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.

A lot of rock drummers probably aren’t that familiar with Omar Hakim. Being a drummer and a drumming fan, I knew his name but I really hadn’t really been exposed to his work.

Recently, I took the opportunity to sit down and listen to a sampling of recording’s he’s played on. This guy is a monster talent and can’t really be pinned down to one genre. His work with Weather Report was nothing short of amazing. Although his playing in Weather Report relied heavily on jazz techniques he managed to attract the attention of Sting and Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler as fans, which would lead to future work with both.

His playing on David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” also stands out as being incredibly solid and continued to expose him to numerous other artists. In the 80’s when drum machines and drum programming just started to come into fashion, instead of feeling defeated Hakim went out and learned how to program drum machines and electronics, becoming extremely proficient. He was also one of the first drummers to heavily incorporate an electronic drum set roland built for him, and continues to do endorse Roland electronic drums to this day.

Omar Hakim’s page at Drummerworld.com also has a great qoute from the man himself…

“Sometimes, if people know you from rock, they think of you as a rock drummer and don’t expect you to play anything else. Or, if they know you in jazz, then they typecast you as a jazz drummer,” explains Hakim. “I was conscious of the fact that I didn’t want people to know me as a rock drummer or a jazz drummer, but as a total musician. So I always made sure I let people know that I was about music.”

Source.