BOSS
Mar 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By Kent Carmical
Ah, 505. That number brings back memories. My first piece of electronic gear was a Roland TR-505 Rhythm Composer, and, boy, did I feel ready to break out the beats. I labored for hours learning its intricacies and was rewarded with about half a set's worth of thump. Its limitations were many: small memory, no backup (well, I think you could back it up to cassette), wimpy sounds and no sampling. I had a severe case of jealousy toward those who owned Akai MPCs.
Now, many years later, Roland's Boss division has introduced the Boss SP-505 Groove Sampling Workstation, a full-featured phrase-sample workstation small enough to fit in your backpack — at a price that won't cut into your bling.
SO, WHAT DO YA GET?
For a box this size and price, you get quite a bit. Eight voices of polyphony, a pattern-based sequencer with four tracks, and 4 MB of internal memory (good for just under two minutes of mono sampling at 44.1 kHz), expandable to 128 MB (more than an hour) using SmartMedia cards. Boss doesn't stop there, though. The SP-505 includes 26 effects for audio mutation, as well as bpm-matching and resampling functions for making your own breaks.
The front panel sports an eyeful of buttons, and the 16 pads for triggering samples and inputting your sequences glow red when selected. You get three knobs for real-time control of your effects and a big Jog wheel for entering data values. Rounding out the top panel is a backlit LCD that makes big use of graphics while editing. The coolest display is of a graphic waveform for editing your samples — a first for a box this size.
While I wouldn't say that the back of the SP is bristling with connections, you get all that you need, plus a few cool extras. You get the power switch and connection (no wall wart for this big dog; Boss kicks down a more convenient and less noisy lump-in-the-line power supply), footswitch jack, MIDI In and Out, optical and coaxial digital ins (no digital outs) and a headphone jack. Analog line input and output are handled by RCA connections, furthering the “is it a DJ or a pro-audio product” schizophrenia that many units have these days, but the mic input is ¼-inch. Boss must believe the SP-505 to be so cool that people are gonna be ripping them off left and right, because it has included a slot on the back for locking the box to a desk. This security paranoia carries over to the front panel, where a cover bolts over the SmartMedia slot to keep sticky fingers away from your data.
SIMPLE SAMPLE
The best feature of the SP-505 is its ease of use. Hook up the connection of your choice, select one of the 16 pads in one of the 16 user banks (for a total of 256 samples), pick your sampling quality (lower quality extends your sampling time), adjust your input level, press the Sample button to begin sampling and again to stop — no problem. Samples can be one-shots like a drum hit or a note, or phrases that can be looped. Phrases can be bpm-matched and synched. The graphic editing display is more than convenient for editing your samples. Because the phrases have to be accurately trimmed to bpm sync, it is really nice to have a built-in waveform editor — no need for a computer-based editor to get things right. Once your phrases are edited and tempos assigned, they can be tempo-adjusted (within, say, ±1 times the original bpm) to match each other without affecting the pitch. However, extreme tempo shifts can introduce a grainy quality to most samples.
The Chop mode is really sweet. It chops up a phrase into individual hits based on loudness and spreads them over the 16 trigger pads. This feature is a lot like Propellerhead's ReCycle software, allowing you to trigger the hits in the order of your choosing; you can create original breaks by recording a sequence and rearranging the hits. I had a blast doing this to sound-bite recordings. The Chop function cut them up into words and phrases, and I triggered them to say silly stuff — instant Fat Boy Slim. Both functions take up additional bank memories, reducing the number of pad banks available for recording additional samples.
The Resample function can really make your breaks come alive. Resampling does just what it says: It allows you to take a number of phrases and resample them into one. The operation is real-time, and I was able to add effects and even tweak their parameters during the resample operation for some truly one-of-a-kind, freaky sounds. Tweaking the filter cutoff in time with the beat was especially compelling. Also, nearly every major function on the SP-505 has its own dedicated button, so you don't have to waste valuable creativity plowing through menus just to find the feature you want.
SIMPLE SEQUENCER, EXCELLENT EFFECTS
Continuing on the ease-of-operation theme, hits from sample-bank pads can be recorded into 60 sequencer patterns — there are 100 total, but the first 40 are used for presets. The presets are of the modern dance variety, so you won't have to suffer through country or rumba patterns. You can string the patterns together in up to 20 full songs if you don't run out of memory first. The sequencer supports two types of recording, real-time and microscope. In real-time, you put the sequencer in record and fire off your patterns along with a metronome as a live performance. If you have a lousy sense of timing, don't worry; a quantize feature makes sure your hits land on the beat. Microscope, otherwise known as step recording, lets you input your pads one step at a time, quantized to a selected note value. Microscope displays your sequence as an event list, giving greater control of the recording and editing process. The sequencer controls are straightforward — stop, play, record, forward, rewind and reset. Anyone who has used a cassette recorder should have no trouble understanding its operation.
When it comes to effects, Boss has you covered. The 26 effects can be applied while you sample as well as during resampling. This is good, because the one major drawback to the SP-505 is that only one sample at a time can be used during playback. The effect types cover all the bases: You can delay, chop, distort, decimate, reverb, echo, add vinyl noise, pitch shift, remove frequencies and a whole lot more. All in all, it's a complete set of effects. The effects sound just fine, including the reverb. The operation of each effect is kept simple by having only three parameters available to adjust. This may seem limiting, but it's not. The key for wicked effects usage is to keep applying effects and resampling. Before you know it, your sounds will be so overproduced, you'll be wishing you had fewer effects.
THAT'S THE SKINNY
The Boss SP-505 is a real bargain when you consider the features alone, but the real value lies in its ease of use, which allows you to quickly throw together some high-class jams. While other boxes leave your fingers bleeding from head scratching and manual searching, the only pain the SP-505 is going to cause your digits is from whacking its pads too much — it's that fun to use.
Product Summary
BOSS
SP-505
$595
Pros: Sampler and sequencer in one box. Easy to use. Sample wave editor. Expandable memory. Excellent effects and real-time control. Digital inputs.
Cons: Sample pads not velocity-sensitive.
Overall Rating (1 through 5): 4
Contact: tel. (323) 890-3700
e-mail info@rolandus.com • Web www.rolandus.com
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