Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

Thanks to my friend at Sam Ash NYC for the heads up, I got to spend 
about an hour with the MC-909 today.
 
I won't be repeating specs or anything like that, we all know that 
stuff. If you don't you can find such online on the Roland sites. 
Also take into consideration that this micro-review will probably 
highlight what I don't like as to what I do like. The reason is that 
I am already a groovebox fan and a big fan of the MC-505 and for the 
most part I love the specs and most of the functions of the MC-909. 
Therefore I spent my time with it today try to *use* it as I would 
live, going into presets, isolating parts, tweaking and moveing on, 
building grooves on the fly and trying to play rps, lead lines on 
the keypads and switch patches on the fly, modifying effects on the 
fly etc.
 
I was interested in feel and how things worked more than anything 
else. I did not spend any time whatsoever with sampling except to 
fiddle with the timestretching on some of the samples in some of the 
presets. Smooth and and what you would expect. I can't therefore 
comment on the ease of sampling, the sound quality, or the way in 
which a sample gets set up to be time stretched, etc. That will be 
on my next visit if any.
 
Synthesis: If you are familiar with mc-505 or any of the jv or xv 
units this is exactly the same. 4 layers per patch available and for 
the most part it is all layed out on the front panel. Nothing new, I 
didn't spend enought time to find any major differences and frankly 
I expect none.
 
Look and feel: It looks good! It feels good! my arms rested nicely 
on it as I tweaked away. Like the edges on the mc-505 they are just 
big enought to rest your hands/arms on. The Command Stations are 
even better with their fat ears. While it is actually quite big, it 
doesn't seem so until you see it next to an MC-505. In fact the 909 
looks to the 505 in almost perfect proportions as to what the 505 
looks to the 303. It was quite the family to see them all lined up. 
Papa bear, mama bear and baby bear totally!
 
Well I am hear to say that although we all know that baby can't hold 
a candle to mama, mama still has a few things on good ole dad and 
may even call the shots when out on the town. My conclusion below 
that this instrument would be better termed a groove-studio than a 
groovebox.
 
Use: My overall impression is that while Roland makes good use of 
the screen real estate, they may have gone a little overboard. Most 
of the functions that were available (and visible) using the keypads 
and the shift and function keys on the 505 are now buried in the 
screen menus. No more shift|x or function|x to get to the parameter 
you want to access. The screenprinting on the MC-909 is 
disconcertingly empty of information. Now you key into the F buttons 
under the screen and dive down a level or two and then are given a 
screen with all the parameters which you then scroll to using the 
direction keys and then modify using the wheel. Its all layed out, 
but in the end it is more work and not so immediate. Maybe its a 
toss up as to what is better, but I can say that if you forget about 
the features and functions on the MC-505, all you need to do is look 
on the faceplate and there they are. The MC-909 forces you to delve 
into the screens or the manual to see what is available.
 
The keypads. Nice rubber not too small and the small size 
nonetheless is a good trade off to get more octaves than say the 
Command Stations. One gripe: Since the pads are all the same color, 
despite the fact that the faceplate below them is painted to 
represent the white and black notes, it is hard to intuitively play 
the pads like a mini piano in the way that the colored keys of the 
505 and 303 and the staggered keys of the Command Stations do. I 
could see myself coloring the black keys with some sort of 
translucent marker or something in order to make my life easier. 
Roland should have done this for us IMO. The key velocity action is 
nice. But I didn't see, however, a way to set the velocity curve of 
such pads. There seemed to be only a choice of preseting the keys to 
either "real" or any one of the 128 fixed velocity amounts. Also 
there was no way to assign (that I could see) a particular velocity 
response to each key. The parameter was for all the keypads at once. 
In practice this is a bit limiting. Also, while I can see wanting to 
set the pads to 127 (full) rather than "real," it is less apparent 
why setting them to other values is that useful since you have to 
dig down into the menues to get to the parameter. In step editing I 
can see wanting to changed the velocity per note as you add to your 
pattern, or in drum-machine style, as you add different sounds to a 
beat. But since you have to dig down through the menu each time you 
want to make a change, I could see this becoming very very tedious. 
Bottom line, without some keyed "shortcuts" as I believe the 505 
has, you have less speedy work ahead of you if you want to be 
precise.
 
The buttons to the left of the keypad: RPS its all there. Nice the 
way you hold RPS and a minibox on the screen pops up and allows you 
to scroll visuallly throught the rps sets. Same goes for pattern 
select, nice. There is a hold button that works as advertised. The 
new button is chord memory. This works in much the same way as rps: 
you pre-set your chords in a different menu and save for later. 
I.e., a major triad, or a minor 7th etc. You construct whatever 
chords you like and store them in chord presets. Now when playing 
when you press and hold the chord button, the mini window pops up 
and you can scroll and choose your chord type. Now when the chord 
fucntion is enabled, you can play the keys and get the chords. What 
was missing is the obvious function and what I thought it was in the 
first place: Like my old Akai AX80 all you had to do was play a 
chord and hold it and then press the chord button, then the button 
would light and then each key would play that chord structure based 
on whatever note. I tried this at first and it didn't work. I held a 
simple two not chord and hit the chord button, no dice, just played 
the preset chord that was pre chosen. The buttons are wider than on 
the 505 so it was hard for me to hold down a four note octave 
spanning chord with one hand.Aha, the HOLD button! I pressed hold, 
hit my chosen chord notes, they all held, then I hit the CHORD 
button which lit. Then I turned of Hold and played the keypad and lo 
and behold, NO DICE. just the pre chosen chord. So much for live 
spontaneity. This will be a reoccuring theme of this review.
 
Mixer and part mutes, etc: The part mute/select button works as 
advertised as on the 505. The mixer button immediatey jumps you to 
the mixer view from whereever you are. This is nice. There is a Part 
Assign button that lets you toggle back and forth between having the 
sliders address tracks 1-8 and tracks 9-16. Interestingly on the 
mc505 the bottom 8 buttons were for the Rhythm parts. Now the bottom 
8 buttons are for full on tracks 9-16, BUT in all the patterns 
Roland has adhered to the recipe to place the rhythm sounds there, 
with kick on track 9 and snare on track 10 and you get the picture: 
if you had your eyes closed and just had your hands on the mute 
buttons, and were listening to preset patterns, you would be able to 
tell whether you were working a 505 or a 909! Only now you need not 
devote the bottom 8 tracks to only percussion as on the 505.
 
The mixer view screen shows you all 16 tracks at a glance with the 
Level Sliders represented on screen and three virtual knobs above 
each slider per track. One for pan, one for pitch and one for reverb 
send. While the Part Assign button toggles a wireframe box around 
each of half of the mixer (either 1-8 or 9-16) the F buttons under 
the screen let you choose to highlight either of the 4 tweakable 
choice per track. This is in contrast to the mc505 which has a 
button with dedicated leds next to the sliders which indicates what 
the sliders will do.
 
What is missing from the 505? Well I will tell you: Megamix for 
starters, enough said. But what else? Yikes! Where's the "delay 
amount" parameter? What about an "effects on/off" parameter? Both 
gone! Instead all you have other than level, pitch and pan is . . .  
REVERB?? What you prefer if you had a choice per track for readily 
available live tweaking: Reverb or Delay/Efx? Well the 505 gives you 
all three. If left with one, I would choose delay. Hell there is 
even a spare F button with NO FUNCTION just an empty space on the 
screen which they could have devoted to a single fx send. Seems like 
they didn't get to the coding for that for some reason.
 
The 909 doesn't have a Delay per se, other than the compressor and 
reverb and mastering section it has FX1 and FX2. Surely they could 
have let us use the sliders to controll one of the FX?? So how do 
you fiddle with a particular track's efx levels on the fly? It is 
not a pretty story. You hit Effects menu button and see a diagram of 
the fx flow. You then use the directional keys to highlight the 
track parameter, then turn the knob to choose say track 11, i.e., 
highhat, then you use the direction keys to move around the diagram 
to choose the signal flow. You have every permutation possible and 
one nice thing is that you can run through one, a couple or more 
effects and then go to an external out. This is nice because before 
on the mc505 the external outs were strictly dry. You can say route 
your track 11 to bypass the compressor and the reverb directly and 
go through FX1 and then route some of the output throught the reverb 
and then to the master outs while the mixe with the rest of the 
signal that you didn't route through the reverb.
 
Okay fine. This is all great. But this is what you have to do if you 
want to add some delay (fx1 set to a delay) to a particular track. 
No quick and easy button press and slider move such as possible with 
Reverb, pan, pitch or level. What this also means is that you cannot 
tweak any fx send level (other than reverb) simultaneously on more 
than one track by moving multiple faders. Can't do it. And what 
about the overal FX levels, reverb levels, etc? A quick scan of the 
face of the mc909 shows you that such three knobs are GONE. Yup, you 
can only set levels and such from the menu after diving down. In 
fact, the fx send and output levels are set PER track, not also 
globally, i.e. like the extra return tracks on a mixer. Not there--
its as if they are all up full and it is up to you to set the send 
amounts on each track only.
 
Now lets compare to the MC-505. There is a reverb, a delay and 1 FX. 
You can easily tweak the reverb and delay sends for each track using 
the sliders. You can easily turn off and on the efx to each track 
using the sliders too. No matter what the tracks are set too, you 
can reach and grab and twek down or up the overall delay or reverb 
or effect and even with a sinle button press use the dedicated knobs 
to change how much the delay or FX sends to the reverb and such; you 
can even tweak the effects quickly--such as delay time--in this way. 
Now the MC-909 has all of this (except global return levels as I 
have said (or perhaps I missed it)) and has MORE flexibility, but 
you aren't doing it quickly or intuitievly.
 
To be fair the MC-909 does have three knobs dedicated to FX, but 
they are freely assignable knobs that I don't believe will have a 
uniform function. I.e., I think what the TWO buttons will do will 
depend on what Effect you choose with the THIRD Effect type knob. 
There is a knob assign buttons that gives no information as to what 
it does and the knobs don't have any type of shift function noted. 
(and I didn't have time to figure it out) But, let me put it this 
way: if you are not completely sure what those knobs will do while 
you are in a particular pattern (that has called its own effects up) 
that you somehow dialed into while jamming or performing live in an 
improv situation (like I often enjoy doing) then you are a sucker if 
you touch one of those three knobs or buttons, because what happens 
next is anyone's guess!
 
So this brings us back to the theme of my time with the MC-909. Like 
the chord button and the rps and the patten select and the effects 
sections and basically all the parameters, this box can do a lot if 
you spend some time before-hand setting everything up. On the fly 
stuff is just not as happening or possible as on the MC-505, even 
not considering Megamix, the omission of which is simply madness--I 
observed absolutely nothing about the pattern functionality of the 
MC-909 that would prohibit Megamix.
 
(Okay I can't resist a little rant here again: Roland's statement 
that losing megamix is tradeoff of having 16 tracks is the dumbest 
thing I have ever heard--so much for increased technology in five 
years--imagine having megamix extended to the tracks containing the 
separate drum parts, the ability to megamix in a different kick or 
highhat while maintaining the remaining rhythm parts in a way that 
is impossible on the 505 unless you devote extra tracks to such 
rhythm parts--If the 909 allowed that I guarantee that there 
wouldn't be such a dribble of actual ownership on the mc-909 list)
 
This is why I said earlier that the MC-909 is more of a GrooveStudio 
than a Groovebox. Yes, yes, yes, the sampling and the on-the-fly 
timestretching of samples makes the live prospects of sample use 
very very exciting and for the first time possible with the MC-909. 
And the chord function is a nice addition to the rps and the pattern 
select features which are very live plusses! The turntable slider? 
Big Whup. I see no extra functionality than pressing BPM and quick 
turning the big knob on the MC-505. If Roland really wanted to make 
that huge slider useful they would have made indents along its 
length which you could set to meaningful intervals for pitch, like 
thirds or fifths or octaves. Images, slide to the indent and get a 
perfect fifth or octave? Sounds good right? Well forget it, start 
practicing your theremin skills because it is simple a static dbeam 
modulator the way it is. Speaking of dbeam I didn't try either of 
them so I can't comment. Actually I forgot to try them out, which is 
pretty much how I treat the dbeam on the 505. Bad parent! Bad 
Parent! Ah the poor dbeam.
 
Back to live functionality. Aside from the sample stretching 
niceties, the inability to meaningfully or consistently tweak 
effects levels other than reverb is simply an astounding ommission 
to me given the knobage devoted to matering effects and some other 
less live-important new features. Given the choice I gladly would 
prefer one of the envelope sections disappear and let one toggle 
between VCA and Pitch so as to make some room for extra quick effect 
controls. OR BETTER YET, bury the Mastering parameters into the 
screen and use the knobs for effects. What the hell do we need fast 
and furious access to the mastering compressor for instead of the 
ability to turn up a delay return?? As I said, this box seems to 
cast aside live use in order to highlight new "studio" features. As 
far as I could tell, every singe customer who came up to me at Sam 
Ash and asked me what I thought about the MC-909 was utterly 
clueless and complete novices. I am sure that in the properly 
coached salesperson's hands those mastering and random matrix one 
knobs will sell a good many units. Thanks Roland. "What the 
professionals asked for." It appears it may be what the professional 
MBAs in accounting at Roland asked for. Despite it amazing features, 
I may be much more forgiving of the word "toy" as used concerning 
the MC-909 as opposed to the MC-505 for which I never thought that 
term was justified. This all may seem harsh, and it is, but mainly I 
am disappointed coming from a great respect for the MC-505 as a very 
handy and fun tool. Roland has no one but itself to blame.
 
The use of the screen F buttons to choose the function of the mixer 
sliders seems okay, but if you are not looking at the mixer screen, 
which may be common during a live PA because you are looking at the 
pattern select screens or something, then there is no way to know 
(unless you remember) what the sliders are going to do if you move 
them. To be sure, you must go back to the mixer screen (mercifully 
you just hit the Mixer Assign button and see what they are set too. 
This is where at least the dedicated side LEDs next the mixer 
sliders on the MC505 would have been smartly retained. The inability 
to use the sliders to tweak other than reverb is constantly 
reinforced by the empty space above the F4 button. What, did they 
run out of time to implement allowing to tweak say FX1? This is so 
mental, and akin to a button that is there but has no function (I 
would like to be able to say "yet," but I never say a new 
functionality added on any roland gear I ever owned).
 
Recording: I spent the last 5 minutes trying to bang out a pattern. 
I had no manual so it was hit and miss. It looks like the big screen 
is put to good use to show what is happening with xox style 
recording and step recording. The sequencing editing stuff looks 
really good, just like a computer with the note tables and 
microscope mode. Very nice.
 
But . . . so my baseline sucked. Quick add some Play Quantize. A 
quick scan of the panel will show you that Play Quantize knobs are 
gone. Okay look in the menues. Oops I can't find any! I can only 
find the parameters for Edit-Quantize, which means that once you do 
it, its done, no going back. The regular types, grid, swing and 
groove templates.
 
But Geez! No Play Quantize? I sincerely hope I just couldn't find it 
and it is there, and I realize now that I forgot to press that 
button just to the right of the Screen entitled "Menu" (I have no 
idea what it does). So I hope it is there! If Play Quantize (i.e. 
one that you can try out and undo) is indeed missing from the MC-
909, then I must say that Roland is on drugs and I will be on a lot 
of drugs before I ever buy it. Even if it is there, the fact that it 
is so buried that I couldn't find it--instead of simply being on the 
panel so nicely as on the MC-505-- is again, not live-friendly. I 
must have missed it right? Someone with a unit please confirm! I 
can't imagine not being able to smoothly add a small amount of swing 
or groovequantise like on the 505, right? Forgive me if I missed it.
 
Filter: Sounds good and like the mc505 can be turned down internally 
to not go the whole gambit from 0 to 127. I think it set to 115 but 
still sounds pretty biting. I didn't try out the other filter types. 
No negatives to report about the synth so far. I really did not 
spend any time listening to sounds or presets. I assume they are 
fine.
 
Some good things about the screen: The effects for Step filter and 
the slicer use the the mixer sliders to set the steps and levels of 
each step and you can see it right there on the screen that is 
pretty cool. Well I joked about porn on the mc909 in the early days 
of speculation but it is possible. You can upload your own bmp files 
for the background picture and I bet one of ten screen savers will 
utilize your bmp images. Looking forward to some interesting 
pictures of your mc-909 guys . . . (but its not a toy!)
 
I don't really love the screen all that much though. It is so big 
that it seems that no particular lcd setting will give you a 
perfectly clear picture throughout and I shudder to think about the 
screen fading in years. But as you can see this is the least of my 
problems.
 
I think that is about it. Despite my rants, I am not totally sure 
that I won't get one, but it will have to be a pretty good deal 
(hint hint my friends at music stores). Even then, I don't know why 
I need it. And I am certain that the MC-505 is a better live machine 
(not including sample manipulation). I think that unless you will be 
using samples in big way and want to be able to improvise with a 
live band using such samples, then the 505 is a better tool. I 
*would* actually enjoy building an arsenal of samples and being able 
to use them whereever, whenever, with no click track in live 
settings with the 909. This is the biggest reason for me to get one 
if I ever do. In the studio, I don't need it whatsoever with my 
computer, XL7 and ton of synths. I think I must keep my MC-505 after 
all.
 
Summary: In the end my short visit with the MC-909 leaves me much 
where I was when I found out the details of the specs: Scratching my 
head at the choices made by Roland. I some ways this box is not the 
evolution of the groovebox but is more Roland's answer to the MPC's. 
Knowing first-hand the awesome strengths of both the MC-505 and the 
MC-909 and also seeing the design choices made in the 909 that don't 
retain the features or usefulness of the 505 seemingly just to be 
different (i.e. all the reliance on the screen) or to highlight new 
features (mastering effects knobs) it just seems so sad. It is as if 
those who designed the MC-303 and the MC-505 did not work on the MC-
909 at all; and those who did, never really played the 505 or 
understood its importance as a live tool as part of its allure. Pity.
 
Value: If the Command Stations are going for $699, then the MC909 
should be $1099 max.
 
If the Command Station O.S. 2.0 adds some wild new features, the 
Command Stations will be the new kings despite the lack of sampler. 
For me, I am finding a new interest in my Yamaha A5000 which I 
bought as a companion to my existing grooveboxes.
 
Hope you found this helpful. My apologies for completely forgetting 
to find out what the hell "Matrix Control 1," "Random Modify" and 
the "Fat" buttons do (something tells me they don't tweak effects or 
quantise functions). Comments please.
 
Ravi