Alesis, an electronic drum brand, has introduced SamplePad, a four-pad instrument that gives drummers access to a “limitless” palette of sounds. It will be available at musical instrument retailers in the first quarter of 2012 with an estimated street price of US$199.
SamplePad allows drummers to load their own sounds. It has 25 percussion and electronic drum sounds built in, and allows drummers to load their own samples using a standard SD card to create sound combinations. SamplePad sports an external trigger input and the ability to mount it on virtually any snare stand or rack.
By striking a pad and dialing to the desired sound, drummers can reassign sounds as needed, and entire pad combinations can be saved internally as “kits” for recall. Drummers can tune and add reverb to their samples, then assign them to any of the four pads or the kick input.
A MIDI output allows drummers to use SamplePad as a controller for triggering sound modules and software. It fits on a standard snare drum stand or can be mounted to any stand or rack (an Alesis Module Mount is sold separately). For studio use, SamplePad can simply be played on a tabletop.
SamplePad comes equipped with standard dual 1/4-inch outputs for amplification, and a headphone output for monitoring. Its kick input works with most pads and triggers including the Alesis DMPad and RealHead Kick Pads.
