Question about Electronics

[pcs90]

Okay, so what I'm trying to do is find some device that will allow me to load a couple of sounds into it (say 3 to 5 sounds at once) and trigger them. I occasionally need extra sounds in a percussion set-up such as low toms, a concert bass drum, or other impacts and it's not reasonable to bring all of that (not to mention the cost of getting some of it). So I am looking for something that will allow me to play these extra tom and other drum parts. I would prefer to be able to load my own samples in, but if there is a relatively inexpensive unit that does what I want with good built-in tom sounds, this is also a possibility.
Does anyone have any ideas on a device that isn't thousands of dollars that will do what I'm looking for?
I did see the Alesis SamplePad but based on reviews, you can basically only trigger one sound at once and you can't play anything very fast, so not very useful for toms.

[longgun]

I have the Alesis percpad.................I can't upload samples, but it has several useful sounds that I use, such as handclaps, timbales, etc.

It triggers fine IMO..................I can do double strokes on it and it tracks perfectly

[pcs90]

I have the Alesis percpad.................I can't upload samples, but it has several useful sounds that I use, such as handclaps, timbales, etc.

It triggers fine IMO..................I can do double strokes on it and it tracks perfectly

Hmm. That may be a problem with only the Sample Pad then. I read a lot of reviews on that unit that said it was pretty useless unless you just needed an occasional hit.
Are there any deep tom or other lower-pitched drum sounds on the PercPad?

[longgun]

Hmm. That may be a problem with only the Sample Pad then. I read a lot of reviews on that unit that said it was pretty useless unless you just needed an occasional hit.
Are there any deep tom or other lower-pitched drum sounds on the PercPad?

There are some..................I'll go through the sounds tonight and let you know

[longgun]

You can check this out

Alesis Perc Pad



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Sorry about that Tom, didn't realize it was an ad. I found another that is not an ad..............if this is still inappropriate, please delete it.

[Drumbledore]

Of late I've been using a Roland HPD-10 Handsonic, both as an integral part of acoustic/electronic percussion set-ups as well as a substitute (and quicker set up) for a percussion set-up to the left of drumsets where I'd normally have a pair of timbales, cowbells, secondary snare, etc. Or I'll do that with one of my Roland SPD-20 Octapads. Very reliable when it comes to their onboard sounds.....if you're clever and patient enough, you can remodel those sounds to anything. One example is with the Octapad, I redone what was a small Japanese drum sound called a tsuzumi, changed the various attack, decay and curve parameters, etc.....that sound's now become very octaban-like....then all I had to do was copy that redesigned sound to the other pads, set in a number of pitches, and hey presto....a full set of octabans.

The HDP-10 and the SPD-20 are now older models, and the second hand market, being what it is, means that you can pick these up very reasonably priced in comparison to what they were over 5 years or so ago, as Roland keep on introducing newer versions or products that replace these in shops.

[pcs90]

In case anyone is curious...
I ended up finding a device not even mentioned in this thread, the Akai MPX8SD. It's a "sample player" with 8 very sensitive pads and an SD slot. You need to have your own samples to really use it, but if you do, you just load them to the SD card, assign them to a user kit (you have 99 available), and you're ready to go. What I've done in most cases was make a kit only one drum, then assign each pad to a different sound (lh and rh open tone, bass tone, open slap, muted slap etc). This way, if the samples are good quality, you can get a pretty realistic version of a certain drum without bringing the real thing.
You can really only use this with hands/fingers, the pads are very small and I don't know how well they handle sticks. But if you're a hand drummer, I'd definitely check this thing out.