Octapad

The popular Octapad is a product line of inexpensive, electronic MIDI percussion controllers produced by the Roland Corporation. Rather simple in design and uninteresting to look at, the Octapad is a rectangular device with 8 velocity sensitive pads. It needs to be connected to a MIDI instrument such as a drum machine, sampler, or drum module to produce sounds because it has no internal sounds of its own. When a pad is struck with a drumstick or mallet, it triggers a specifically assigned sound in the connected electronic musical instrument. The Octapad is usually used during live performances to add a human nuance to electronic percussion sounds.