Alesis Sample Pad 4 | Compact Percussion and Sample Triggering Instrument with 4 Velocity Sensitive Pads, 25 Drum Sounds and SD/SDHC Card Slot,Black

I've had this for around a year now. Use it live exclusively. So far, I've had ZERO problems. IT's been a very solid piece of gear. I downloaded all the Alesis sounds onto the card, but mostly I use the built in sounds. I don't need a ton of samples these days, but I do need things like handclap. I could get tamborine/cowbell setups, but our mixer is out of inputs, so I use these electronic versions. Nice that it has built in reverb!I've yet to use an external trigger, but I"m thinking about it. I could use a small pad, right honey?Pros: good clean sounds, small size fits anywhere. Pads are nice. Solid construction and dependable performance. .Cons: I'd like a brighter view screen for outdoor shows. Not a big con, but I thought I'd mention it. Once in a while, the SD card pops loose, and I have to push it back in. This happens when casing / uncasing it, User error, but if it were inset somehow where one couldn't accidentally hit it, it would be better.Wish list. Make the same item with two more bar shaped pads along the bottom with a couple of more inputs, and you could built an entire drum set with this. Would be cool if it came in a roundish shape.

There is a little crosstalk, and if I were performing with it I'd probably need to upgrade, but all I'm using it for is to trigger MIDI in Reaper, where it's easy enough to clean up an extra hit.For that it's not bad at all. I can run a song in Reaper, map a cymbal or something, and record some hits while it's playing, on a new track, which was what I needed to do. The provided self-generated sounds are fine but really not too useful if you have better sounds in your plugins or in a program like Superior Drummer 3.This controller works well for MIDI and is easy enough to map. No comment on using it standalone.This controller is designed to be hit with sticks and won't work well if you hit it with your hands. With sticks you'll get enough crosstalk that it would ruin your day if you couldn't erase the extra hits later. But as an alternative to hitting keyboard keys to try and create human-edged beats, which is impossible imo, this is a very good tool to have.It's smallish. I have the Gibraltar stand which is a bit overkill but nice. Good value if you aren't gigging with it.

Although the on board sounds aren't very good the pad does what it needs to do, just get some good samples, and your set

This is my 2nd Sample pad in less than 3 years. 1st one had the top left pad fail so I bought a new one. Purchased on 7/7/24 and the bottom right pad has failed now. Waiting to hear from customer support. Very unhappy that Alesis has no phone support.

The custom sampling is an awesome thing to have. You can literally add anything to your Drum Pad... Also comes pre-loaded with a good number of kits to work with.I like the Midi capability, and the smooth design.Down-side though is I might have noticed a bit of cross-talk between hitting one pad close to the other.I think this might be solvable with a firmware update, but overall, it's a really good device.

I really wanted this to work well. I like the compact form factor and the look. I like the light up pads. but the the pads are awful and not responsive enough. the two small pads do not trigger consistantly at all. in fact they dont trigger most of the time unless you really pound on it.i was very disappointed in this. The pads just arent sensitive enough. not playable at all with hands and you really have to whack it hard with the sticks. no light drumming.I honestly dont know how a product like this makes it to market.I also tried out the Kat ktmp1 - and LOVE it. the form factor isnt quite as nice looking, but it WORKS. you can tap with fingers or sticks. the pads all work. theyre easy to set up. you get a few stages of velocity with hands or sticks.I also tried the Keith McMillen Boppad. which is also really great. it feels very well made and i like that its usb bus powered so is plug and play with an ipad or daw. its advertised as having more layers of velocity and cc 'zones' on each pad, but in practice it wasnt very precise and that feature isnt really that usable for me. I went with the kat mostly bc of price.do not buy the alesis. those other are real drum pads. the alesis is total garbage. returned.

I bought this to replace my Samplepad Pro (8 Pad) which was giving me serious issues with crackling, and eventually went into a full boot error. This little guy does the trick considering I only used 4 pads on the Pro.Easy to load from an SD card, and this one allows layering between on-board sounds and card-loaded samples, which the Samplepad Pro does not. Would highly recommend for anyone looking to add some pads to their acoustic kit.

I really like this 4-pad percussion instrument. The sounds are great and the device navigation is straightforward. The two issues I have with the unit: 1) The thing shuts itself off after 1/2 hour of no activity. This is not good during a gig where you don't use it on every song and it turns off right before you need it again. 2) It has a lot of built-in drum samples, but are fairly light on the percussion samples. Therefore, because I bought it mostly for percussion sounds, I had to go to other sample web sites and import and convert other's samples to get what I wanted.