rich ball Thanks Rich!

Thanks for the kind words Andy. I didn’t really make the video expecting any money. I just wanted to help my fellow musicians out. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t say “no” if Roland threw me a bone. Unfortunately, in my experience digital music companies aren’t really open to ideas from their hardcore users who have good ideas to make their products better. This is the sometimes harsh reality. Again, thanks for the compliment and I hope you have a great time with your music expression.

I am quite dissapointed in many aspects with the spd sx. This is an expensive piece of kit from one of, If not the, largest electronic instrument manufacturers in the world. The wav manager sucks. The lack of live recording loops like the spd 30 does feels like an oversight. I wonder of this is a hardware issue or if they can add the functionality with a software update. I also feel it ticks a lot of boxes on the spec sheet but practically there are many annoying limitations especially when not using it with other hardware or software

Thomas deerheart thanks Thomas. Glad I could help.

You're very welcome!

Tyler's Ghos

Hi Michael, Thanks for the positive feedback. You can alter the pitch of a sample on the SPD-SX. I invite you to play with the QUICK button. Select MENU -> PAD -> select your pad and press ENTER. Then from this KIT PAD screen press QUICK. From here you'll see options for the PAD and the sample associated with it. In your case you'll scroll down to WAVE PITCH. Play with it from there if you'd like. One thing I'd note is that altering WAVE PITCH will likely not preserve your original tempo. So the WAVE will sound sped up or slowed down depending on what you do with the pitch. You could probably stretch the wave sample back to your desired tempo but I find this to be problematic mainly because the sample will start to sound funny like a tremolo effect is being applied to it and just generally unwanted noise. I haven't ever really done a deep dive into trying to alter a sample pitch and then re-stretch it to a desired tempo. Hope this helps you and have fun.

Hi. The SPD-SX has no internal quantization ability. The SPD-SX is a sampler only and not a sequencer (like the Roland SPD-30 which has on board quantization).

Yes you can compress and stretch samples to different tempos using the SPD-SX using the tempo sync function. However, I find that compressing and stretching samples doesn't sound very good and the original .wav file being stretched or compressed sounds muddled at best. For instance, if I compress or stretch the above sample in the video to different tempos it doesn't sound very good and I don't really like the result (save for maybe precise multiples of original tempos, e.g. 120 to 240, etc.). The reason for this I think is that the SPD-SX is not a sequencer and as such has practically no internal quantization capability. Unlike the Roland SPD-30, which has strong on board quantization capability, the SPD-SX is strictly a sampler only (not a sequencer) and as such doesn't always do a great job of morphing sampled sounds to fit particular tempos. Also, good DAW's can stretch and compress audio files well but that's probably because most DAW's have at least decent quantization capability as well as having more processing horsepower at their disposal than the SPD-SX. Because of this, I rarely use the tempo sync function and just try to perform or sample record in the tempo I want the sample to be at.

Jay Duffy Hi Jay, Thanks for the feedback. That’s strange that the left and right cursor buttons aren’t working. There shouldn’t be any setting that changes that. Without seeing the problem for myself I’d have trouble helping you with this problem. Do the “+” and “-“ buttons still work so that you can scroll through the sample?

Brett Donis Hi Brett, thanks for getting back to me. Yes the '+' and '-' work when scrolling through the sample, but obviously the ability to fine tune it to your maths formula is impossible without the function of the right and left cursor. FYI - the cursor works for me in other instances.

Hi Brett, I have another query and wondering if you could help me. Do you know of an external MIDI clock that is compatible with the SPD-SX? Before I purchased the SPD-SX, I used a KORG Electribe ES-1 (a great machine but not too user friendly when playing live). The KORG would send a MIDI signal to a Ditto Looper pedal and everything stayed perfectly in time. I've only now realised the the SPD-SX cannot provide this service (which is very annoying), and I assume this is because the KORG has an internal MIDI clock that the SPD-SX does not. I need to solve this so we can play live with this machine. If you can offer advice, I appreciate it greatly. Cheers Jay

Hi Jay, I've occasionally used a MIDI clock from external devices to send tempo information to the SPD-SX using the MIDI SYNC function of the SPD-SX. I've used my Roland SPD-30 and my DAW (Logic Pro X) to send a tempo setting to the SPD-SX and it worked fine. However, I've never purchased a master MIDI clock for my Roland devices because I've never felt a need for that. Hope this helps.

Hi Zach, The short answer is no. However, there is a something that you can try that may help you with this depending on the musical situation you're in. What you could try is assigning a pad to play a metronome sound of your choosing, length, etc. Then assign a different pad with the sample you want to perform AND the metronome sound via using merge or sub out methods on the SPD-SX (you would also assign a mute group to the pad with the original metronome sound. This way you can essentially "trick" yourself and/or your audience into perhaps sounding like your still in time even though you may be off just a bit. I have found that once you can start understanding and playing with merging/sub-out/and mute groups you can overcome some of the obstacles to playing the SPD-SX with precise timing. If you have any questions about this let me know.

Hi! While I don't have experience with Ableton I do have experience with trying to get my Mac to recognize MIDI devices. Many things you can try. 1. Verify you Mac operating system is update. Are you on an older Mac? What OS are you running? 2. Verify that your SPD-SX system is update. Check the Roland website to make sure. www.roland.com/us/products/spd-sx/downloads/ 3. Verify in SPD-SX that the MIDI settings are "normal", i.e. transmitting notes, what channel they are transmitting (I believe the default channel is 10). Try playing and experimenting with the local control "Off" and "On" as well as the USB-MIDI I/F setting. 4. Switch the MIDI I/O cables from the SPD-SX. I know this is a weird one, but with some devices I find this (strangely) solves I/O problems. 5. Make sure the Ableton MIDI settings are recognizing external MIDI notes on Tx channels. You've probable done all of this, but figured it's worth mentioning. Good luck!

Thanks so much! Problem solved. For other users: you need to download another driver for MIDI device on the roland download page.

You've gotta make a new soundwave using the perform & record function in the sample menu. But first you gotta assign your cowbell sound to a kit. any kit. then in perform & record, select that kit as the source then select your destination. Sampling will begin automatically when you hit the cowbell. Hit it just once and leave plenty of silence at the end so you've got enough space to trim it down to your desired tempo. Then simply run old mate's equation but without the multiplying beats at the end because it's obviously just 1 beat you've sampled. So yeah 2,646,000 divided by your tempo (117) and that's where you trim the end to. Then simply set that pad to loop[ and you're good to go. Happy cowbelling

@@SpiffaJ Thanks! Great!!

Just use the perform&record sample mode.

Hi, I don't understand your question. Can you be more specific? Are you asking if there are pre-loaded samples on the unit that are factory installed? If that's your question then the answer is yes. There are many pre-loaded samples out of the box.

Brett Donis yes u r right. and also i want to know how can we install our desired sounds (drums etc) which we desired, from mp3 or anyother source

ChannelCez I use a Boss RC-505 as a vocal sampler and you could bridge the output to the input of the SPD-SX if you wanted to. There’s also a Boss RC-202. The Boss sampler sounds like something you might enjoy.

Hey I already have the 505. So I can just connect the output of my looper into the input there and then sample whatever vocals I do live from it into the sx. That could work. Would it work plugging the phones out from looper into the spd sx as I would generally have the regular output go to a speaker for performance. Though I also wanted to loop from the the spd sx into my looper (much easier to loop well on it than what you do here) and don’t know if it’s good to have them both having input and output into into each other.

You might also consider a mixer. Output the SpD and the 505 to a mixer. Then output the mix as your main output. I use a mixer for all my Roland devices (e.g. TD30, SPD30, SPD-SX), and just output the mix to my speakers.

You gotta go to Menu - Setup - Option and there set the USB Mode to Audio/Midi. When you then hook the pad up with your computer (via the usb connection) it should be recognised as interface. I don't know how it works in garageband, but in Ableton you gotta chose the interface then in your preferences. Should work similar in most software I guess.

Lol. You're welcome!

thank sir my requests telling in telugu

I used the 1/4” “Audio In” jacks in the back of the SPD-SX. Turn the input gain to “Line”.

Brett Donis I mean like what cable. Usb or midi to the keyboard?

tim cursaro 1/4” L/R jacks from/to keyboard. Did not use MIDI or USB for this demonstration.

my liquid and montuno kits aren't playing the primary sounds like basslines etc.

Hi Paul, A video probably isn't necessary here. I would refer you to page 65 of the SPD-SX manual. It says: "If you want to return the SPD-SX to its factory-set state, save the factory settings file to your USB flash drive, and then execute "ALL". The factory settings file can be obtained from the Roland website. Visit the following URL, search for the model name "SPD-SX". www.roland.com/support/en/" You'll drill down to the file page "SPD-SX Factory Restore Data" and download it to a USB drive.

If you want to ONLY restore these kits (Liquid and Montuno) rather than do a complete factory reset let me know and I might be able to help you with that.

Franky-B Try using the Roland SPD-SX software. It went live recently.

@@brettdonis675 is this a new tool? I have wave manager and the roland application. What do I mis here?

I hear you. Do you have the BOSS RC-505? If not give it a try. I have one and it’s pretty fun device for looping. But your right, hopefully one day Roland will develop a device that incorporates the abilities of their different devices into one device.

The only thing worth a damn about the spdsx is hit start for a song, hit stop for a song. Or spend a while pre set to program each section into a pad. It's dumb. Don't but this device