Roland SPD SX Pro for hand percussion?

[cochlea]

I'm curious if the new Roland SPD SX Pro responds well if played with the hands? I know that Roland has the Handsonic, but it's a bit older and an entirely different animal. Some have mentioned that the Yamaha DTX Multi12 can be played with the hands, if desired. I've been approached to play some hand percussion in a small group and was wondering if this might work, but also allows me to use it with sticks when playing my acoustic kit.

 

[Whitten]

The pads are small and quite hard, the flat angle might put stress on your wrists.
I think it would trigger fine. It's doable but probably not great IMO. Can you not combine hand with stick in the small group?

 

[electrodrummer]

The thing with the DTX is the pads respond to pressure like the Handsonic. So - you can mute/choke sounds, bend sounds/notes, use one pad to influence the sound of another by pressing etc. The pads are also softer than most multipad devices.

It is the best of all worlds (speaking as someone of has a plethora of multi-paddy things).

 

[cochlea]

The pads are small and quite hard, the flat angle might put stress on your wrists.
I think it would trigger fine. It's doable but probably not great IMO. Can you not combine hand with stick in the small group?

I could probably just go with sticks but I was hoping that perhaps the pads were pressure sensitive so that you could get a more realistic feel and sound (muted vs. open hit) when playing conga samples with the hands versus using sticks. My other option is to go out and purchase a variety of hand percussion, which I think would be fun to work on. However, I thought the SPD SX Pro would help to serve double-duty as a multi-pad for my acoustic kit.

 

[multijd]

Personally I would use the acoustic percussion. It will be more expressive and more intuitive. Plus less electronics to deal with. Downside is space and amount of things to carry/organize.

I used the SPDX recently in a show (Tina: The Musical). All of the “hand” percussion (shakers, conga, bongo, tambourine…) was acoustic. The SPDX handled timpani, chimes, tam tam and electronic percussion. It was great for that. I think using the acoustic hand percussion was the right call.

 

[dale w miller]

The pads are small and quite hard, the flat angle might put stress on your wrists.
I think it would trigger fine. It's doable but probably not great IMO. Can you not combine hand with stick in the small group?

I agree that the pads are hard, but they are great for triggering loops and doing accompaniment parts to them.

 

[Whitten]

I agree that the pads are hard, but they are great for triggering loops and doing accompaniment parts to them.

I love an SPD-SX, the question was playing the pads with your hands.

 

[Sequimite]

I'm curious about the Yamaha. What is the feel with sticks? How good are the sounds?

I've gigged with the Roland HPD-10 and HPD-20. The HPD-20 is MUCH better due to the SuperNatural sound engine. Even the cymbals are very good. There is a big trade off between soft pads that you play with hands and stiffer pads that give you some kind of bounce with sticks. The Yamaha may be a reasonable compromise but it's hard to imagine that it does both well. If is does hands well, is usable with stick and has realistic sounds I'd be interested.

I play the HPD-20 with bass drum and hi hat triggers stand alone. I found assigning two sounds to a pad very useful. When playing hand percussion like the African water drum I'd also assign sounds to the BD and HH triggers. When playing it with an acoustic kit I'd simply stick out a finger while holding the stick or assign sounds to two Roland pads to play with sticks. Playing with the Yamaha pads directly with sticks would be an advantage as long as I wasn't losing sound quality.

 

[cochlea]

I've also heard great things about the Yamaha multi-pad. However, it's been around so long that I'd like to know more about its limitations compared to Roland's newer multi-pad offerings. Do the original sounds still hold up today? I know you can import samples but are there significant internal memory limitations?

 

[Sequimite]

I've also heard great things about the Yamaha multi-pad. However, it's been around so long that I'd like to know more about its limitations compared to Roland's newer multi-pad offerings. Do the original sounds still hold up today? I know you can import samples but are there significant internal memory limitations?

Yeah, I found a nice review from 2010. That a LONG time in the digital world.

Yamaha DTX Multi 12

Yamahas DTX Multi 12 squeezes an entire electronic drum kit into a single box.

www.soundonsound.com

 

[Whitten]

I loved my og SPD-SX and the new SPD-SX Pro is fantastic, better than the SPD-SX. As an investment, as something you'll use in a variety of ways over years to come, I think it's the best choice. For the role of hand percussion specifically, maybe not the best choice.
Decide what your priority is.

 

[bpaluzzi]

I've also heard great things about the Yamaha multi-pad. However, it's been around so long that I'd like to know more about its limitations compared to Roland's newer multi-pad offerings. Do the original sounds still hold up today? I know you can import samples but are there significant internal memory limitations?

The Yamaha sounds are fantastic. Sample import is a joke on it - limited to 64mb total.

Yamaha works with sticks, hands, and fingers. Also tracks pressure on pads, not just vibration. It’s by far the most powerful MIDI implementation in a multipad (outside of the Alternate Mode / KAT stuff, which is another order of magnitude worse in terms of interface)

Downsides: lack of memory, as above. Horrible user interface. Lack of set list feature.

 

[Sequimite]

Watched a few videos of the Yamaha DTX M12 and I'm impressed. The only thing keeping me from selling my Handsonics and getting one of these is that they only support Apple, nothing on the Android Play Store for this. Everyone seems to agree that the menu system is a nightmare.

 

[bpaluzzi]

Watched a few videos of the Yamaha DTX M12 and I'm impressed. The only thing keeping me from selling my Handsonics and getting one of these is that they only support Apple, nothing on the Android Play Store for this. Everyone seems to agree that the menu system is a nightmare.

I'm not a huge fan of the app, tbh. I use the DTXM12 a ton and have never really used the app (other than testing it). The menu system is usable, it's just not intuitive. Once you get used to it though, it's absolutely able to do just about everything you want from the device itself. The app theoretically adds more storage and a setlist function, but they're both kind of garbage. Playback from the iPad has significant latency issues, requires you to run more cables from the iPad, and is just basically a hack. Same with the setlist feature. It doesn't integrate the way a "real" setlist feature would (e.g., hit a pad to progress to the next song).


I currently have a DTXm12, an SPD-SX, and and SPD-SX Pro. If I had to get only keep one of them, I'd probably go with just the Yamaha -- there's so much on it that the other devices just plain can't do. If the DTXM12 had the onboard storage of the SPD-SX (not even the Pro), it'd be an absolute no-brainer (for me, at least).

 

[TheDrummerFromAmsterdam]

In terms of out of the box, percussive, orchestral, oriental, and marching percussion sounds the 12 was always king (I owned them all for longer periods including the hpd and currently the sx pro).

Love the editor too, and that gives you extra storage (so the max storage of the 12 is actually the max of the used ios device) for your own add-on sounds. I never had issues with it.

But the sounds of the new SX Pro are seriously good.

Btw you should be able to use the setlist function with a pad/pedal switching option as its all midi based (indeed still the most powerful midi controller besides the dreadfull Drum/Malletkat.




In terms of hand playability I would choose the black hpd20.

That ribbon controller is extra usefull.

And combined with the new sx pro its a versatile and very potent setup.