Boss SP-505 Groove Sampling Workstation

(Originally written by henridelavillle/translated from Audiofanzine FR)
The card's memory can be extended to 128 MB. I have 64 MB and the things you can sample are already huge... Sampling is very easy, much easier than with a computer: just press the button and that's it... When I'm listening to the radio I just sample whenever something nice comes on (with jazz it's easier because you can sample everything)... I created a beat yesterday and it sounds great.

- The converters sound great, professional and dynamic!

- Typical connections: jack mic input, RCA line input, Midi input and output...

- No PC software and that's a good thing, I'm fed up with computer screens. I'm a musician who risked his life in L.A.. not a computer scientist.

- The effects are a turnoff because you can only assign one effect to each pad... It's not much unless you resample, which is very easy.

- The polyphony is not enough to use it as a classic sequencer

UTILIZATION

- Very simple and clear setup.

- Ultra easy editing however you cannot pitch a sound directly like in Fruity and I miss that option. It's not possible to pitch a sound with only one control.

- Typical, super simple Boss user's manual. This manufacturer is great.

SOUNDS

- The effect sounds very good.

- Sound and dynamic range are EXCELLENT. I prefer a million times this sound to Fruity's sound with my M-audio Firewire sound card. Fruity doesn't provide this dynamic range.

OVERALL OPINION

- I've been using it for one month

The least:

OS is very slow

Memory card is too small (now you get 1 GB)

The sequencer doesn't allow external synth sequencing

Best:

Sound quality (better than Fruity or Cubase)

Sampling is extremely easy (one button and that's it)

Each track has an adjustable quantization function (typical Boss), which can be deactivated.

Typical Boss groove...

I might buy the SP555, which seems great because you can sample on the fly in the middle of a song (impossible with the 505).

The capabilities of this unit are awesome! For the sampling musician, I'd consider this a baby MPC2000. The chop function for dividing and truncating samples will take a lot of headaches out of creating for the sampleheads out there.

Price paid

$499

UTILIZATION

Very user friendly machine. With very little knowledge, a person could be up and sampling in no time. But you will be farming in your own sounds pretty quickly, cause the onboard sounds are weak.

Looks kinda delicate, I wouldn't take this thing too far from home.

SOUNDS

The sounds out the box are kinda cheesy. With Roland's diverse library of sounds, I expected a better soundset. Where's the XV sounds? Very weak...

OVERALL OPINION

Returned it within a few days for an EMU MP7, so I guess you could say the marrige was annulled... :-(

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: Unknown ( 3-, 2004)

It's not an MC-909, but it does work pretty good.

Price paid

$350

UTILIZATION

Very Easy to insert and delete samples. Creating beats is real cool too, just like my MP-7 E-mu MOPhatt...

It's plastic, so what more do you expect. The buttons are nice.

SOUNDS

Sound Quality is good. Playback sounds warm to me.

OVERALL OPINION

For the $350 price I would buy it again if I need too.

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: dj_hamzter ( 5-, 2004)