Anyone tried this? seems promising, specially for sensitivity adjustments with propietary software.
https://www.synido.com/product/synido-tempopad-beat-maker-machine-with-16-rgb-beat-pads/
available at amz US for now. And quite cheap also.
Hey, yes they wanted me to make a “paid” video about it, which I did not want to do. I figured I’d buy one when it came out but… it’s not for sale in my country at the moment. It doesn’t seem to be for sale in the EU actually.
In this line of products, there is also a new contender, extremely cheap one, the M-Vave SMCPad ,and so curiosity on if may be a contender for this line of products (Synido Pad, MPD218, ESI XJam, Donner Starrypad, Worlde Orca Pad, Avatar EMP16,etc), now that the standard seems to be raised to Yammy FGDP units. Maybe time for a new 2024 round up?
Hey I might see if I can do a “cheap controllers from AliExpress” video in one or two months or so. I expect them all to be nothing special tbh, and even if there’s a good one it will still be unknown what the quality of the individual units is like.
Xjam I can highly recommend by the way. Great value for money. And the FGDP-30 is actually even better value for money if you consider the standalone sounds.
Hi Robert, just for fun , had a look to all manufacturers, manuals, apps, etc, and got some links, just to help a bit. You can find here WeTransfer - Send Large Files & Share Photos Online - Up to 2GB Free ( a Wetransfer file). Some of these pads have 3 levels of sensitivity, and the most amazing one, IMO, is the Avatar. Looks incredible for the prize and specs. Unfortunately, they only sell AMZ US and UK. No EU dealer. Contacted with them, and respond fast. Due to this investigation, had a gazzz attack and purchased the SMC…
Hey thanks, that is going to be helpful!
…gaaass attack, and got SMC-Pad. ! now, just a humble review: very nice device, well built, beautifull size, powerfull software editor, incredible in terms of price/quality. ( for around 40€ with bonus…)! and the winning star feature: battery operated, and Midi Bltooth! amazing to use finger drumming wireless on your knees! and it truly works without noticeable latency! Huge amount of midi features and control. A true price winner.!..but…although soft and nice silicon pads are great, sensitivity for fingerdrumming is not as it should. Has 4 adjustable levels, but not easy to find a way to have pad sense from 1 to 127. They move in ranges. But, depend on personal tastes, may suit your needs. For Sheeran Loopers emulators , is a nice contender to Synydo and Xjam.
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I picked up one of these as well - it should turn up in the next week or so.
The price and Bluetooth connectivity is the killer. I was watching Amazon for the Xjam price to drop, then noticed the SMC-PAD is 20% of the price of the Xjam and has Bluetooth thrown in.
Even if it’s not as good as the Xjam, the price alone makes it a no-brainer as a throw-in-the-backpack device. If it falls apart, it’s cheap enough to either replace it or upgrade to the Xjam with minimal regret.
On the other hand, it may turn out to be a gem. I know it’s not as tweakable out of the box as the Xjam, but at the end of the day it’s all MIDI and I’m a coder - it’s easy enough to write something to adjust the MIDI velocity on the fly using something like StreamByter, even if I have to do it for every individual pad.
Rob: I’d love for you to review this device if you get a chance
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So, my SMC-PAD turned up a few days ago, and I’ve been busy playing around with it and trying to get my head around this whole finger drumming thing…
In terms of responsiveness, there’s no option to configure it for each pad - there’s just 4 options from “most sensitive” to “least sensitive”. I’ve got it set to “most sensitive” for now, and while I’m getting occasional double strikes, it seems to work pretty well. I can write some quick StreamByter code to filter out double strikes, but so far I’m still playing around with it and trying to get my fingers coordinated. I won’t dig into StreamByter tweaks until I get a bit more used to it.
For now, it’s a cautious 2 thumbs up from me, with the caveat that you might need to come up with a way to filter out double strikes if you’re using it on the “most sensitive” setting.
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Regarding the filtering out of double strikes, I wrote a web-based tool for exactly that: MIDI Deduper (fannon.github.io)
But it requires a virtual MIDI loopback device, which may be annoying for some to setup. I think for most it would be better to have a VSTi / AU to do such kind of filtering (like you suggest)?
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