How dare you ignore my personal opinions. Well, setting that affront aside, there’s no mention of ABM in the 707 reference guide, and from what I’ve read it’s a kind of extension to Zen that you find on the higher-priced workstations, but doesn’t have the full-on circuit modelling of ACB. So I assume the 707’s virtual osc and filters are a third type that they haven’t bothered to name, probably more bread & butter stuff.
I’ve A/Bd the filters a few times on the 707, and the digital one has always sounded the nicest to me. I find the Prophet style filter has unpleasant resonance and the Moog one is, well, you know, it’s not a Moog. The Juno one seems fine. But the standard digital filter (TVF) has some broad sweet spots and works nicely across all the various sounds. The virtual analog oscillators don’t sound bad by any means - better than the Air synths in the MPC, for example. I’ve got a JU-06A, and I think the 707/101 could go toe-to-toe with that in terms of sound, unless you went hunting for weak spots - the JU’s chief advantage is the control panel, but if I was forced to choose I think I’d take eight voices of Zen over four voices of ACB.
I wouldn’t worry, I spend a lot of time trying to ignore my own personal opinions and it’s a good habit to nurture.
I did go off and check the manual for ABM, because as I recall whenever it’s been mentioned online it usually seems to be hearsay or conjecture. But I figure Roland would throw the term around in the documentation if it was relevant. Instead they use fantastic Kraftwerkian terminology like this:
Sound is produced by an analog-modeled wave generated by calculation.
A numerically calculated analog-modeled wave is generated.
I will certainly have a look at that video thanks you !
I Wonder if you had experience with mc-505 ? I am asking because that was my only experience with roland pcm based synth (which is similar to jv architecture if I am not mistaken) and I had really hard time finding some inspiring sounds from these box.
Are the mc-707 pcm much better in that regards ?
707 is not restricted to PCM, it’s hybrid – PCM + VA.
yes, it’s much better.
one of the biggest problems with 505 is too dated sounds. (that’s why i never bought it)
later MC-307/D2 had fewer bells & whistles, but much more usable sounds.
Hi ! Thanks for your input. I knew it not only had pcm but was concerned if the pcm side would sound close to what I heard from the 505. So you confirm that the pcm sounds better than these older generations jv engine ?
well, i definitely can confirm that 707/101 sound better than older Roland grooveboxes line.
however, same JV engine was used in other kind of machines as well. for instance, in my favorite Roland machine of that era – HPD-15, which sounds awesome.
I was surprised how much I like Zen-Core. I had a Roland Juno-G and hated the sounds. It sounded muddy and the resonance was awful sounding so I was weary of getting another Roland “rompler” based machine (MC-101). But I actually really dig it. Compared to the Juno-G it’s a huge improvement in my opinion.