Can’t afford that set of roto-toms? Really want to add on that cowbell but don’t really feel like buying another stand? Fake it. Rolands SPD-S is an affordable way to get those extra little nuances into your repertoire.

The SPD-S is the sampler in Rolands SPD line. It’s basically the geeky cousin to the SPD-20 and SPD-11. It allows the user to add any sound he/she can imagine and trigger it live.

I’ve had one of these for a couple years now and I love it. Want to end that drum fill with a “meow” but can’t keep your neighbors cat on the snare stand? Now you can! The SPDS allows you to import any sound you can imagine to augment your kit with. It has a wide variety of options including onboard effects, a CompactFlash Card slot and a MIDI interface.

It isn’t perfect though. While it’s perfectly capable to record directly into the unit, I’ve noticed it lacking in sound quality. I recommend taking full advantage of the compact flash and directly import sounds from a PC or some other capable source.

All in all for under $500 it isn’t a bad deal. While it does what it’s supposed to very well, it lacks in other more subtle qualities that audiophiles would find appalling. However being that it is best utilized in a live setting rather than a studio it serves its purpose extraordinarily well.

According to Harmony-Central.com, a new high-def version of the electronic drum pad, the Mandala is going to be released. Inventor Vince De Franco who founded synesthesia corp. worked on the creation of this drum, with Tool drummer Danny Carey for 5 years, to replace his old Simmons SDX electronic drums. I posted about Isis drummer Aaron Harris a few days ago, he is also a Mandala user as well.

“A new kind of synthesizer, the Mandala 2.0 packages a musical range so wide it simultaneously offers players the top of the line, most accurate model of a physical drum (via 3,000 professionally created, proprietary samples of the Black Beauty Snare Drum) — along with a library of sounds derived from more than 100 other instruments.

It plugs into a PC or Mac with just a USB cable, and its easy-to-use software comes with more than 100 presets for out-of-the-box functionality. Players also can create their own configurations as they explore and discover its astonishing audio range.”

Source.