. the two small pads do not trigger consistantly at all. in fact they dont trigger most of the time unless you really pound on it. i was very disappointed in this. The pads just arent sensitive enough. not playable at all with hands and you really have to whack it hard with the sticks. no light drumming. I honestly dont know how a product like this makes it to market. I also tried out the Kat ktmp1 - and LOVE it. the form factor isnt quite as nice looking, but it WORKS. you can tap with fingers or sticks. the pads all work. theyre easy to set up. you get a few stages of velocity with hands or sticks. I also tried the Keith McMillen Boppad. which is also really great. it feels very well made and i like that its usb bus powered so is plug and play with an ipad or daw. its advertised as having more layers of velocity and cc 'zones' on each pad, but in practice it wasnt very precise and that feature isnt really that usable for me. I went with the kat mostly bc of price. do not buy the alesis. those other are real drum pads. the alesis is total garbage. returned.

Perfect, no complaints.

We bought one of these to use in live performance. We're a working, somewhat "serious" band, and we don't exactly take it easy on our equipment. This failed the test. Horribly. Pros: When it works, it sounds pretty good! After she re-programmed the drum sounds (the factory ones are terrible), our drummer can make it sound like an entire drum kit! And much more portable. Cons: You never know when it's going to stop working or do something strange. Here are some things it has done: 1) Line noise. Other reviews commented on this as well. It generates a hum which sounds like a ground loop, even though there isn't one. Sometimes you can hear it, sometimes you can't. No idea why. 2) Not durable. The pad triggers "bleed" into each other -- you hit one pad, and it makes the sounds from other pads. This is also common and discussed on the Alesis support forums. Is this because we hit it with a stick too many times? Maybe. But that's what drummers do!!! 3) Bad control placement. When you're playing, it's pretty easy to accidentally hit one of the arrow buttons. Our drummer does this all the time. It switches the patch. So, in the middle of a performance, all of the sudden the sounds change! 4) Incomprehensible tone changes. We haven't figure this one out. For no apparent reason, the tone of the sound changed during our rehearsal. Everything sounded muffled and ringy. We restored the factory settings and it fixed the problem. But... what the heck? We have no idea what caused this. Conclusion: This might work for a home studio if you treat it very gingerly. But for professional use? No way. It's waaaaaaaaay too fragile. As others have mentioned, the price point is appealing; but, I now wish we'd saved up for the real deal. :-( Anybody wanna buy a used one??