Over the past month or two I've had a number of people approach me, asking how to go about using the Roland SPD-SX for playback (reliably) while still retaining the 'trigger pad' functionality for firing off one shots and samples.

Last year, I worked with an electronic - pop artist who's live show required Backing Tracks (BTs) as well as some electronic drum parts played live. The budget did not allow for a separate playback rig, plus in the interest of portability, it made sense to do both of these things from the SPD-SX. No point in taking a 3u rack to every gig to sit beside me when everything can be done in one.

Playing tracks through an SPD-SX is a great and extremely viable option for small shows / gigs, where budget, transportation options and space on stage are lacking. In addition, this method allows a stereo mix for BTs as opposed to panning click hard left and track hard right as is common in your most basic 'laptop backing tracks' scenario.

Making / Bouncing Tracks

Let's say you've got hold of all the stems from the producer / artist / whoever, and in the best possible scenario, all stems have been mixed to 0. Great! After figuring out exactly what you want / need in your tracks, and setting the levels as you wish, it's time to add a click. I work mostly in Logic but this process is the same through any DAW (obviously).

The logic click is pretty useless IMO... fine for bedroom recording but in a live setting where you need to be locked in consistently, it just doesn't cut through, particularly if you've got a lot happening in the BT and/or a loud audience. No go. Instead, I use Logic's Gritty Funk Drum Machine. Ab4 & A4 (I think!) are two cowbell sounds pitched slightly apart, which makes for a great click. Print 1 bar of quarter notes as Ab4, A4, A4, A4, quantize, stretch the length of the BT and you've got your click!

I usually adjust it slightly by adding a Logic compressor, noise gate, and rolling some bottom end off with Channel EQ. I add about 5dB to the compressor output. The Gritty Funk Kit has a slight delay baked in which isn't that audible at lower volumes but definitely noticeable through in ears when used as a stand alone click. I adjust the noise gate as seen below:

Now it's time to bounce our tracks. First you'll want to mute the click channel and any cue channels you have. Everything that's unmuted will become your FOH mix (ie, your stems). Also important at this point to make sure that the playhead at the end of the track is dragged right up to where your stems and click end, so the BT ends when the track ends. Beware of reverb tails while doing this, I usually leave 4 - 12 bars after whatever is printed 'ends'.

Hit cmd B and you'll get some options for bouncing. Here's what you'll need to choose for playback with an SPD-SX. "The SPD-SX can import .WAV or AIFF files that are 16-bit with a sample rate of 44.1kHz" ONLY. You will not be able to import your tracks on the trigger pad if this isn't right.

Label this bounce as FOH *songname*. Go back to the project and mute all channels except the click and cues. This will be your in ear click mix. It's v important at this point not to change anything regarding the duration of the song. cmb B again and bounce this track as CLICK *songname*. Now you have a folder with both your FOH mix, and your CLICK mix in.

BTs and Triggers Simultaneously

The key to running backing tracks and playing triggers live on the SPD reliably, is to separate both operations onto different pages. This way, there's not a chance of stopping the tracks halfway through by accidentally hitting the BT pads during your performance. With the artist I was playing with, we had a 5 song set. The order of my SPD-SX pages went as follows, where > represents the onward page.

#Track1 > Track1 > #Track2 > Track2 > #Track3 > Track3 > #Track4 > Track4 > #Track5 > Track5.

The # represents the page with the BT on, and the page without the # is the page I programmed my sounds and samples onto. Every song has two pages which are always 'track > sounds'.

Programming the SPD-SX

I would HIGHLY recommend getting the 3rd party 'SPD-SX Editor'. You can find it at www.spd-sx-editor.com. It's about 25 USD but WELL worth the money in the time it will save you. The original Wave Manager from Roland is very limited in it's capabilities in comparison. The rest of this post will be focussed on the 3rd party editor, although everything is possible by physically navigating through settings on the unit itself (not possible with the wave editor).

Once creating and naming pages, you'll want to start dragging & dropping your tracks. The order of the pads on the SPD_SX goes Left to right, top to bottom. EG Pad 1 top left, Pad 4 middle left, Pad 7 bottom left. Here's what the editor looks like. When the SPD is connected, you get your page list on the far right space and the sound index on the space to the left of that.

Backing Track & Click Pages

Drop the Click wav on Pad 1, and the FOH wav on Pad 2. Keeping it the same every time makes it easier to diagnose issues when they arise. You'll want to link Pad 1 - Pad 2 (with padlink) so they trigger at the same time.
For Pad 1 (click), assign the output to PHONES ONLY. For Pad 2 (FOH), assign the output to SUBOUT. The subout output bypasses all fx you apply (using the fx knobs on the front of the unit), and also bypasses the system volume control. This is perfect for tracks as you can still apply fx to your triggers and one shots on the next page, without affecting the backing track.
Mono / Poly mode is up to the way you play and what sonic you're after. I'd recommend doing some further reading into these functions to work out exactly whats best for you.
Ensure dynamics are OFF. You'll want your BTs to trigger at the same volume every time regardless of how hard you hit the pad.
For your trigger pad type, I usually use alt / phrase. If I hit the pad twice, the track will start and stop. The shot / single option means every time you hit the pad, you'll trigger the pad again and again, and will need to hit the mute all button to stop everything. Doesn't really matter which you choose but alt works best for me.
Make sure looping is off, and hit save. Done! nearly..

Trigger Page

Assign the output for all pads to MASTER OUT.
Dynamics on/off depending on what you want. I'd recommend keeping them off so your electronics levels remain the same regardless of how hard you're hitting the pads.
Once you've finished and saved, unplug the unit from your computer and you'll want to physically navigate to the same page on the SPDSX. For each pad, you'll want to go to 'pad' settings, hit the 'quick' button, and scroll down to 'Wave Normalise'. Select this and overwrite the wav on the pad. Do this for every one of your pads. Once you've finished, you can adjust the volume levels of individual pads based on what you need.

If you want to go one step further in the interest of reliability / functionality, you can always load the BTs and Clicks onto an external trigger (can be done via SPDSX editor), and fire them from a trigger completely separate from the SPDSX unit, or from a foot switch like the BOSS FS-5U or BOSS FS-6.

Checking, Double Checking, Triple Checking, etc

After I've loaded all my tracks and sounds, I power off the unit with the power button to save changes. I have a small speaker system with 4 inputs purely for testing programming, and would recommend you find something similar to use. This could be a small 4in desk and a speaker or at a push, an audio interface and DAW.

I power on the unit and go first to my # pages which have my BTs on. Hit either Pad 1 or Pad 2 (doesn't matter which because we PadLinked them earlier). Do a line check for your SUB OUTs, and plug in some headphones to test the PHONES output. Double check all the settings you applied in the Editor are translated in the unit.

Next, go to your trigger pages and do the same, but testing the MAIN OUTs.

Outputting in this way means that the BT volume can be controlled separately from the volume of the sounds despite all lines coming from one unit.

If you need to route the click to multiple people then you can always take the line out from PHONES into a headphone amplifier, and then onwards from there (hardwired or wireless packs). Similarly, if you want something else in your mix along with the click, then you can always take the PHONES line straight into a smaller personal desk beside you, where you can adjust your own mix with say a return from the main desk.

Red for Stereo BT Outputs. Green for Trigger outputs, blue for Click output. — Red for Stereo **BT Outputs**. Green for **Trigger outputs**, blue for **Click output.**

Here are some positives and negatives to using this method of playing backing tracks;

Positives

Relatively quick (once you get the hang of it) to programme.
Portable.
Multi-uses. Tracks & Triggers!
Stereo Output for BTs instead of panning hard R / hard L.

Negatives

Only 4 outputs, reduced to 2 if you want to use the triggers on a separate output.
More expensive (RRP £500) than dedicated playback machines like the Cymatic LP - 16 (RRP £250).
Limited Memory
Can't adjust the mix easily once loaded into the unit. (have to re-bounce with DAW)

Once you're done, check, double check, triple check, and then check again. It is NOT a vibe to be delving into the editor 20 minutes before show time to try and fix something you've overlooked. This attention to detail means a lot more peace of mind when you get onto the gig.

Thanks for reading (assuming you've reached the end of this massive post) and I hope this helps you in your live show endeavours. Shoot me a message on Facebook or instagram (@joemutton) if you've got any questions.

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Running Tracks On An SPD-SX [+ triggering]