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

Along with crunching your samples into digital oblivion, you possibly can 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 massive and responsive sufficient to do some primary finger drumming.

Sadly, chopping a pattern spreads it throughout the smaller keyboard on the underside, moderately 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 alternative.

A Tiny Device Equipment

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

Then, as soon as your loop is prepared, you should 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 will possibly sound OK when used sparingly and with the proper settings, however it’s something however delicate and might flip extra advanced 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 type of beat repeat results you’ll find on different gadgets just like the Teenage Engineering PO-133. It’s nice for creating stay fills and variations whereas jamming. It’s actually considered one of my favourite efficiency options on any piece of music gear, and I’d like to see it on extra stuff.

{Photograph}: Terrence O’Brien