Support
Looper's Delight
|
Support |
|
|
> Thinking of buying one of these tools - someone who has experience with > either please let me know what you like/dislike. And if anyone has > recommendations for other similar tools please let me know. I use an MC505 and must up front say I do NOT do classic techno. IMO it is a very versatile box that has a lot of realtime control for warping sounds and creating experimental noises and rhythms. Given the absurdly low used prices on an MC505 I would *highly* recommend buying this over a new MC909. I saw a MC505 for $250 this week and often see them for less that $500 - that is just sick given they were $1100 new only a few years ago. I expect the same thing will happen to the MC909 in a few years and for the difference you can get a MC505 and a good sampler right now. For varying opinions of the 505 read the reviews on Harmony Central: http://www.harmony-central.com/Synth/Data/Roland/MC-505-01.html Here is a posting I did on Analog Heaven a few years ago after I first used the 505 a bit. This touches on it's more practical capabilities outside of the obvious techno boom boom boom stuff: ------------------------------ It's very tempting to use the presets. VERY. I'm not a techno producer let alone anyone who knows Gabber from Jungle from Darkstep, etc. The presets are plentiful and instantly fun. I can waste an hour playing with them each time I turn it on so it takes some self control to "get down to business" instead. Sometimes I don't bother. This reminds me a *lot* of how I used to use my Linn 9000. It has a very practical mixer which can work volume, panning, keytrack (pitch shifting), effects, etc etc. Without using anything fancy I can lay down a decent sampled drum pattern on a number of kits and then pitch shift and do some live digital delay tweaking that really makes my avant ears pick up. No techno within a mile and yet it's all 100% inside this box. You have 7 "sound" parts and a full drum kit with separate muting on the various bits (BD, SR, Toms, HHat, etc). You can also assign individual drumsounds to parts 1-7 and have an individually processed drum kit with sliders for vol, pitch, effect, etc. this is a sample based beatbox that has more going for it than any other drum machine I've used. (I'm in fear for my R8 mkII I just got last month after one night with this). The filter, envelope, LFO, etc are all fine. They process the sound along with the reverb and delay and other effects. All these are very tweakable and programmable in mutating song mode. No, it's not a Phat minimoog filter. No, it's not an analogue LFO. But it's interesting in and of itself and if you don't compare it to something it's not then it serves a very useful purpose. I'm glad those elements are in there. FWIW the filter sounds a *lot* better than the one in the MC303 to my ignorant ears. It's got programming depth as well as simplicity. I haven't looked at the manual yet but I've figured out realtime writing, mixing, processing and such. This is what I want from a box. I don't like confusion I like simplicity. Now, as I go further into it I'll take a few more challenges but this does a lot of interesting things that I used to do with my ASR10 and Mirage. The sounds are so varied (unedited) I can pretty much get anything I want. farfisa organs, grand pianos, flutes, special effects, noise, etc mix with backwards percussion, X0X, and more. If you mess with it in edit mode (love that keytrack!) I can make unusual and on the fly patterns and detuned and processed noise from hell. It can also be pretty or melodic if I want. I wish I had this back in my industrial/blues days... The D_Beam is kind of silly but fun. What the hell, it's on there so it's cool to play with. I haven't assigned anything to it yet but I imagine doing something other than BPM and cutoff will prove to make this a useful addition. It ain't a 303/909/808. - Thank God. It ain't that analog sounding. - So what. It excells in industrial and digital noise. I did a John Cage inspired piano based rhythm track with a destroyed 800 loop, mutating pad and piano sample. I was about to buy my old MC202 back. I'm glad I found this instead as it has a lot more flexibilty and is more challenging for me. I'm not sure how it will fit in with what I'm doing these days but I am enjoying learning how it works. It is a far cry from the MC303. A *lot* more useful and practical for various genres of music.