I’ve been thinking about a Roland MC-707 along with an A4mkII as the two central hubs in my setup.
But, I’m concerned about being able to synchronize pattern changes on the A4mkII with scene changes on the MC-707. (The MC-707’s master clock only works on a 2-128 step interval, as shown in this attached manual extract.)
If I set the same time scale on the A4mkII and MC-707, would I be able to precisely synchronize pattern changes on the A4mkII (either within song mode or directly) with scene changes on the MC-707 if I set the “STEP LEN” parameter to the minimum of two steps?
I ended up exchanging for an MC-101 (that would integrate better with the Waves SoundGrid network in my studio) and will probably sequence it from the A4.
I have an MC-707 and am receiving an A4 Mk2 tomorrow so am keen to see if I can get the A4 pattern changes to follow the MC-707 in sync. Will report back.
I did try a model cycles a few months back and that changed patterns in sync just fine so I think it will work the same for the A4.
I just figured out how to get the MC-707 and Analog Four changing patterns together, perfectly in sync!
What you need to do is set the MC-707 Control Channel to Ch16 and then set the A4 Auto Channel to 16. You can use A4 patterns of any step length, but make sure in the Advanced Scale Menu you set the master LEN to the same setting as the Master Step Length (Shift+Tempo) on the MC-707.
Now changing Scenes (1-128) on the MC-707 will change Patterns (1-128) on the A4. As the scene cues on the MC-707 the pattern will cue on the A4, and they will change at exactly the same time
You can also change A4 patterns from the MC-707 clips. When you create a clip on the MC-707 do not change the clips Tx Program Change Number (leave this as Default). Set the A4 control channel to the same as the Track number your sending them from on the MC-707. Edit: although this method will only let you send PCMs 1-16 as you only have 16 clip rows.
I hope others looking to use the MC-707 together find this useful
Wow. Thanks for the great write up. At some point I will try to find the time to try this with a 101/DT.
So by launching A4 pattern change with scenes, you’ve got 128 that correspond with the active 707 scene.
IIRC, there are only 16 clips per 707 channel.
So if using the clip method, are you only able to launch A4 bank 1, patterns 1 through 16? In other words, they correspond with the active clip on the 707, but there isn’t a way to direct each clip to a specific A4 pattern (for example 707 scene 8 launch A4 bank 3 pattern 7)?
Yes you understand correctly. Using the scene method you can change 128 scenes/patterns in sync, but using the clip method (set to Default) you can only send PCMs from 16 clips rows.
You can change the clips Tx Program Change Number from Default to any PC number from 0-127 but unfortunately in this scenario the A4 will change pattern one cycle late so it ends up out of sync with the MC-707.
I think sending PCMs using this method is only meant to be used for changing patches in synths (for this it works well) as the PCM is not sent until the clip actually changes. Makes sense if you think about it as you wouldn’t want PCMs sent to synths to make the synth patch change before the next clip had started playing. I think Roland have been quite clever in this regard to cater for both scenarios.
The clip method doesn’t give the A4 enough time to cue up the next pattern so it plays for another cycle. With the scenes method the PCM is sent as soon as the next scene is selected making both MC-707 clips and A4 patterns cue up at the same.
man, i just created an account to thank you for this info , dude, been searching all over the place for a fix to this sync problem, turns out it applies the same for mc-707 -> Volca drum, im happy thanks man
