Alesis Strike MultiPad

The Strike MultiPad from Alesis comes fitted with nine velocity sensitive pads with colour-assignable lighting. While this beat-machine does come loaded with 7,000 drum, percussion and melodic samples and loops, what it's really made for is making, editing and looping original samples and offers 32GB-worth of onboard memory for the purpose. Load in prepared samples via the USB slot, a phone, record directly using a microphone or in fact, pretty much any audio source, assign it to a pad and drench it in effects then set it up to loop, all via the clear, full-colour control screen. Connection Options A bank of inputs and outputs is mounted around the back of the Strike MultiPad for eased integration with any setup. A useful double set of line-outputs makes sending two different output signals totally possible, meaning that a monitor-mix and click-track can be sent through and then left out of the output mix. Naturally, you could just do this via the headphone output. A MIDI in and out is included as well as a USB-B port for connection to a computer and, to expand the MultiPad further, there's space to hook up two dual-zone triggers, one single-zone trigger, a hi-hat controller and two footswitches. Stage and Studio Proof The immense memory is more than useful for gigs, while the extent of the connectivity this set of pads is capable of is like adding a bionic drummer to the line up. The controls are simple, intuitive and above all, clear - all on stage essentials. In terms of the studio, the integrated 2x2 audio interface not only speaks for itself but comes with a copy of Ableton Live Lite and ProTools First included for recording audio and MIDI, mixing and mastering the beat-based universe.