Roland AIRA P-6 is a new compact, battery-powered creative sampler with live sampling capabilities and granular synthesis.
Roland has not been at Superbooth for the last three years. However, in the past two years, they have taken the hot opportunity to release new products from the AIRA Compact series, aka “Rolcas.” Three at once in 2022, with the T-8, J-6, and E4 and the S-1 Synthesizer in 2023.
There was no new release at Superbooth this year. They are now making up for that with another AIRA Compact family member. Roland has just released the AIRA P-6, a new creative sampler for on-the-go.
Roland AIRA P-6 Creative Sampler
A portable sampler is the logical continuation of the AIRA Compact series, as the previous releases included synths, drum machines, and vocoders.
The AIRA P-6 is a creative sampler powered by Roland’s renowned sampling technology. It hosts eight banks of six pads that can be loaded with up to 48 samples. There are various ways to get samples into the device.
The most convenient way is to use the included SampleTool software editor, which allows you to import samples (wav) to the pads. Alternatively, by pressing the “sampling” button, you can unlock P-6’s live sampling capability. As a source, you can use the built-in microphone, USB-C audio, headset socket, or the mixer input.
Roland gives you the option to choose four different sampling rates: 44.1 kHz, 22.05 kHz, 14.7 kHz and for the extra portion of crunch 11.025 kHz. The internal memory is small and far too small for today’s times, in my opinion.
Using the crunchy 11.025 kHz rate, you get 23,7 seconds in mono or 11,85 seconds in stereo per sample. The maximum here. In the highest (44,1 kHz), you get 5,9 seconds of mono sampling.
Granular Sampler, Resampling…
The Roland AIRA P-6 offers a lot of sample customization and manipulation. Let’s start with the classic. Of course, you can pitch, change the start and end points, and adjust the level of each sample. Plus, you can work with a gate mode.
Then, for each sample you can choose the playback mode, including forward, loop, reverse, and alternate loop. A highlight is the ability to activate a chop and slicing function on each sampler, giving you up to 64 slices. This way you can fit a lot of different sounds into one sample without using multiple slots.
Another exciting feature is the step sampling, allowing you to work with the slice workflow when recording new samples. This gives you a sample with multiple sounds that are perfectly sliced.
Roland also has packed an easy-to-use granular synthesis engine in the new AIRA P-6 sampler. It can be fed with any sample content from the device. There is also a handy resampling engine, allowing you to capture internal sounds.
For example, you can resample sounds that you manipulate before with effects. Samples can be played in monophonic or polyphonic with up to 16 voices. The granular engine is limited to four voices.
To manipulate or refine your samples, AIRA P-6 also offers a multi-FX processor with 20 algorithms, including vinyl simulator, DJFX looper, stopper, Lo-Fi, scatter, phaser, resonator, and more. On top, you have delay and reverb as send effects.
Sequencing
For the beat producers, there is also a powerful step sequencer packed with features. It has 16 steps on the hardware, 64 steps in total, and has memory for up to 64 user patterns. You can use it in the real-time recording mode with quantized/unquantized option or in the step mode with individual note entry.
Besides the ability to enter notes/slices, it has various parameter that can be programmed in the sequencer: velocity, gate, length, micro-timing, sub-steps, off-grid sequencing, and probability.
Further, motion recording of the parameters brings life and craziness in your sequences. With the step loop function, it’s possible to manipulate playback in real time for creative improvs and instant stutter effects.
Connectivity
The I/O offering remains unchanged. Like the previous Roland AIRA Compact, the P-6 sync in/out, a mix in/out, MIDI in/out on TRS sockets, and a USB-C port for MIDI, charging and audio.
Not to forget is the built-in, USB-C rechargable Lithium-ion battery gives you +/- 3 hours of mobile music production.
Roland AIRA P-6 First Impression
With the “Rolcas,” Roland launched a series that people received very well. I’m sure the P-6 will be just as much of a bestseller. It is a neat, compact, feature-packed sampler with many creative options—even granular synthesis. New territory in the modern Roland world
A downer in many positive light is the meager internal memory.
Roland AIRA P-6 is available now for $219,99/198€.
More information here: Roland
Available at my partners
so maximum 3s of stereo sampling in 44.1 ?! absolute deal breaker for me. Really like the concept and rest of the feature set though, but the little memory kills the product for me. aren’t they doing any beta testing with actual core user types?
3 seconds per sample must be say
yeh this isnt doing it for me, but i suspect others like me are also looking for devices in this range that dont necessarily exist yet… namely devices dedicated to sampling/resampling and fx heavy mangling in more of a tape loop style rather than drum machine format
Buy an iPad
You said it. That’s exactly the type of machine I’m scoping out for, but never seems to materialise. This constant “Beat making” thing is so tiresome it’s like wtf.. again! The sampler sweet spot is still open. C’mon Roland: SP-666
Torso S4?
Nice.
I’d like to see more of the granular side.
I agree the sample memory is rather small. However, I get it. Roland don’t really want this to cannibalise the sales of the 404 etc.
I’ll look out for more demo videos.
This could be a nice addition to my set up and possibly replace the Sonicware Liven Texture Lab, depending on it’s granular abilities.
I got excited for about 10seconds! an aira sampler at last. but with the sampling time of an old akai what is the point?!! I find granular samplers work best on speech/vocal samples and that requires alot more sampling memory then this offers. I’ll stick to the microgranny. yes it has no effects but the sample time is huge and that’s what granular samplers need. cmon Roland this needs sorting to make it workable.
Roland blew it with the miniscule sample memory. They should at least have included an SD card slot if they were going to cheap out like that. They have ego problems and need to learn from Behringer and Zoom how to make useful, affordable equipment that goes more than half way to where you want to go instead of sticking us with what they think we should want and have 🙁