After lots of fighting with the thing, the MC-707 and I came to a truce and made some pretty fun music. There’s lots to love about this thing, and also lots of unnecessary frustration and unmusical choices. Roland doesn’t exactly have a track record of substantive firmware updates (a la Elektron or Novation) but here’s hoping they give it some more love. This bun needs more time in the oven.
Here’s the track I made, plus a summary of many of the thoughts I posted above. Take a listen!
i strongly suspect that firmware updates are inevitable, because there are either reproducible bugs confirmed by different people and obscure places in the manual that point to non-functional features (probably planned for future updates).
Couldn’t say it better !
I second the “scatter bus”/scatter destination per pad request.
Honestly, If the machine was just only a programmable MFX +FX + Sequencer I wouldn’t mind at all.
Can the external input be assigned to a track? So that you can use the fader, etc?
Also, I’m reading through the manual and don’t see how to create a midi track. Is that even a thing? Doesn’t the 707 send midi notes?
Thanks!
use Return input pair for that. you can assign it to a track in the Return tab of Input settings.
there’s no MIDI tracks in 707/101.
yes, it sends MIDI notes, and can send three CC messages – 80, 81 and 82 (i talk about 707 now) corresponding to Filter, Mod and FX knobs regardless of the parameters actually assigned to them.
as i understand from MIDI implementation chart, 101 does not have CC 80, 81, 82, but has a single CC 83 instead, corresponding to its Sound knob.
mhhh… i got my 707 today. Nice device and the immediacy is cool, also the sound design possibilities.
But… i don’t know how to say it in my crappy english: I don’t feel that love and passion that i feel when i use a elektron device. I have the impression that roland does not cure details al all. Foremost if compared to a rather small company like elektron or TE i’ts like they’re not bothered. Besides the missing of some cool and useful midi functions, the overall design is somehow cheap… i don’t mean just the plastic build of the whole thing; but also the software design… laggy/slow/“OLD” somehow.
Cool idea. cool concept, (i liked the tr8) and maybe very useful after a few updates … but damn…i miss the passion … and i miss that feeling that i have with a digitone for example: that i’m using a high precision, professional electronic instrument.
Dig in the synth and fx. Plenty of pro features here. But yes, UX feels oldschool.
oldschool is cool!
for me, 707 UI to, say, Akai Force UI is like MacOS Classic to MacOS X — reinventing already perfect things is not necessarily an improvement.
To be honest I wasnt very interested at first.
Still went on to try the MC 101 as I got to spend more time outside of the studio due to the birth of my child. Needed a portable solution to make beats with a toddler around.
I found the MC 101 to be interesting for its price tag as a meaty combo of drum/synth sounds (with fx on top) to sample from with the Blackbox. (not interested in a 1000 $ rompler in the 707 that feels like a cheap plastic brick)
I recently sold my circuit and my sp 404sx (that was gathering dust since the arrival of the BB).
I find that while lacking a lot of functionalities from the two boxes, it feels like I can apply Sp-404 like fx to synth sounds while having decent drums and a nice dynamic when you use the faders to build up cuts or breaks within the sequence.
It sure isnt perfect as I just got the MC 101 and barely know its inside outs, but having a portable beatmaking solution usb powered and having the Blackbox sequence the MC 101 via midi sure is powerful enough to keep me busy while away from the studio.
Another question - can I record the send FX only from the stereo out when using individual outs?
Or, can I take the tracks out of the stereo outs and only leave the FX.
I’m trying to figure out how to use the individual outs in Ableton.
Thanks!
there she goes … 
Knew we’d start seeing these pop up on the 2nd hand market pretty quickly
haha yea - so did I
Hehe. What particularly pissed you off about the workflow btw? I was interested in the 101 version til I saw it didn’t process live sounds
well i would not say that anything “pisses me off” - i just don’t connect with the machine. In general it is too “linear” for me, as i prefer some happy accidents like the one that happen with an octatrack. I can’t get rid of the feeling, that it’s like a worse version of a daw and that at this point it would rather make sense to replace it with a cheap PC+ableton push somehow…
In EU you have a 15 to 30 days money back guarantee in most stores, you should probably go with that if you don’t want to lose money and if it’s not too late.
true. But in this case as studio we bought a s**tload of equipment @ a local distributor, and we agreed to forego the return option, in exchange of a discount.
I got to play with a 707 last night.
Compared to the TR8S, it’s not as immediate and the onboard 707 drums, percussion, and sounds are not as inspiring as the 8S. Nor are the 707 kits that diverse. All the Techno kits sound the same except for a couple of percussion hits…
The 707 definitely has a “cleaner” sound than the 8S and my SH01A. But maybe that’s just the samples and VA on the 707.
I struggled with the envelopes on the 707 trying to find a sweet spot. But then I chalked it up to maybe that’s just how it works.
Another thing I struggled with was the drum envelopes and the decay performance knobs. When using the performance knob, it felt like all or nothing, right at the half way mark. If I went below the half way mark, the sample would be super short, above the half way mark, the samples opened up way to wide. I don’t know. It seems the performance knobs are relative to their original positions.
I don’t know. In my opinion. If you like your TR8S (which I do), maybe the 101 is a better companion. But then again, there’s very little overlap between the two.
Finally. The 707 steered me in the direction of deep house while my TR8S is all techno thanks to random pattern generation and varied sounds.