Roland Aira P-6 Sampler Review: Great Sound, Complicated Interface Leave a comment

Along with crunching your samples into digital oblivion, you may course of them with a ton of various results like reverb, delay, a multi-mode filter, and most significantly, a vinyl simulator for that true 404 taste. The six pattern pads throughout the entrance aren’t velocity-sensitive, however they’re giant and responsive sufficient to do some primary finger drumming.

Sadly, chopping a pattern spreads it throughout the smaller keyboard on the underside, relatively than the bigger pattern pads. These keys are tiny, mushy, and ugly to play. Nonetheless, if you need one thing small for tossing collectively lo-fi or boom-bap beats on the go, the P-6 isn’t a nasty selection.

A Tiny Instrument Equipment

When constructing a beat, you’ve received numerous instruments at your disposal. You possibly can place steps manually utilizing the step sequencer, or play them in dwell to maintain issues off the grid. You’ve received 64 steps to work with, plus chance, sub-steps, micro-timing, and movement recording so as to add complexity and selection.

Then, as soon as your loop is prepared, you need to use a handful of results to create on-the-fly builds, breakdowns, and fills. Most notably there are Scatter, Step Loop, and the ​​DJFX Looper borrowed from the SP-404.

Scatter is divisive, to say the least. It provides stutter and glitch results based mostly on preprogrammed patterns. It might sound OK when used sparingly and with the correct settings, however it’s something however refined and might flip extra complicated and melodic beats into unlistenable chaos.

Step Loop merely loops the steps you maintain down on the sequencer. It’s a extra versatile and attention-grabbing tackle the form of beat repeat results you could find on different gadgets just like the Teenage Engineering PO-133. It’s nice for creating dwell fills and variations whereas jamming. It’s actually one among my favourite efficiency options on any piece of music gear, and I’d like to see it on extra stuff.