That's on my list of things to get soon! I sold my TD-6 several years ago and currently have a very very compact Ludwig Breakbeats set in my studio. It's supplemented by a Roland Handsonic (I use this for sketching things and recording percussion things quick), but I have utility for the SPD for hybrid drumming when I'm using sticks.
Very curious about your impressions once you get it!
Meanwhile, a few objects have found their way into my studio .. including a Mesa Mark VII head .. which should round out all my recording needs with very little overlap with the other amps (a Dr Z Maz 18 NR MkII head, a '69 Bassman 50 silverface (AB165) head, and a Rivera Quiana).
Been watching a looooot of videos tonight. I think the new SPD SX pro has a bit of the apple-like "Roland tax". It's good, it's better, it's still a little over priced. So depending on what you need, and if money is an issue, you might want to pick up the non-pro version, or even snag a used one as I would guess there would be an increase of them on the market.
Sounds like it's everything the old one was and then some with an exception about how using a loop works and then changing it's temp after the fact. I'm still not sure what the difference is there and there's some hope they'll patch it in, but I guess right now the new one doesn't do it. I guess it's polarizing as a lot of people never used the feature but some can't live without it.
Major improvements include more trigger inputs, the re-addition of HH control pedal, RGB LEDs (these are not a vanity thing when you're constantly changing what your pads do and the colors give you an indication of that), mostly better and faster UI including color screen, and apparently
really really good software that lets you manage it
live from your PC. It also has some great technical pad grouping and triggering options such as linking more pads together, sequencing pads, forcing a loop or sample to start on a specified beat even if you trigger a little early (or late? Not sure), and that sort of stuff.
A couple caveats - the HH control is
just open/closed binary. No half open options. That's better than a kick in the pants, but c'mon Roland it's 2023. You can do better. Also, the integrated sounds have been criticized as being the same old stale sounds Roland has been using since 20 years ago, which I wouldn't call garbage but not very "real" sounding. Now, you can load whatever you want into it, but if you're looking to just plug and play looking for a more acoustic sound out of the box, beware.
The Alesis competitor (strike multipad I think) seems to have a better tone bank out of the box by some opinions. It also has one feature Roland doesn't - live lopping. That's another thing I hope they patch in, but apparently Roland doesn't really let you do live looping stuff. That said there is a huge drawback with the Alesis as it takes multiple seconds of silence to switch between kits and any long sustained sound will die in the process. The roland you can switch fast enough to do it in the middle of a song and any sustained note plays to the end when you switch. That's not a new feature though.
I still haven't touched any of them myself, but if you're looking at any I hope that helps. If you really want better organic drum sounds out of the box or want to do live loops Alesis might be a better option, but even with the live loops my natural next step would be to take that and feed it into the next kit and Alesis chokes when you swap kits so.... But if you're willing to load your own samples, can live with the "meh" stock sounds, want want to load your own samples, or are just using as a midi rig, or using it for more studio work, or if you're a non-drummer using it to supplement your main instruments - the latest Roland really has a lot more power and features. If you can drop the money. Which... I'm probably doing because black friday cuts like $300 off.
www.roland.com
