What worries me is that the pro’s stick to the ‘trusty’ Rolands. Alesis might just have given the strike pad too many Tricks and lights, for most use cases not needed and prone to software nightmares Issues, long loading times,… .
I hope I am wrong though, and we have a clear winner after you report back 
There was a guy who proved the load time myth wrong on YouTube. He did apples for apples with the same sample on his SX and Multipad. The SX was a fraction of a second faster.
What causes the multipad long times were kits with double the amount of samples.
The only thing the SX has over it is the set list feature where you can chain your 5 best kits and scroll between them.
The SX came out in 2012 so the software matured.
The multipad went from 1.0 to 1.1 in August for a product that came out in December 2018. Like I said I will take one for the team and roll with the punches for now.
I will keep a free spot for a pad whilst moving, arranging a space,… and changing up my gear the coming months. Good to hear they keep working on it and interact openly! Looks it’s moving forward nicely.
Have you been able to test the Alesis?
Forget about it!
The pads. I actually got to play with an SPD-SX and the Multipad side by side this weekend while i was shopping for new drum sticks. I got some nice black Vic Firth with plastic tips by the way. One is not better than the other. The multipad does have a little extra cushion and rubber protected areas to protect the body from mis-strikes. Both pads are tour ready and are fun to play. Compared to my Nord Pad drum pads this is an upgrade. Also note that rubber pads are loud regardless what drum pads you get. They are loud but quieter than a real drum set.
You only get 30 presets with the multipad and they are ok. I think the sets with a lot of percussion elements are the most fun to play. This is a sample pad so the goal is to get you to sample/import your own drum hits. If you want a lot of presets get the octopad or mtx multi 12.
For an Ableton controller this thing shines. You can use it as a sound interface and control the first 9 pads with the controller. Imagine linking this controller with a push as a clip launcher and you’ve got yourself a good setup. The velocity response of some of the live presets that use the Operator synth can be played with this controller. I am working on linking upa push 2 and Octatrack with this controller. Adding a kick pedal and other triggers will easily expand the amount of triggered sounds to more than 9.
Velocity on these pads are good. So good that I have been playing a lot of my Abbey Road drum sets from NI. You can play subtle or go animal with this controller. The Abbey Road drum collection and Groove Agent 5 : “The kit” really sound good with this controller. Groove Agent 5 The Kit has a lot of detail and really makes you appreciate the recording detail in the kits for Groove Agent 5. Santa please get me BFD 3 for Christmas!
Yes you can play with your fingers on the first 6 pads. The upper three are hard to trigger without a stick regardless if you turn sensitivity all the way up.
Overall having my Kontakt Abbey Road libraries with Groove Agent “The Kit” has me covered for studio drums and percussion. The default pad assignment with drum racks is good too. Doubling as a sound interface make this a great sell for all in one electronic drummer solution. Let me know if you have anymore questions.
Honeymoon still on, or already over? 
Do you use it standalone too?
Putting custom samples on the pads can be done fast?
Honeymoon is still on.
I will admit I haven’t been using standalone mode as much. I will be using standalone more often and dropping some of my Maschine sounds in it. I will look into it this weekend.
I did play with the onboard effects with default kits. The built in compressor get make your hits sound punchy.
Most of my time has been spent in Live 10 drum racks. The kits map out so perfect.
My only bias for this multipad is I came from nord pads and played the pads with nord drum 2 a lot for the past two years. I wanted something better in terms of sensitivity and feel of playing. This percussion pad feels really good.
1.2 Just came out. I’m going to have a sleepless night. Setlists is their answer to the Roland SPD-SX setlists and hopefully kit Navigation will have some speed improvements. Yes @TobySD I still use mine at least three times a week. If I had more time I would play it everyday.
• Setlists You can now save and arrange custom Setlists of any Preset or User Kits. Setlists can be edited from the Kit Menu by pressing F6-Setlist. See the full Strike MultiPad User Guide for more information.
• Improved Kit Navigation and Loading Times You can now use the Main Encoder to browse kits without loading them in the Perform and Kit menus. While the kit name is flashing, press the Main Encoder to load the kit.
2
• Hi-Hat Playback Mode Assign open and closed sounds to a single pad for quick and easy hi-hat pedal setup.
• Footswitch Playback Mode Switch between Wave A and Wave B of a pad with the click of a footswitch.
• Quick Wave Copy In the Sound menu, press and hold the F1-Wave button to copy a sound from one wave to the other.
Thanks for the continuous feedback!
Am reading the manual at the moment.
One thing is not clear for me and I cannot find any info on it.
Can the strike multipad be MIDI master clock? Detect my bpm by playing a few bars and sync up a slaved synth? Might be very noob but I have no idea, never used a multipad before.
I know what happens when I start reading the manual back to back …
No it can’t be a midi master…YET!
It can only be a midi space at the moment. The loop sequencer on this is more basic than an Mpc but it’s a good sketch pad for beats though.
Hi, its an old topic but have a question.
i got a Strike multipad , and i try to control the HiHat with alesis realhat 2 pedal controller to close and open hihat of VSTi groove agent 5, BFD3, Kontakt drummers etc, with no success ,
on the strike internal sound it works. use one pad to play close/open hihat and also the hihat down pedal sound with the realhat 2 controller .
for example in groove agent i can assign one pad to F#1 and the realhat pedal controller to G#1 for foothat ,but it wont open the hat with the same pad.
any idea on how make the Hihat controller on groove agent 5 close hh/open hh and even in between cuz its a variable controller ? (if possible at all )
I think you’ll reach more people with the experience to answer your question at this vdrums forum.
howdy, y’all
anybody had any issues with a bricked strike multipad?
my buddy just tried to upgrade his to 1.3 and it bricked. he’s stumped so i’m reaching out