Doesn’t compare. The 101 is a power package for its size and offer, or just in general. But there’s nothing to match the Deluge in hardware when it comes to song writing. Clips, the arranger, audio recording in clips and arranger view, groups and stuff - the Dellie’s one of a kind in that regard.
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It’s quite different from most analogue polys out there, with a very suggestive and surreal character, when you dive into it. For traditional analogue poly stuff, it’s great but it’s not hard to find others that do it better. You get the 12 for the stuff they can’t do, which is a lot.
True that Deluge has the awesome arranger, but the scenes in the 101 are really great, I hope that Synthstrom will add this to Deluge, 128 combinations of clip/sound at the press of a (or2) button.
For arranging Deluge wins (against most hardware) hands down, for clip/scene launching I’d say 101 is better, in the sense that it is easier and quicker to set up and launch sections, albeit with much lower track count than Deluge.
Yeah I agree. Sold the Deluge because of its lack of a 16x8 grid clip launcher; it had the grid but it uses it to display the playhead of each clip, so effectively you only have 8 clips to launch without scrolling. Also, it is all instruments stacked up, so it gets really messy and you have to remember which clip is which.
They could add an ableton style “session view” in a firmware update though, which would make me consider buy if again… if is one of the most requested feature on their forums, so there is a big chance that Rohan will add it, as he has been really listening to their customers and dedicated in improving the Deluge in the past.
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But the Song view in the Deluge? How’s that different? Isn’t that exactly like the Ableton / MC clip view? Sure, it has about 16 groups or so, but that combined with being able to move in and out from Arranger view in a live session, I don’t see the difference.
I’m sure there is one. I just don’t see it 
The main difference being that Deluge shows clips in song mode on the horizontal axis, with each row representing a single clip, on Ableton or other clip launching gear the clips are shown as a single “cell” such that multiple tracks can be shown/launched/edited from a single row.
Seems like a subtle difference but in practice it means you get a much better overview of clips and less scrolling to launch them.
So on Deluge instead of just being able to see 8 clips at a time, as it is now, the feature request would be that you could see upto 16 clips per row for each of the 8 rows, without any scrolling.
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Very true. It’s easy to love the free running clips feature, though, as well as loop or repeat times per clip. And cloning. It really is quite powerful. But at times, overwhelming.
And instant switch across groups. Also cool 
I think it is a bit like a baby OT, and definitely the most in depth Roland groovebox to date (aside from 707 and maybe in some ways 909)
In many ways it also reminds me of an updated MC-09 Phraselab except much better, aside from the MC-09 could sample from audio in, in every other way though the 101 is better.
The fact that is is so portable means that a few evenings chilling on the sofa with it I reckon I can learn it inside out, already I have discovered that it has a lot of depth to it which really surprised me. Yet at the same time can be used very simply if you don’t want/need to go deep.
Nice little touches and surprises aplenty, like each track having its own eq if desired, and on top of that each drum in a kit having its own eq, and the eq is good and offers enough sculpting to do more than you would reasonably expect.
Another nice touch is that each clip can have its own sound, all settings and even knob positions and assignments are remembered. I keep on finding stuff out and thinking wow, I did not expect that.
I’d go so far as saying that 2 of these and an OT would be more than plenty to do a live set without any other gear and no real restrictions, OT as mixer, each 101 into OT, then a bit of pre-planning you could go touring for years 
The sequencing is surprisingly dope with TR step, realtime, SH-101 style, event list, playback directions, probability, micro timing, shuffle, substeps, each clip in a track can have its own step length from 1 to 128 and its own multiplier, direction, and stuff I’m probably forgetting too. (Edit: yes like midi file, first/last step, pattern or note shift <> etc,)
One thing that I’d like to see added is looper sequencing rather than just playing on step 1 for loop duration, it would be nice to be able to place loops on the grid. However loop playback does have some options such as length of playback loop, and you can change speed mult and other things, so like you could have a half time version etc.
As I mentioned earlier I have not yet got the manual (apart from the pdf, which I don’t like using) so once that arrives I won’t be surprised if I discover more stuff, I don’t think I have ever been so surprised by the depth of a machine before, especially at this price point. I like that.
Definitely some things which could be better, like audio inputs for sampling, slice mode and maybe a simple graphic editing of waveform, to name a few, but at the price no complaints so far, I would rather have paid a little more and had those though.
Edit: I think it is safe to say if you hated the OT you will probably hate the 101, and if you love the OT you might love the 101 too.
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Just FYI, the manual is very small format, like a little reminders notebook, but long.
I agree with everything you just said, and am surprised at how quickly I am learning it and at how much is “sticking.” There is a A LOT hiding behind the small screen and cryptic front panel, but at least you there are easy to remember “provinces“ where inter-related functions can be found.
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Anyone know if many of the menu diving parameters are midi assignable to a controller. For example in drum tracks could you set up a controller to control the eq settings, reverb and delay send amount, volume, attack, sustain etc for each pad?
I looked at the mini chart in the guide but couldn’t work out how many parameters are assignable
Thanks
Yeah for a menu dive-y thing they made a good job of making it bearable and in many cases simple, a first AFAIK.
@muzka I think it is only track from what I understood from the chart.
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that‘s my plan but one of them being a TR6S
I really learned to love sequencing in that way with the 101. Together with last step and playback directions you can make really nice patterns very quickly
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Thanks for sharing your xperience. Very tempting now
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Recommend watching the Roland video manual and checking out the reference manual:
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Does it means if I love my MC101 I could probably love the OT ? 
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you might miss the highly polyphonic synths
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^Trudat
I’m going to knock up a helper sheet for the 101 with the shortcuts at some point, so many super useful ones to remember like temp random playback (track+>) I’ll post it in the files area when done.
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