ROLAND MC 707 - Demo jam and first impressions

Let's spend 30 minutes playing the new ROLAND MC 707 GROOVEBOX. I'll take you on a tour of the sounds, discuss some of the features, quirks and drawbacks then put together a quick jam track using the clip sequencer and some beats. The ROLAND MC 707 is the bigger brother of the ROLAND MC 101 and I hope to have more demos of both coming up in the near future. You'll hear the pad sounds, derived from the ZenCore SuperNatural synth engine, JUNO 106, JUPITER and some great patches from the legendary ROLAND XV 5080. I'll give you a mini-tutorial on recording tracks and my initial first impressions review.

MORE WOODY PIANO SHACK

[progwaver]

seems to be a nice item... but why the hell Roland offers not a at least 9 Inch smartphone display ??
we live in 2020 now... not more in the 90s... have they left this displays from earlier stuff they did or what ?? I think I remember an earlier unit they once used this kind of Display... thats bit frustrating… for 900 bucks should be a 9 or 10 Inch display not a Problem ?? Not ??... every shit low cost smartphone cheaper price has that …

[goodboid]

If you like connecting your midi keyboard to grooveboxes, the Akai Force with it's hype engine will blow you away. And it's nowhere this frustrating. And especially since the price drop to $900, the Force is a ridiculously good deal.

Thanks for an unusual demo!

[monsirto]

Nice video. Had a look at it, my old mc505 will stay.

[AndrewAHayes]

the lack of count in is noticeable as when the start point comes around to loop it seems to lose the beat on which you start, I would have thought the quantise could take care of that

[WildernessMusic_GentleSerene]

So nice to get a keyboardists perspective on products. Woody, you're one of the few who can play, most other reviews are from tweekers. Never thought of the 707 as a great sequencer for the big sound bank and clip selection until this video, and I did not know it had 8 measures, I thought it was a max of 4. (yes there is song mode but song mode is not a flowing workflow).

[geofff]

It's actually good to see the frustrations of a first time user that has lots of experience with gear. It gives one a sense of what to expect while learning the machine, in contrast to all the highly polished demonstrations that make using some new piece of gear look easy.

[DylanParisMusic]

these pads are giving me chills, i have so many soft synths.... i don't need this.. i'm in debttt

[laurentgratton]

You can hold clear and hit the Track’s SEL button to clear the whole clip, I just found this and it’s definitely made noodling around easier!

[svatyvoj]

Hi, for yout undo function, you can press Clear+Sel (or Clear+step you want to delet) to delete your recorded take or you can go to sequencer and adjust the one bad recorde step, rather than record it again. This should solve the workflow problem right?

[allisterwhitehead]

this is excellent. I was going to buy this as part of my DJ set up, just for beats and minimal music hits but this has really broadened my impression of its capabilities. Nothing worse than 'fiddling' when you're playing live and this seems to have the best balance between live playability and sonic possibilities. Too many grooveboxes are aimed at the laptop musicians that want to go dawless, rather than DJs who want to bring a live element into their sets (me!!). This is exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks!

[jettero]

Great Video! Will be getting mine in March, and will MIDI my Korg Wavestate MkII & Korg Modwave MkII to this and have some great fun, 😄👍

[MatusFinchus]

Sorry if this has been mentioned, but there is a record count in now. :-) As at v1.72.

[maccagrabme]

I can see the appeal of having a module with all their legacy sounds and the modern zencore with hands on control but this looks too irritating to use in its current form. Give me these zencore sounds and the current ACB sounds in a module or rack with colour screen like the Akai mpc or Yamaha modx and I'll buy one.

[TheGonk]

Did anyone else find themselves shouting "Press Enter! Press Enter!" while watching this?

[paulsharp]

Good video. Being right handed I would have preferred the screen and patch selector to be on the left side of the unit.

[iseeolly]

Top marks for using a keyboard with it! have an Akai MPC live, I just know that it's a top notch bit of kit, so many options....but it's the only bit of kit I own where I need the manual to I'm just getting old. Another great vid Woody!

[XavierRadix]

Nice to see how Roland really packed a lot of stuff in there!
My first impression of this was that it was just another drum machine, boy was I wrong :).

[unicorn]

No que in, no clip editing, no song mode, no user patches (only projects), no VST editor & no midi specification. It could be so good sound module & great groovebox if it was done properly. Let's hope that some issues will be addressed in future updates.

[TheSoundTestRoom]

Hi Woody, great video that answered a lot of my questions on the 707, just another quick one, does the midi input via a keyboard respond to sustain pedal input too?
Cheers
Doug

[Drumsdude]

Great! After last firmware updates Roland brought count-in functionality)