My brother copped a 505 at a very good price and he wanted to have a bit of fun with it and loaned it to me for an extended period of time and that sampler is great...
The Chop function is really ill for drums!! I just started messing with it this week and I sampled an open drum loop from LL Cool J's Radio album(Dear Yvette) and with a little tweaking,I had drum hits.
In Roland I trust!!

wats poppin rob p its you boy richiedinero from the t-dot yeah the 505 the shit i got that midied up to my mpc 1000 danger combo.

word...that's one ill combo!! I haven't had time to mess with it as I would've liked but hopefully,I should have beats that you could listen mane...

Now most Roland SPs have STANDARD (44.1) sampling modes, and LONG (22.05) mode- I believe the 505 also LOFI (11.025) mode. Are you able to utilize all modes at the same time?
Example:
Can you have a kick sampled at 44.1, next to a high hat SP'd @ 22.50, next to a snare SP'd @ 11.025 ?

Yes you can, oh yes you can.

Have you or anyone hooked the 505 up to a Midi synth module, or soft synth to see how it 'plays' the keys with it's sorta-chromatic pad layout?

Yea, I tried it when had my 505. Its close to useless for sequencing or playing external instruments. All the pad banks are the same 16 notes. And they have to have samples on them to trigger ne thing externally. If you where controling it with an external controller would have to change banks using program change.

yeah, its a bitch to midi it up with anything to make a real use outta this.

thats why i midi my sp 505 to my mpc 1000 . i sample all my stuff on the sp 505 add effects and chop up my samples in it then i sequnce all my shit on the mpc way easier work flow and yes you can midi a keyboard up to the 1000 thats wat i do no mac or pc required.

So richie,
which is your favorite feature on the 505? Just curious

sorry took so long to get back to you homie i would say it is the isolator effect and the filters you cant beat that on them 505's i had to get the jj 0s for my mpc to get effects even close to what i got on the sp. tip what i do is sample with the effects from the sp 505 then resample it threw my mpc again.

yo, the filter is cool but it has that ( icant remember the word,) the 555 super filter is way better, i have tons of fun with homies 555 ,

the solid FX in the sp 505 are

filter, --unlike the 202, 303, i prefer the 303 filter over the 505

tape echo -- one nasty effect that synks with shit nice

reverb, pretty phat if you double it up a couple time. again, not as good as sp 303 reverb.

chorus. the effect im currently in love with

isolator , isolator is like nothing else

eq ( note isolator and eq are completly diferent, eq is an eq, and isolator is a 3 freq filter cut ) awsome for recording drums , its so pure the highs sound so nice and clear, the lows have an organic umph.

flanger -- intergalactic time travel

ring mod -- the spaceships are coming

voice transforemer, -- dope if your in a witness protection program and you have to discuise your voice. formant shift is way way way doper then anything, acyually all the 303 fx are better . better chip maybe? i dunno .

chromatic phase tuner, - really super dope for making crazy orchestra smashes and stuff. its pretty much a voice transformer but you can control two formants no formant shift.

i used to hate the distortions , but now i use them , they are dope

i think i like all the fx , every fx almost, my fave 3 are chorus eq and pitch shifter(the best feature of the 505 besides the swing)

sp 505 is a leviathon

actually there should be no noticeable difference between 303's and 505's FX because they use same internals. Only the software is more advanced on 505.

This machine is just plain sick and so slept on!!
With the fx,filters,chop and pitch function,I see myself using this for a while...
thanks guys for your input...