A world of percussion at your fingertips
I am a big fan of the Roland HandSonic HPD-15. This compact electronic instrument was designed with hand percussionists in mind. The unit includes a pressure-sensitive pad divided into 15 zones along with two ribbon controllers and a D Beam. There are over 500 sounds on the HandSonic including acoustic percussion samples from around the world along with vintage drum machine sounds and orchestral instruments. Those sounds are modifiable…imagine a great sounding woodblock that would be better if it could be a half step lower in pitch. With the Handsonic, it takes about 15 seconds for that adjustment!
There are several pre-set drum set patches on the Handsonic (or you can build and save your custom “user” patches). The Trigger Input Jack and HH Control Jack allows for pedals so that a percussionist can use hands AND feet to play drumset parts.
I have used the HandSonic to play chimes and timpani with a church choir and orchestra …an easier load-in!
Lots of dance/electronic sounds (including turntable scratch samples) are loaded on the HPD-15 along with multi-effects AND a sequencer!
More info on this great unit at the Roland website:
www.rolandus.com
I just obtained one of these, and it is truly an amazing instrument. I am finding that learning a fingers-only technique will be a must if I want to exploit this fully. Also using the foot pedal inputs expands things a lot. One drawback is that a lot of the preset patches have instruments that I don't need and/or would never play in worship band (sitar in the tabla patch will never work, for example, and could accidentally be triggered causing the dreaded "look-of-concern" from the WB leader).
ReplyDeleteSo I spent about 3 hours designing 5 custom patches with the instruments I like (one drawback - no bhodran samples. Had to fake those with some afro drums, but very imperfect). I placed the conga/bongo/latin patch right "next to" the djembe patch to allow for flipping to djembe in songs that need both. Also I have a table/udu combo patch because I like how these 2 sound together. I tried doing a "celtic" patch with the afore-mentioned "afro" bhodran + some tabourines. (Still a work-in-progress , that one is). Lastly is a "metal" patch with triangles, chime trees, rainstick, etc, for softer music.