Boss SP-505 Groove Sampling Workstation

* The software version is lacking (read following)
* The presets are fairly restricted to 90's fashion
* Editing is pretty good for it's price/vintage
* The manual, as stated before, is fairly light on detail (MIDI Specs etc.)

* Polyphony is 8 voice mono, 4 voice stereo?
* Built in effects are of reasonable quality, however the reverb is more brittle and tinny than one would/wouldn't expect from Boss.
* Expansion : I used a XD to Smart media convertor, much better than dealing with "Boss Specific" Ebay experts.
* Midi is average usability. Notes are velocity sensitive over Midi, and pads are spread out over the banks, note number by number.
* Onboard sequencer is a complete letdown. From the initial reviews I read before buying the 505, I was lead to believe you could use it as a 4 track audio recorder. Nope. Duh.

* Realism? Well how realistic can a compressed 16 bit sample be?
* This machine is good for electro.
* The effects are of good to very good standard, the reverb a bit lacking.
* It is a static machine when it comes to expression, except when you use it via Midi, or you're keen with the Accent button.
* Using a keyboard controller (my ESQ-1), this toy comes a little more alive.

* I would rely on this thing coz it hasn't ****ed out yet. I've had it for 5 years, and I bought it WELL used.
* I've used it to play backing tracks at gigs, coz you can stop and start the tracks instantaneously, unlike Minidisc/Boss BR stuff.

* If anyone bags out Roland/Boss support again, I think I'll scream. (voice box ...now ...broken). yeah it's true, Roland support in Australia, It's been pretty good.

* I have a Roland MS-1. It's far more fun and portable to sample electric trains and baby gurgles, than the SP-505. The 505 is more a halfway house, kinda like a glorified Drum sampler without the panning features, and audio recorder goodness.

* I wish this thing had more detailed panning possiblities, a quicker processor, and a better memory for what you've been previously accessing ie : Doesn't it know that I've just imported a certain wav file and then progress to the next file? etc.

* It can be fun, but i'd rather stick with my ancient ASR-10.

* I wouldn't replace it with another, not even a 606. Too much flaws and boring procedures that get in the way. When you're stuck to wall wart, I'd rather turn on the old PC to get an infinitely better job done, otherwise the MS-1 is the toy for the fieldwork.

So far it seems that everyone has submitted a positive review for the SP-505. I'm here to point out some of the design shortcomings.

The presets are mostly cool. The major oversight is that there is no capacity to alter their individual volumes. To use them effectively in a routine you have to copy and paste them to other panels. Unfortunately you can not move the preset sound banks. They are stuck on 1-4, and cannot be replaced. The 505 system makes it easy to access only the first 16 sound banks, so having four of them out of the picture straight away is a bit of a drag. As a serious user would fill up all 32 banks, scrolling from 1-32 with the cog gets old fast.

The 8 sound polyphony is a bit of a problem, but maybe your song isn't meant to be that complicated anyway. I won't talk about this. The sequencer has some advantages, but I would have to say it is inferior to most other drum machines I have tried. Recording rhythyms is not as easy as you would expect - I find the machine isn't sensitive enough to catch the nuances I want to put down. Thankfully there is the option of forced time - ie every crotchet/quaver/semi-quaver. It is possible to do any combination once you master using this variable. I find it good for making two step. Deleting dysfunctional beats is not easy however - as you have to play the whole thing again whilst holding down the delete key and the pad you were using. It can be a real headache doing what on an ES1 interface or 909 etc would take seconds. I find it easier just to erase the whole pattern and start again.

The other major shortcoming of the sequencer is that you can't put patterns on top of other patterns. That means if you want to record a song you need to make potentially dozens of different patterns. And there is only space for 100 patterns on the card. If you want to have multiple "songs" recorded on the 505 you need to utilize the "backup" slots on the smart media card, of which you have 10. This is not as hard as it sounds, although it can get a little messy as there is no way of recording which slot has which songs on it.

I guess I take my machine to the limits. The memory card is full and there's nothing left on it which I feel is optional. Unfortunately the price of these (discontinued) cards is now astronmical. I am just about to try getting a smart media USB reader in order to make this a bit more versatile. If anyone has any stories or advice about using one I would like to hear about it.

The effects are one of my favourite elements of the sp505. The tape echo, pitch shifter, delay and flanger are all solid and you have three variables for each effect. Unfortunately I found the potentiometers denegrated to the point where they were useless. I recently replaced them with 9mm 50K linear pots from Jaycar. Took a lot of fidling but now it works well again.

I have used this at a lot of hip-hop /grime shows and it is still going strong. Usually I have a backup cd in case it goes at the wrong moment.

Can't commment on this section.

I got this because I wanted an older sound and I didn't mind the limitations. I was just getting into the scene back then. Now I use it with a Korg ES1 and together they make a good team and you can do a lot of live jamming. If I lost this now I would get one of those little Akais that run off a battery. They look sweet.

i got this when it first came out and havent done any "upgrading" so im using whatever software that is. the presets arent the worst, but i never use em. this thing is real easy to use. within minutes after opening it, i was choppin up drum loops and sequencing my own patterns. the waveform display makes trimming samples as simple as can be. if you have ever used a boss or roland drum machine, youll get the hang of this thing real quick.

the polyphony is 8 notes at max which kinda sucks especially if you are going to make some complex drum patterns and expect to trigger some other samples as well (though i do find some ways to do what i want). it has 26 built in effects which is more then enough. ive expanded this to 128mb which gives you so damn much sample time and backup space. i just got a computer with a smart media card reader which helps even more. i havent used the MIDI functions yet so i cant comment on them. the keys arent pressure senstive which is fine by me, though might bother some. i dig the 4 part sequencer since it is so similar to the drum machines im used to. my favorite part of this thing though is the chop function. dont even have to go to your comp to disect a loop. when this came out the only 2 samplers i remember having this function was the yamaha rs-7000 and this. there might have been others but i didnt hear about em. now alot of samplers out there have this function, but a few years ago, it was impressive.

well, just as almost every reviewer has said, its a sampler so its only as good as what you put in it. but the effects can help out what ever you choose to put in it. ive read some reviews bashin the effects. i personally think they can be very useful. i dont want or need "studio quality" effects. i only use them to enhance a sound from time to time or see how much i can mangle a particular sample. unfortunatly you can only use one effect at a time, but with resampling you can keep adding effects to your hearts content. the resampling records the knob movements as opposed to the seqencer. ive only used the highest sampling quality (since i expanded to 128mb) and it sounds crystal clear to my ears.

since its plastic, you wouldnt want to kick it around or anything. seems pretty sturdy regardless, though. mine does lay on the floor right next to my computer and im sure i had a few things drop on it and hasnt gotten a scratch on it yet.

like i said in all my other roland/boss reviews, ive dealt with them once and they were nice and helpful to me. i know there are some horror stories about them though. i guess i got them on a good day

id definatly buy it again if it was lost or stolen. this is my main sampler and i love it. i know some people concider it a toy, but i guess its a matter of opinion. i admit, it looks like a toy as does most of the boss/roland groove products. but if you get past the apperance it can be a powerful tool. i also own a roland alpha juno 1, roland m-dc1, roland r-70, boss dr-660, boss dr-550 mkII, roland mc-303, boss sp-202 and a roland mc-50. ever since i got this my drum machines have been collecting dust, since i can make my own drum kits in this using the chop function. ive never been one for the studio samplers for some reason. i dont like the idea of having to hook up a keyboard to a sampler then to a sequencer in order to be creative. this box makes it easier cuz i can just lay in bed and come up with something whenever creativity strikes me. the main reason i went for this over all the samplers released when this came out was due to the fact that this had everything i wanted in a sampler and also was alot cheaper then the other samplers having these functions. concidering the prices these things are going for now, ive been thinking about getting another. i do wish you could sample your sequences though. but i guess you cant get everything you want unless you make it yourself.

Pretty easy. Pads light, which helps in dark stages. The layout is fairly clear and you can navigate without hassle. Pattern play is very easy too.

Polyphony is just OK. Effects are easy to use, real time control with the 3 knobs is great, but effect selection is a bitch - it takes two or three actions. In certain situations (don't recall, but if you hit the wrong button or access certain menus) the machine stops playing.

BUT (and this is a big one) you CANNOT SAMPLE AND PLAY AT THE SAME TIME: WHICH MAKES IT USELESS IF YOU WANT TO USE IT FOR TRYING OUT ARRANGEMENTS AND SAMPLE THINGS DIFFERENT THAN DRUMS. That is, you cannot record four bars of piano and try some strings on top, because when you record strings you cannot hear the piano you just sampled. Which limits things to 'hits' and that sort of stupid stuff. With drum sounds it is not such a big problem because you have the timestretch and sync capabilities. The Zoom St-224 does this without any problem. For the price, this shortcoming is unacceptable.

Smartmedia is good, no apparent lag. The screen is a plus compared to the Zoom. The track structure (4 tracks, but polyphony limited to 8 pads globally) is weird. The waveform display (another feature I was attracted to initially, as opposed to the 'by ear' trimming method in the zoom) is OK but it is tedious to scroll up and down.

It's a sampler. No velocity on the pads. Effects are pretty good, but the one on the ST-224 are good too. Some effects are useless. You can only use one effect at a time. There are preset banks (pointless, dull) that cannot be erased, which is stupid too.

It is clearly just for drums, and pretty techno-oriented. I agree with the reviewer that says it is just a 'customizable' drum machine. It is pretty much a sohpisticated toy for beginners who want to do some techno stuff quickly.

Seems pretty solid, but I don't know. Some operations take too long and it looks like it's gonna freeze. I sold mine so I cannot comment.

Way too expensive for the features. The Zoom is better overall, albeit with less sound quality (highest sampling quality is 22.5 or 32, I think) - but it is overall a more efficient machine if you want to compose with audio. I bought it hoping to replace the Zoom and benefit from the extended memory (the Zoom is limited to 4-16 Mb of smartmedia, instead the boss takes 128 Mb) but I cannot believe it is so limited in other ways. So I sold it. If you want to sample your own drum kits and program patterns, it can be useful, although modern drum machines have a lot of instruments and are easier to program, for a fraction of the price. Check well before you buy (now Roland has all user manuals online), maybe now these machines will be cheaper because they have released the SP-606.

It is strange but apparently an audio sequencer on a table top format does not exist - the Zoom does it but has memory limitations and polyphony is also 8 pads. Maybe the Yamaha RS-700 could be good, but i found the RMX-1 already too difficult to use so I wouldn't even dare to try the RS-700. The RC-20 pedal from boss can layer audio tracks but collapses all layers into a single audio track after each pass so you cannot treat separate tracks in different ways. I think that the only machine that did what I wanted was the Electrix Repeater, but they don't make it anymore. Shame, because such a tool would be great for composers using instruments (acoustic guitarists, for instance). Otherwise you are limited to compose using MIDI tracks on a standard sequencer, or use a digital recorder and rewind after each pass, etc. (i.e. slower than on a loop based sequencer), or use a computer. I think the ROland Fantom workstations can do similar things now that they have expanded their audio capabilities, but I am not sure.

Boss does a great job laying out all the functions and buttons which makes this thing pretty easy to use. The only reason i gave it a 9 is because i still needed to use the manual to figure some stuff out, but that has to be expected on something as complex as a sampler.

The 505 smokes anything in its price range in this catagory! Great sound effects (ring modulator to vynle simulator). What i love about it is that it has 2 chop banks (will chop your samples and put each sound on its own pad) and 2 pitch banks (with change the pitch of your sample and map it on the pads in keyboard form), what i hate about it is it only has 2 chop banks and 2 pitch banks. But, it does have a "clip board" function which allows you to copy your samples and paste them into other banks which is really handy if your looking for that one snare sound or voice over and its on another bank you can just copy it to the bank you using. The only thing this box is really missing and which is why the sp 606 is a great follow up, is its USB or Firewire compatibilitie. Using smart cards really become a pain in the neck.

I like how you can change the quantise setting of each pad while your recording!!!

Havent had any problems with it.

If your looking for a sampler and you dont want to pay alot then i would deffinatly go with the BOSS sp 505! I also had a Korg ES-1 and there is no comparison. Everything about the BOSS is to be desired by the KORG. Now that the sp 606 is out you can probably get a 505 for real cheap. i got mine used from guitar center for $225. !! 9-20-2004

Don't know but I bought it when it first came out and I haven't upgraded or seen any reason to. The presets aren't anything special, but they aren't bad at all (The drum sounds are useable). As far as anything in this price range goes, with the simple visual editor the 505 makes trimming and setting loop points really simple. When you make editing changes things get a little slow, but hasn't bothered me too much. Got the Japanese manual that is clear and understandable (if you read Japanese). Resampling, copy/paste, sequencing is all a breeze and rather pleasant with the SP-505.

Smartmedia is cool. There seems to be no lag at all during sample performance or switching banks (even with long samples). With and 128 MB card there is a really good amount of sampling time. The effects are great, but you can only use one at a time. You can effect external sounds (using the 505 like a effects unit or effecting your input when sampling) which is nice. Polyphony 8 mono--you can have a decent amount going on in there. Sequencer is good--simple but good--microscope is a little tedius but if you're up for it, powerful. Has quantizing, too. Limited MIDI implementation, but I use it with a hardware sequencer and havent't had trouble triggering samples and loops.

I had an ensoniq mirage before, so the sound quality (in terms of clarity) is great! The sound is really nice and clear. The effects are versatile and sound rather good. The pitch shifting isn't the best--but I wouldn't call it the worst at all. If you sample internally (as opposed to one taken from your computer), you can strecth a decent amount without a dramatic loss of sound quality.

Doesn't seem real sturdy as it is primarily plastic, but as far as the OS goes I trust it without a backup.

Were my SP-505 stolen or lost, I would buy a new one. No, it is not the best sampler in the world, but compared to everything else in its price range, it is (to me) EASILY the best choice. Its really easy to use and get banging results. Some of the other reviews seem to hint that the 505 is a toy. Someone even says they would never play out with it because people would laugh at the 505. To each his own but no one has laughed at this 505--they are too busy dancing.

1.02 I think
Presets sound descent after effects are aplied good Kick and snare.
Editing is sometimes a bit laborous but Thats why they call it a WORKstation.
The manual will get you started quite fast

I have found the max. 4 voice stereo I little aggrivating but those are the limitations.
I am constantlly expanding this thing.(with new samples and better beats). The sequencer is cool cuz theres 4 tracks. And the quantize function is the coolest it allows you to make some really cool beats that sound nothing like what you put into it. the lack of step sequecer sucks but hey its a sampler not a sequencer. I love the digital input. Cuz I can use my playstation 2s MTV music generator 2 to get some digital tunes on to it.

Generally the presets are trash but when you apply effects they sound 10 times better. works great for my hip hip industrial and rock tunes. I like the onboard effects for some reason. the isolator is great,distortion and Lo fi processor and center canceller all work perfect for me.. It is pretty static(not changing) but I like that.

Yeah I use it all the time. I dont gig. Its a perfect first sampler since it has so many features. Its also great for experienced veterans. dont drop it. Thats my worst nightmare

Roland US. They suck. They dont even have news on their new products.
I am looking forward to the MC-09 It also has some kind of sampler.

If it was stolen I would have to buy another one since the
MPC 2000XL cost so much. When I bought it I was conciously looking for a drum machine But this thing is better.

don't know what software version. assumming its the latest as of 5-15-02. this thing is as easy as it gets to use but that's its only strong point.

its got 8 note polyphony in mono or 4 in stereo. this is alright for basic stuff. the effects it has are mediocre at best. the only thing good really, in my opion, is the tape echo. you definetly can't expand this thing. its pretty much a plastic toy. the midi capabilities are limited. the only thing you can pretty much do is send midi clock to it to track tempo or use a Program Change along with a midi note to trigger a sample in its banks. that is pretty cool that's all you need to trigger a sample. no LSB or MSB messages (god i hate those). but you can't control things like the effects paramaters through midi. big biter. but what pisses me off the most about this machine is that it says on the rolandus.com pages that it can match tempo with midi clock but what they don't tell you is that its not for the actual samples. you can't time stretch a sample automatically to match the midi clock tempo. what it does is just adjust the tempo of its "patterns". that means you can't change a samples length but you can change the tempo of the sequenced pattern that uses it. like a vocal sample won't match the length but the pattern will trigger it off when it comes around to it in the pattern. this thing is pretty much a customizable drum machine where you can use your own samples instead of cheesy midi ones. i would suggest this thing to a drummer wanting to use it with his trigger pads if he wanted his own sounds in a kit and if he didn't have the money for a pro sampler. it is better than the 202 or 303. but i still keep my 202 around for little stuff though cause it gets the job done without a bunch of usless features. plus its battery operated. don't know how many times that's saved my ass live.

this thing has cd quality sampling capabilites but i think the circuitry is of bad grade cause most samples i took came out clear but lifeless. not like the roland vp9000 variphrase. the only thing i would use this for is a cheesy breakdance band in '83 since it has no pressure sensitive expressiveness. like i said the on board effects are crap except for the echoes. the filters are real "shove you face in and out of a tin can" sounding.

this thing is a toy. its just slighty better than the other toy samplers yamaha and korg have released (well the korg electribe one would be better than this if it could sample cd quality). i'm sure it could take a hit or maybe get droped 4 feet. other than that you'd have to get daddy to glue your hot wheels back together cause your gonna out grow it a kick it around. since its a desktop unit good luck finding a case for it. unless you want to buy one that's probably more expensive than the actual sampler. you could always build one your self out of your old rainbow bright lunch box.

roland US has crap for customer support via email but its pretty good if you call them long distance to where ever they plot they're next crime against humanity. then again since its a boss product they might try to send you to a guy in japan with broken english and a stutter. roland US, on the phone, was atleast really helpfull in figuring out how to incorporate my VP9000 variphrase in my live rig.

if it where stolen i would feel sorry for the happless idiot who took it and hope the curse ends with him. i'm kinda tearing into this thing but there is no way in hell your going to get anything remotely professional sounding on this thing. save your money and get a real rack mount sampler and a seperate midi controller. its the only way unless you go software. this thing, since it is so easy to use, could be used quite well as a scratch pad but i'd never lay anything to vinyl or cd with it. i would strongly suggest the variphrase vp9000 (even though its twice as much) over this thing. its really hard to use but once you learn it you can do anything you want.

Basic soft - probably 1.00
VERY easy to use - a bit of SP808 a bit of MPC2000
Good manual

8 voies of polyphonie
26 Built in effect (3 real time parameters for each, mainly level and feedback for chorus, reverb)
Smarmedia expansion card from 8 to 128 Mb
You HAD TO got a Smartmedia with the SP to fully use it
Onboard minimal pattern "sequencer" 4 parts

Preset samples (TR808 ....)
Very good for Techno, house, electro, DnB

Roland Inc - never contact them. However own(ed), D550, JV1080, JP8000, SP808

Very nice gear for the price. When i compare with MPC2000, sp505 is easier to use. It seems that sample are "clearer" (probably boosted in high medium). I use it mainly for my groove drum loop.
It is important to buy with SP some smartmedia card. Personnaly, i use SoundForge to modifie and loop my drum loop then copy wav files to the smartmedia then to the SP. Very fast process, no quality lost

apologize for my english. Je suis francais

The sampler is laid out in a pretty straight forward way...
Some features are intuitive, although the manual is needed for many things; especially the MIDI implementation! In particualr, one would think that to trigger certain sounds from a MIDI sequencer, one would simply load the PAD BANK desired, and then trigger the appropriate pad/sound from a MIDI keyboard. But, it's not quite that easy. In order to utilize sounds from other banks, you have to send the unit a MIDI PROGRAM CHANGE message to get it to load another bank. These program changes begin with the number 33, advancing one number for each bank you want to load. This information is, however, burried deeply in the tiny Appedice on MIDI Implementation near the back of the manual! Also worth mentioning; once the unit receives the MIDI program change, you can freely load a different bank using the PAD BANK button, and the bank that was loaded with the program change will continue to be used for notes coming from a sequencer. However, if this is done, the drum pads no longer LIGHT UP when the sound is played (unless you also manually load the pad bank you are using for your MIDI sequencer).
It's not a big deal once you figure it out, but it could have been made MUCH simpler.

Another small error or problem I've noticed is when dealing with setting loop points. It's easy to do, but it's mentioned in the manual that you can hear the audio BEFORE and/or AFTER the START and END points by holding down the PAD [for the sound you're editing], and then hitting the START or END
buttons (function 1 and 2 respectively). But in my experimenting, I've not been able to get this feature to work. Either I'm doing something wrong, or it requires an OS upgrade, or the information in the manual is simply wrong!?

Decent preset sounds, but nothing you couldn't find elsewhere. They can't be deleted, which is no big deal to me since I have plenty of room on the 128MB SmartMedia card I also bought. The effects are interesting, but since there's only one available at a time, resampling the sounds WITH effects is the only way to get more. Resampling is simple, and the quality doesn't suffer. I can't comment on the pattern or song sequencer, as I haven't tried them yet. The pads are NOT velocity sensitive, but you can add a variable "accent" to any particular sound/pad. The samples DO respond to velocity when triggered by an external sequncer. Polyphony is only 8 notes, but so far this hasn't been too limiting for me, as I'm mainly using the 505 for a few drum loops and individual drum hits to augment my drum machines.

You get out what you put in basically, since it's a sampler, right?

Reliability seems good so far, although it doesn't feel particularly sturdy. No crashes yet, but it can be slow at "processing" data; new samples, chopping, picthing, or beat matching.

n/a

It's not going to replace a general purpose sampler, but if you want an easy way to work with drum loops, phrases or individual drum samples, it's worth it. The BPM matching works, although some of the sounds have strange noises and aliasing added to them when BPM is changed in the extreme. Most things on the SP-505 are pretty easy to do, requiring a minimum of steps, such as assigning samples to pads, copying samples to and from pad banks, assigining effects to individual pads, etc. The MIDI implementaion is awkward at best, but useable once you figure it out. I don't think they designed it for people who want to use it with an external sequencer! It's a nice addition to my setup, in particular, my aging EPS, which I will no longer have to use for drum loops. I got it for a decent price new, and if it was lost or stolen, I think I'd pick up another one, as I don't think there is anything else quite like it in this price range.