My dad just bought an Alesis Samplepad to generate percussion tracks when he is live looping. He loves it and thinks it is great value for money, particularly since you can load your own percussion samples and it is small and light weight.
The only drawback he found was that you can only play four of the five sounds in each kit unless you buy an extra trigger unit for the kick drum, which usually costs more than the Samplepad.
As he used to be an electronics engineer he designed his own velocity sensitive trigger.
The TT e-Kick Drum Trigger for ALESIS Samplepad & Samplepad 4 & Percpad ONLY.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DOES NOT WORK WITH PERFORMANCE PAD OR SAMPLEPAD PRO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Features:
Foot operated
Solid state transducer generates trigger signal output which increases the harder you tap the box
No moving parts
No batteries required
Small and lightweight
Low cost
Cable NOT supplied. 1/4" Jack lead required.
Demo Video available at http://youtu.be/F_ffRXAk4Z8
Audio file demonstrating velocity sensitivity available at http://youtu.be/TBPEq0xjzJE
email any questions