Boss SP-505


The BOSS SP-505 Groove Sampling Workstation/SP-505 is a sampling workstation made by Boss Corporation, which is a division of Roland Corporation. The digital sampler is part of the SP family and was released in the year of 2002, as a follow-up to Roland’s SP-303 installment. Ironically, both the 303 and 505 installments were succeeded by the release of Roland's SP-404 in the year of 2005.

Features

  • Having the traditional features of the Roland & Boss Grooveboxes, the 505 has the ability to record audio directly via line/mic, or import/export industry-standard WAV and AIF files via SmartMedia card.
  • The SP-505’s internal memory provides over two minutes of CD-quality mono sampling, which can be expanded to over one hour using an optional 128MB SmartMedia card. The Smartmedia cards range from 8Mb to 128Mb.
  • The interface design of the sampler consists of 16 large pads, and three control knobs. This design is now traditional to SP installments, with individual distinctions throughout installments.
  • There are 64 onboard tones with drums, bass, keyboard, and also synth sounds.
  • 29 effects like tape echo, isolator and vinyl simulator, that can be extensively utilized by resampling and realtime control.
  • 1/4" microphone input for sampling
  • CD-quality sound
  • Chop function divides loops and maps individual samples to pads
  • Pitch function for playing back samples at new pitches as on a keyboard
  • BPM sync function instantly matches up to 16 phrases to the same tempo
  • Sounds are imported by form of.WAV/AIFF files via SmartMedia, and by coaxial/optical digital inputs
  • 8-voice polyphony
  • Runs on AC power only.

Notable users

Despite not initially becoming as popular as the 303 and 404 installments, the 505 is well-associated with hip-hop producer Madlib.