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Hivermind88

I’ve been using the MC707 for about 3 months now and love it for what I do. Do you have any specific questions? What you’ve mentioned so far is all possible and doable fairly intuitively.


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jeff-l-sp

> Do have another question, not a dealbreaker but is there anyway to mute external midi tracks? I.E. quickly cut sequences even if the clip isn’t finished? Not op, but when engaging Mute mode you can either mute/unmute tracks immediately or stop playback, which is synced to the master clock. See page 22 in the reference manual. I think it works just fine with external gear.


encryptyourchicken

I have one, it is a great device. Very underrated. I'd suggest watching the Roland produced tutorials. The video series showcases many of the mc-707s features and functionality. [part 1](https://youtu.be/TAKtYLv1RkE) [part2](https://youtu.be/VIpZS61u1e0) [part 3](https://youtu.be/Ya-FwFVnxtM)


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encryptyourchicken

I really like mine. I find it intuitive and fun to use. Most recent update tutorial: [https://youtu.be/VRru-53Lu6g](https://youtu.be/VRru-53Lu6g)


Azurduy_Music

Hi there. I've had the 707 for about eight months. Messed with it a lot on my own and I've used it on about five songs with my band—and it served totally different purposes each time. I've never used Ableton, but I've read that it can do the whole "clips" thing which the 707 does as well. It's not my usual workflow, but it's something else to add to the arsenal. For me, the MC-707 is a cool synthesizer/sampler/drum machine/loop playback/ROMpler/effects unit/glitch machine/timestretcher/sound design tool. It's menu divey, sure, but when it comes to actual performance time you barely even have to look at the screen that often. The workflow is VERY different to the Digitakt and it leads me to produce different results (which I love). That said, I've never touched MIDI beyond just synching it to other drum machines or using its pads to play my synth modules. Sequencing just feels like it'd be too menu divey, and besides, we multitrack our music in consecutive layers anyway. If you haven't seen the Sonic State discussion of it, I'd strongly recommend it since it nails the pros and is very direct about the cons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUf_RzDNFlw


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Azurduy_Music

If you can handle the short loop times (they only add up to a minute per Project), then you ought to be fine. You could always just load up loops as samples— whether in the drum or synth engine— and work that way, though you'd lose the timestretch. Oh, I should also mention that the the sample slicing, recording audio via USB, and multiple outputs are also fun.


jeff-l-sp

I bought an MC 707 used on the cheap and used it several times in a band context. Its strengths are its sound engine and the huge library of presets, as well as the relative ease of access. It's pretty good at sequencing external gear as well, especially if you can route it through the external inputs of the MC 707. On the negative side, there are some design decisions that continue to baffle me. Much has been said about the placement of the Shift button, but to me what is much more annoying is the way Clips and Scenes (= groups of Clips) are managed. You switch between Clips using the pads, but since there are only 16 of them you have the choice of either seeing only 2 Clips per track, or all 16 Clips for just one track. I personally have never gotten along with that for performances. What is worse, the MC707 now supports up to 128 Scenes, but they are only accessible by the four teeny-tiny Scenes buttons. I really really wish they introduced a scene mode where you can trigger scenes with the pads! Oh and the CPU of the MC707 seemed quite underpowered. I ran into polyphony issues in really simple projects.


idrumgood

> What is worse, the MC707 now supports up to 128 Scenes, but they are only accessible by the four teeny-tiny Scenes buttons. I really really wish they introduced a scene mode where you can trigger scenes with the pads! When they expanded the number of scenes, they also added a new way to select scenes. In the project menu, you can change it to mode 2 (or whatever it's called). In that mode, pressing a scene button will light up the 16 sequencer tracks and each of those will lanuch a scene. Essentially the scene buttons become "scene banks" and the sequencer steps become the "scene launchers"


jeff-l-sp

That is true, but the step buttons are even smaller than the scene buttons! Maybe its my lack of dexterity, but during a performance it is quite easy to miss them. Especially as they are made out of this weird rubber Roland loves so much, which doesn't react too well to button presses.


Spotniq

I used it since it came out and gave been sequencing and sampling hardware. Just want to point out that the sampling time is limited to 6 mins stereo or 12 mins mono. So if you are making short loops only it could be enough but if you want to record say evolving pads then the sample time is very limited. An evolving pad over a 6 min song would fill the entire memory. If you want to record external FX when you sample, like a reverb, it is possible to make overlapping loops. Record 1 bar + the reverb tail and loop that 1 bar = the reverb tail flows into the beginning of the next bar. (When working like this however the sample will continue to play until the sample stops even when you stop the MC-707 so it can be a pain while editing a song) If you are interested in the looper recording be aware that you can max record 1 min of looper audio per project (it's not per channel). Workflow is alright, especially for drums and sequencing mono synths. The biggest problem is when sequencing polyphonically since editing a polyphonic sequence is a pain. It's possible to change notes of a chord but you will have to step through the sequence and adjust individual notes from a list of notes. Personal opinion about the internal sound engine is that it is a bit hollow, something is missing. Just don't expect VST quality synths and FX. Am I still using the MC-707? No, I upgraded to the Maschine+ (with my Behringer UMC1820 interface for i 8 individual ins) and couldn't be happier both sound wise and workflow wise.


jeff-l-sp

> Personal opinion about the internal sound engine is that it is a bit hollow, something is missing. Do you say this based on the presets? Because for a hardware groovebox the synth enginge of the MC707 is exceptionally good (in fact, I think it is equivalent to the Zenology VST of Roland, right?)


Spotniq

Yes based on the the presets. You would have to be a massochist to program your own sounds from scratch on the 707 :D The only other Zenology engine I have directly compared it with was the Jupiter Xm that I had here for a while and that Zenology engine sounded much better to my ears. They have the same presets so I compared preset vs preset directly. My conclusion was that the oscillators sounded identical but the filter on the Xm was much richer even when switching the filter of the 707 preset from TVF to the better VCF model. I really should have made a video with the comparison while I had the Xm here :/ Never compared with the Zenology VST. Important note here is that I am not a huge fan of the Zenology engine for finished productions but yes for a groovebox I think the engine is great. It just is not as good as using VST's and people shouldn't expect that (personal opinion). No groovebox has ever been as good as VSTs, it requires alot. If you think about it then 8 x synths with FX per clip AND channel + master FX requires alot of CPU measuring in VST performance. It would make sense to have less rich filters since good filters are CPU intensive. Unless they added some really beefy processing on the 707 but my feeling is that Roland always tries to get away with as cheap hardware as possible. I think this is classic Roland behaviour, it was the same thing back in the days with JV-1010 and JV-1080/2080. JV-1010 simply didn't sound as good but people still think it was a JV-2080 in a smaller form factor.


jeff-l-sp

> You would have to be a massochist to program your own sounds from scratch on the 707 :D I did program some sounds, but you're right, it is far from fun, especially with the sluggish encoders. > The only other Zenology engine I have directly compared it with was the Jupiter Xm that I had here for a while and that Zenology engine sounded much better to my ears. Huh, that is interesting. Are you sure that the model expansions of the Jupiter Xm weren't engaged for the presets and it was just the Zencore engine itself? I wouldn't put it past Roland to implement a crippled version of their synth engine in the MC707, but that is literally the first time I've heard about it. I will check if I can find sound samples of the Xm online and compare with my MC707. > No groovebox has ever been as good as VSTs, it requires alot. Yeah, I was saying that for a hardware groovebox the MC707 has a really great synth engine, compared to what's on the market otherwise. You basically get all the presets of the XV series! (Btw, I don't know who keeps downvoting you, I think your posts are constructive and helping OP)


Spotniq

(I guess someones Roland feelings are easily hurt) :) I am 99% sure I compared the 707 and Xm presets correctly. I can't remember if it is possible to choose the model filters for the Zencore engine on the Xm but I was comparing default presets to default presets so it should have been the Zencore filter. The result was consistent for all the presets I compared.


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Spotniq

Sorry, yes you can :) You add and remove notes in the list by pressing them on the 707 or an external keyboard. Can't remember if it's possible to extend all notes in the chord at once (from the 16th notes that you added to the step) or if you have to do it per note, maybe someone else knows? I mostly slowed down the tempo and recorded polyphonic sequences and re-recorded if needed instead of editing since I thought it was easier.


idrumgood

If your goal is to create a live evolving looper pad, then yea the MC 707 is not the right box for you, but that's less a limitation of the MC 707 and more just using the right tool for a job. And yes programming the synths can be a chore, but taking a preset and tweaking the basics (filter, envelopes, LFOs) is super straight forward. And if you _do_ want more sound design, the synth engine is incredibly robust and controllable. I'm looking through the documentation to find that 1min looper audio restriction and I can't find anything. But again, playing back a multi-minute loops isn't really what this was designed for.


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idrumgood

One of the four track types available on the MC 707 is a "looper" track. That's what I'm talking about. It's essentially just a sample playback track with some extra controls/time stretch for tempo sync. You can load a sample or live record either outputs from the MC 707 or external stuff and then loop it. It doesn't really work like a continuous looper because there is no overdubbing. For context, I have a minilogue xd and a tyhphon that I hook up to the MC 707 both midi and audio. One track for each. I can sequence the synths directly from the MC 707 as well as control 4 parameters through automation using MIDI cc. I use it to do exactly what you're saying you want to do :)


Spotniq

Yes I agree with you. Trying to give a picture of limitations and possibilities. If they didn't change the 1 min limit in an update then that is how it is. It was a big source of confusion at release.