Roland P-6 Masterclass: A Complete Guide to Sampling, Sequencing & Granular Sound Design
The Roland P-6 has become one of my favorite small samplers since it was released. It packs sampling, sequencing, effects, granular sound design and a surprising amount more into an incredibly portable and affordable piece of hardware.
But there’s a tradeoff: there is a lot packed into a very small interface.
With a four-character display, tons of button combinations and features hidden throughout different menus, the P-6 can be a little overwhelming when you first start using it. Even after spending a lot of time with it, there are plenty of features that aren’t immediately obvious.
So I decided to put everything I’ve learned into one place.
The Roland P-6 Masterclass
The Roland P-6 Masterclass is a complete step-by-step video course designed to take you from getting started with the P-6 through actually building music with it.
Across more than two hours of detailed video lessons, I walk through the P-6 from the ground up, including:
Setting up and navigating the Roland P-6
Using the P-6 SampleTool and transferring your own samples
Understanding sample rates, sample time and lo-fi sampling
Recording and resampling
Editing, shaping and chopping samples
Chromatic sample playback
Building patterns with the step sequencer
Quantization, velocity and microtiming
Probability, substeps and per-step parameter changes
Granular synthesis and creating playable granular instruments
Send effects, bus effects and effects routing
Building pattern variations and developing a complete beat
Rather than just running through a list of features, I also wanted to show how all of these tools fit together when you're actually making music.
Throughout the masterclass, we use a set of included samples to explore the different workflows before bringing everything together and building a beat.
Follow Along on Your Own P-6
The masterclass includes the samples I use throughout the lessons, so you can load them onto your own Roland P-6 and follow along.
You'll also get my Roland P-6 Cheat Sheet along with additional reference materials to keep around when you inevitably forget which combination of tiny buttons does that one thing you were looking for.
You can watch the masterclass from beginning to end if you're learning the P-6 for the first time, jump ahead to the beat-building section if you want to see everything put into practice, or use the individual modules as a reference whenever you need them.
Spend Less Time in the Menus and More Time Making Music
One of the things I like most about the Roland P-6 is that it can be a lot of different things.
It can be a portable first sampler, a surprisingly deep step sequencer, a lo-fi sampling machine, a granular sound-design tool, or simply a little box you throw in a bag when you want to make something away from the studio.
The challenge is getting comfortable enough with the interface that all of those possibilities stop feeling buried behind menus and button combinations.
That's what I wanted this masterclass to solve.
The Roland P-6 Masterclass is available now and includes the complete video course, follow-along samples, P-6 Cheat Sheet and additional course materials.
If you've been wanting to really learn your P-6 instead of constantly digging through menus and the manual, I hope you'll check it out:
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