I’m not the target audience for most of these modern portable samplers. That’s what’s making us older heads a little frustrated and bitter with each new product release.
When my dream sampler is finally created and released I’ll be really old
and probably die of shock.
“The perfect sampler doesn’t exist”
Will not happen. Perfect sampler is already here. It’s called your DAW.
P6 just landed here.
First impressions:
It sounds good. The timing feels solid as Roland stuff usually does. Build seems fine, although I always wish the Rolca keyboard buttons had less wiggle. Reverb is serviceable, nothing special, and the delay is usable.
Finding my way around without looking at the manual has been workable so far, after watching various Youtubes, and having owned the S-1 which has a similar architecture. If you can shift-menu into a certain part of the engine (like the effects), then you can figure out pretty quick what the 4 knobs on the right do (e.g., Delay time/Delay level/Reverb time/Reverb level), and avoid menu-diving with the display and ENTER button. But obviously there are some weird button combinations to go deeper, unmarked on the panel.
To use this as a creative tool, it seems almost mandatory to backup and then delete most of the factory samples—there are no empty sample slots when the P-6 comes from the factory, and a lot of what’s there is demo stuff, melodic loops that sound good in the factory patterns. Creating a blank slate seems important because 48 total sample slots get eaten up fast. As always, ymmv…
Same ones as S-1 (and TR-6S?)?
I had an 8-bit sampling cartridge on my Amiga running Protracker and Octamed.
Think it was around 300Kb for samples. 16 samples per song.
What’s making ME frustrated, is that tech has moved on massively… we have frickin AI now for fucks sake!
And yet… many hardware samplers are released with the same old stupid limitations.
I’m starting to suspect that companies WANT us to be left frustrated after the honeymoon period, so we abandon it and are ready to buy the next new, shiny but limited thing.
It’s almost like they want our money or something, the greedy bastards! 
I think a lot of people are missing the point with this release. This is basically a modern take on the much-loved, lofi samplers from back in the day (Casio SK-1, Yamaha VSS30, SP303, Zoom SampleTrak, etc), which, in my mind, is a great direction to go if you are going to design something for a fun budget sampler line, since the vintage versions of these instruments are probably mostly on their last legs by now and the prices are too high to justify for potentially having it crap out on you in a few days/weeks/months. Plus, this updates them with new and modern features (even stuff inspired by the Elektron workflow), meaning people can take them in directions never before possible. Serious props to the Roland designers for taking inspiration from these kinds of quirky instruments (especially the VSS30, which blended synthesis with sampling, and I’m not aware of anything on the market that does what it does), and making them available to the mass market. It’s the same thing as if someone released a cheap modern tape Portastudio. It would not be meant to replace a DAW. (“What?! 60 minutes of recording time and four tracks in 2024?!”)
So, why can’t we have these new and modern features, with new and modern amounts of storage, card slots etc?
Agreed, it wouldn’t.
And yet, you’d still expect and hope for some sanity saving upgrades utilizing the power of modern tech. Why not combine the best of old with the best of new?
Does it have to be either or?
yall really want to scroll through folders of samples on a seven segment screen?
Not portable though! Or battery powered!
I don’t even care if a device is perfect (nothing is really).
Just that it isn’t unnecessarily crippled for no good reason.
A lot of companies do get it and are putting card slots in, streaming from card, Deluge does it, and others.
When someone releases a portable sampler that ticks those boxes they will sell a shitload.
I’m no connoisseur of cheap digital fx, but comparing to the S-1 the general color of the fx sounds similar, and most of the mysterious delay/reverb trait abbreviations in the display match between the two units too.
I didn’t do a deep dive comparison of different types and settings, but P-6 and S-1 verb and DL seem comparable at first listen.
Hopefully not (although I do it on my Deluge no problem, I split my entire library into folders of 50 and prefixed everything with 2 digit numbers, works fine, especially as the Deluge plays/auditions them instantly as you scroll the main encoder).
But no, that’s why I mentioned at least a small readable screen in my short list of sampler requirements.
Doesn’t have to be massive or fancy.
Just not stolen from the Delorean in 1986 or whatever!
the number system you use with the deluge sounds similar to the general file management of the ep133 which works really well for me, and maybe im underestimating myself but once we get over 1000 samples to manage that just sounds challenging and unnecessary. basically every hiphop song ever has like five sounds
i am also acknowledging i am in the camp of “delete it all with reckless abandon” with my samples and projects so maybe im the crazy one
My old Zoom Sampletrak lets you save all the samples you recorded, the pads you’ve set up, and the patterns you’ve recorded as a little file on a smart media card. Right now, I’ve got 13 or so on mine. Whenever I start running out of space, I can dump all of that stuff on to a folder on my computer, clear the card out, and start over. If I want to come back to my old files, I can just drag them back to my smart media card and load them up. The Sampletrak has basically the same display as the P6.
I don’t even care about importing individual samples. I just want to be able to put ideas down, save them for later, and then clear the machine out.
I want one of these for my screen-less set-up.
P-6, Ep-133, sp-404 og
compact sampler renaissance. we in here!
for $200?!!? i copping this lil bugger
Bought one today and all I can say is I wish Roland would open source the firmware on these lil boxes or at least add an LCD strip above the pots or colour coded LEDs… or something. Way too many hidden functions with zero labelling and obscure abbreviations that aren’t legible on the segmented display. KO II did the segmented display way better, and workflow. The P-6 does numerous things but they feel like a checklist and not actually implemented or executed well. Great sound, fun form factor, but i can’t see making actual tracks with this, the workflow and sample management is terrible, the limitations are artificial and crippling. If Koala or the KO II didn’t exist, or this was much cheaper than a 404, than yeah, nobody would complain. These compacts don’t seem to be getting QoL updates either.
I actually think the storage makes sense for this kind of device. If people had tons of storage space they would be less likely to use the lofi sample rates. That basically steers the user towards the device’s aesthetic. People will basically have to use the lower rates. Also, it means you won’t be installing tons of samples on it, which, as pointed out, means a high-end display isn’t needed, and will again steer the user in a certain direction.
When I took a Japanese art class back in the day, I remember the professor telling us about how the paths through the Japanese gardens are designed to be uneven and spaced in a way that basically forces the person going through it to slow down. They aren’t designed for people to power walk through them. I think the amount of space you get with this device will ensure people are using it in a certain way that fits how the developer envisioned the device. They could have opted to put the money into more space instead of other features, but they didn’t, and I think it was a choice. You may not agree with the choice, but the choices are what make the machine what it is and the constraints will push people to interact with it a certain way. For a budget device, I’d personally rather have something interesting than a jack-of-all trades that is just a watered down version of some more expensive device.
Again, it’s a device that pays homage to old school samplers with killer features (robust sequencer, effects, synthesis), and modern upgrades like class compliant USB and rechargeable battery. It’s not like they stuck to what you would get in 1983 for everything. Is it perfect? No. Is it interesting? I think so.
I have 80Gb on my Dellie, everythings well labelled, nested folders have 2 letter abbreviations with 2 numbers, so:
CL01
CL02
CL03
Are folders containing 50 claps each, all inside a single folder named CLAPS.
Took a while to organize but renaming software helped, plus I listened to everything once, helped me to learn my library better.
Ha ha true! I often layer like 40 sounds just in one percussion loop for one part (not for hip hop).
I might be wrong here, but I think when you mount it as a drive and don’t use the P-6 sample tool, you can just drag and drop the folders, so it might not have to do the reboot 9 times malarky that way?