Thank you for this offer to tell a more detailed story. I think it would help if you tell us exactly what type of setup you want, what you want to trigger, how you want to trigger it and also let us hear what you want to reproduce. I'm a very picky player and even I'd trust this route. The fact is, if you're playing anything but but extrememly dynamic jazz or fusion and the like, it'd be hard to rule out the very simple and obvious choice of reproducing acoustics via the TD-20 with occassional sound reproductions via an SPD or MPC. Besides the fact that you save tons of money going this route, you save tons of headaches too. You get unrivaled stability live and still have the option of tethering additional sampled sounds via another ultimately stable unit that's nearly plug n' play. Lots of people are using the TD-20 to achieve what you are trying to do. I'd like to say more about the possibilities with the TD-20 and other options, but you haven't really described your desired targeted final setup or let us hear how detailed your sound really needs to achieve in result. However, I think you'll find that the computer/soft-synth route will be the ultimate solution for what you're trying to do. I'd find a dealer that's willing to let you hook up a MPC and SPD to the triggering system you intend to use. If an SPD-S can do it considerably cheaper. So, the only thing I'm conveying here is spend your money wisely. This way, he'll have both bases covered in a very small footprint, so to speak.

I'm going to be modeling some custom kits for his upcoming tour to fill in the 'acoustic' gap at the TD-20. With this in mind, dynamics on 'e-sounds' were not going to be much of an issue anymore like the pad response and dynamic loss with 'a-sounds' via the MPC. Tethered to another module (ie: TD-20), the results with an SPD-S are sure to be even better.

Prince's drummer is also running the SPD-S with a triggered acoustic kit to achieve the same thing.

This drummer is going to use the SPD for sampled electronic sounds like those in today's hip-hop beats for the tunes that call for such sounds.

I actually just went through this with a customer.ĭue to his negative experience with pad response via the TD-20 to MPC1000 to trigger acoustic samples and the terrible results, I suggested the SPD-S in it's place.

Mpc drum pad