All user reviews for the Boss SP-505 Groove Sampling Workstation

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)

Chop function is wicket... hear it's better than on some other higher level machines.. but whish it had velocity pads, but not a big deal.. great sampler for beginer..

Price paid

250 USD ebay

UTILIZATION

Read-and-follow the manual and you won't stumble and if so ask on FP.. very user friendly..

it looks kinda cheap or even funny, but who cares? it's never gonna leave my desk..

SOUNDS

The sound quality is great..you can change the bit rate from CD quality to rugged 1930's vinyl quality..

OVERALL OPINION

Best investment in years.. spend so much time with softwares and other stuff, 505 is the bomb!

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: Sto ( 1-, 2005)

Very heavy on effects. time-stretching and bpm adjusting can make samples sound choppy, but there's a way to work around that. i recommend reading your manual and asking questions on fp to learn how to really manipulate this machine.

Price paid

$400

UTILIZATION

Bright lcd screen, easy-to-navigate menus, buttons creatively placed, trigger pads light up to let you know what sample's been armed and triggered. wish it was compatible with larger cards than 128mb smartmedia, though.

tight little piece. constructed very well. wish it was battery-operated for better portability.

SOUNDS

The sound quality is the truth! it can do crispy, cd-quality and raspy, dirty quality reminiscent of the sp1200

OVERALL OPINION

I've always been in love with the emu sp1200 because of its classic feel and ill effects, even if it isn't the absolute best sampler out there. to me, the boss sp-505 ranks up there with the sp1200. in some ways it's superior to that classic sampler.

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: realEYEZ ( 7-, 2005)

Many Features,Plenty of effects, sampling from optical, coaxial, mic, and SPDIF. Plenty of sample time on the smart media card, although almost none in onboard memory. One thing i don't like is theres only 8 polyphony

Price paid

$300

UTILIZATION

Its Pretty easy to use, as it only took about 2 or 3 days of not even looking at the manual to figure it out. If you have ever used any sampler/sequencer you should be able to figure this out.

I've dropped mine on concrete with no flaws, except a few scratches, so i'd say pretty durable.

SOUNDS

Good quality all together, but as i get better at produciong its starting to get limiting. I'd always go for an MPC1000 or even a 3000 or 60 although they are older. Theres only 8 polyphony, which gets annoying when you go for more complex beats. Theres only 16 internal banks, which i filled up with all of my drum sounds, and if you add the 128 MB smart media card it add another 16 banks.

OVERALL OPINION

Good for beginers but like i said nuthing like an MPC1000, 2000, 2000XL, 4000. And if you want that vintage sound i'd always go with an MPC3000, or 60.

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: MMProductions ( 9-, 2005)

The best thing about the sp-505 are the effects, with more than 20 effects including: delay, wah, pitch shift, voice transformer,equaliser and my alltime favorite the isolator its makes thin sound fat and fat sounds thin. The sequencing on the SP-505 is pretty limited, you sequence samples in patterns on 4 channels and sequence those to make a song. I don't use the song mode myself. I just make the whole track in one pattern and let it play in a loop and mute the 4 channel parts. There is a 8 voice polyphony with mono samples and 4 voices with stereo samples. It has a 4 mb internal memory and a smart media card slot to save sounds and sequenceses on. It has only a 2 stereo jack output.

Price paid

750 euro

UTILIZATION

Very easy to use. I was building tracks on the SP-505 the same day I got it.

I've got it for 3 years now, never it has let me down, it never crashed. The 16 pads and buttons are solid, the knobs are well made.

SOUNDS

Good sound quality, 44.1 kHz sampling (mono or stereo). Good sounding effects.

OVERALL OPINION

It's a nice mashine if you want to create right away it's easy to use. But if you want to sequence more than 4 channels. You should get an MPC.

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: alphawolf (January 0-, 2005)