Tiny but powerful, the latest Roland instrument is a groovebox which punches way above its weight. Greg Scarth finds out more.
Launched in 2010, Roland’s Aira series quickly became a major hit for the iconic Japanese brand. The range is now split into three parts: regular Aira, Aira Modular and Aira Compact. The new Roland AIRA Compact P-6 Creative Sampler sits in the latter category, one of the smaller and most affordable instruments in the series, but still packing in major creative potential. What’s particularly special about the Aira models is how they appeal both to experienced musicians and newcomers to music making. The P-6 seems certain to fit the bill in that respect.
For those unfamiliar with the Aira range, the philosophy is all about immediate, hands-on creativity. The Aira models are usually digital instruments and often draw inspiration from iconic moments in Roland’s impressive back catalogue. The P-6 isn’t necessarily based on any particular vintage model, but there are clearly hints of Roland’s sampling expertise here. The instrument is mainly based around sampling your own sounds – in other words, recording things via the buiilt-in microphone, audio inputs or using phone connected via USB.
Out of the box, the P-6 is immediately striking for its size. This is a tiny little device, under 20 centimetres wide and just over 10 centimetres from front to back. Powered via a rechargeable internal lithium-ion battery, the P-6 should offer around three hours’ use per charge. There are some more advanced options available such as sync connections (to make the unit play in time with other instruments, including those from the Aira range) and MIDI (to trigger notes from other devices, and vice versa), but the P-6 is clearly friendly for less experienced musicians from the very beginning. A lot of thought has gone into streamlining the creative process here, and Roland’s excellent documentation makes it easy to get started making music.
There are a few different ways to approach making music on the P-6, but they’re all based around that idea of step sequencing different sample-based sounds. As well as recording sounds directly into the device, you can also load samples via the P-6 SampleTool software, available for both Mac OS and Windows. Samples can be loops, sliced into sections (for example a drum beat) or played chromatically, meaning that you can layer and build sounds on top of each other.
Multi-mode filters for each track sound like quite a basic feature in theory, but once again this is a fundamental building block of the classic sampler sound. Comparisons with vintage samplers might be a little off the mark here given that the P-6 is a decidedly modern instrument with app support and quite advanced granular synthesis features, but the immediacy and creative limitations of classic sampling workstations like the E-mu SP-1200 and Akai MPC series does genuinely come through in the overall approach.
The combination of groovebox-style sequencing with a versatile sound engine is fairly well established at this point, but it’s worth remembering that Roland pioneered so many of the ideas we now see as generic features of grooveboxes, from the iconic x0x-style step sequencer right on through to some of the digital synthesis and resampling ideas which are included in the P-6.
The P-6 perfectly hits the sweet spot of creativity without over-complicating matters. You can make just about any style of music on this little device, but what appeals most is the way it inspires creativity: sample anything you like, make a loop or twist it into a granular synth sound, and you’ll quickly find yourself coming up with beats, patterns and grooves based on the tiniest fragment of an idea.
Greg Scarth
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