Hello everbody,
I’m guitarist, i’m playing with Electro Harmonix 45000 looper and I’m looking for a standalone gear for finger drumming to create drum lines instantaneously.
I have for now a Akai MPX8.
Would you have other models to advise me ?
Thanks 
1 Like
Hey! Welcome!
I have recently tried some standalone devices and I think in terms of value for money an akai MPX8 is a good choice. Another new device that might be worth looking in to is the Roland SP404 mk2
Roland - SP-404MKII | Creative Sampler and Effector – there’s a lot of enthusiasm surrounding this little thing.
With that said, I have not yet played I standalone device that I actually liked for my style of finger drumming, so keep that in mind. It should be more about sample based music, looping and stuff like that, not “acoustic” drum stuff… for that getting a laptop, a Maschine mikro mk3 and Addictive Drums is still the way to go.
Hi there!
I have almost the same issue, i have a small looping setup with a Boss RC 505 and also need a really simple standalone sample player.
I’m also using an AKAI MPX8 now as it’s functionality is exactly what I need: Load a few drum samples and play them with the pads. Thats it.
The issue is that the MPX8 unfortunately has a lot of issues, most of all the pads are quite insensitive and also unreliable, sometimes not triggering etc.
There are also other issues such as that the output is really noisy and the device is really picky to what samples it accepts, e.g. you almost always have to fiddle around converting sound files when you want to upload new ones.
A full scale sampler like a MPC or Roland SP-404 would be way overkill, equally a setup with a laptop.
Isn’t there really any other option? Maybe some legacy products that I might have missed?
Maybe a standalone drum machine being triggered by a sample pad through MIDI could be an option?
Thanks 
Hey there is no other better solution out there at the moment for as far as I know. As soon as something like that exists, I’d be the first to look into it. It’s just not there…