A quick jam session on the Roland MC-808

[DeliriumElectric]

Sounds thick in a good way

[punecrusher5000]

dude, that was badass

[akarc24]

hey, so if i wanted to hook up my korg triton to this thing via midi, could i do that and playback/record my synths sounds, and just use the mc 808 as an external sequencer to hold all the data?

thanks

[fastmoneyproductions]

its kind of like the redrum on reason.

The faders are sick.

[dcer10]

Kind of like the redrum + everything else on reason plus a whole lot more, but you can touch (play) it with your hands!

[afxmono]

I'm not sure if this has already been addressed, but can you disable the motorized fader movement if you have previously recorded the movement of the effect or level it was controlling? Thank you.

[dcer10]

Has been discussed. You can turn the motors off.

[THEDEFOCATOR]

Does that have the Time Trip effect like the vsynth?

[dcer10]

I dont have a Vsynth, but it does do real time pitch changing, BPM change, as well as "Auto Sync" to keep your samples in time.

[xenomorphmonkey]

Fuck man I love this groove, one day ill get my time poor pc gaming shit together and focu on some track making

[charcharbiotch]

i want to buy one of these. is that all i need to make the music. just record, transfer it to a computer then cd? its so daunting.

[Batman83]

In a nutshell yes. It can be more complex depending on how you want to make it sound.

[dcer10]

Buy one, there the best. You can use it as a one stop shop for sequencing, sampling, synts, fx, even mastering (you could re master your whole song as a sample via the mastering section and resample it back out as a CD ready song). Its not daunting, just take it slowly and do one thing at a time as you learn. If you are serious about getting into electronic music this box will do it all and is perfect for a beginner or a pro.

[charcharbiotch]

thanks to you guys i have the courage to learn more about electronic music via roland mc. id love to make music someday. thanks again!

[GLUCHOLAZY1]

Yo there can U tel me which ram memory did you use. I tryed few and nop one works popely. Peace

[dcer10]

I cant recall the ram used specifically, it was a 512mb stick. Im pretty sure it says in the manual.

[Shadow432643]

Nice :) I like it...

[SecondLifeSailing]

NOISY CLICKS ON THE SLIDERS ;\

[ensian13]

best thing i ever bought

[tigersun8]

what do the motor faders control? EQ? volume of the individual samples?

and how do you change them? move them as the song is playing and the mc808 remembers it all?

[dcer10]

They control a few sound design controls ie some envelope stages, FX depth, filter, resonance, volume, pan. You can record the changes in your patterns easily and it will play them back (and move the sliders). This machine isnt all samples either ,it has a fully blown synth engine. The only problem is that you cant control all the synth parameters from the front panel, you need a PC as the editor (with the provided software which is REALLY easy to use).

[dcer10]

continued...

Another thing you can do with it is use it as a midi player for other gear as the memory of the sequencer is not as limited as other hardware sequencers making a great master sequencer for a live show with great performance controls..... the list goes on!!!

Sorry for the ramble but does that answer your questions Aronsnowman?

[dcer10]

continued....

You can even record your song as a sample and master it with the onboard mastering DSP. Its everything anyone would need wanting to make electronic music (at least in a basic way), and its the number 1 groovebox in my opinion out there. If you have just enough money to buy this and some powered speakers you can have a hands on electronic music studio suited well to hip hop, electro, techno or whatever else you might like to make in that realm of things..

[dcer10]

contined...

This box really has it all, its a sampler (but the inputs are pretty average quality wise, but its great to play back samples you import via the flash card that you can record on something else, or to resample itself) its an advanced sequencer, it has a great synth (but someone should make a sysex editor to run on a control freak or an external midi control surface) as you cant really edit much of the synths parameters via the panel.

[Aronsnowman]

so does the grove box already have the beat in it??

can u make songs with it and cud u tell me anything else that i shud know coz i dunno anything about this

thnx

[dcer10]

No this beat is not in it, its one I made. It only took a couple of minutes and its nothing that special really!

You can make beats like this yourself if you are familiar with using this sort of gear.

You can easily record your performance paramters into the patterns, and then chain the patterns into a completed song.

[elhacxx]

to make a pattern like this definetly you have to use a p.c or what?

[dcer10]

Not at all, this was made using the MC808 by itself. No extra samples loaded into it or anything. In fact I have hardly used the PC editor at all as its so slow to load up and isnt talking to my mac properly via usb.

[michaelinoman]

this is a standard pattern in the mc-808

[dcer10]

Michaelinoman, it is not a standard pattern in the MC808, its one of my own. Check your facts.

[pendulum314]

loool

better youd shut your scary lego mouth man!

[Boogieflex]

hello can you make a video turtorial from the mc 808 how to make beats with it step by step ???

[dcer10]

I will try to make some more soon!

[michaelinoman]

Sorry dcer, you are right. I mistaked your movie with another movie i was watching about the MC-808. Your beat is NOT standard! Keep up the good work.

[krunk1586]

this beat actually pretty fuckin good most beat maker can't do shit, but your right on with this

[clearyxxx]

i could listen 2 dat beat all day long.

[dcer10]

Thanks! BTW People the faders are still going strong, no signs of ware yet. Its had heavy use too.

[krunk1586]

I'm gonna be buying one of these in the next month or so, other than this peice of magic you've conjured while making this track, I need to know cus i've read a bunch of reviews from people bitching about it, is it all that it's cracked up to be? cus I personally think it's amazing from the video's i've seen on it

[shernga]

does anyone know of anything like this machine but for a whole lot cheaper??

[Keiretsu]

Korg EMX or ESX

[owlwink]

both are completly different.

judging by your comment,i would suggest you go for the emx.

[Gephenneberke]

Yeah and if you are really retarded you can set the faders to follow the click so that you got a fader-click-track. I may not be very usefull but it makes you look even more importend! Whahaha

[Rhiz0m0rph]

haha it looks so fucking ugly but i can imagine it being very useful

[aharambol]

sorry, have to correct my previous comment : how long would it take until the faders break ? Is it possible to stop the faders moving during playback ?

[TenThousandFeetTall]

I was actually reluctant to buy the 808 because of the motor faders. However, they work fine, and I haven't really heard anything overly bad about them in the roland community. You can also turn the motor faders off if you don't like them, and they can be moved easily during playback (although, the faders stop moving until you activate them again during play).

[aharambol]

thanx a lot for your information :+)

[aharambol]

sorry, have to correct my previous comment : how long would it take until the faders break ? Is it possible to stop the faders moving during playback ?

[aharambol]

wonder how long the faders give up... is it possible to switch the automation off ?

[digitaljosh]

Those faders are Creeping me out.

[nativeops]

any of those faders go out yet?

[dcer10]

Not yet thank goodness!

[nativeops]

how long have you had yours?

[Inertron]

excellent track. nice work.

[auroramsx]

Interesting track :-) And I actually like the sound quality - gives it a 'garage/underground' feel :-D

[vivipedraglio]

5 stars...i want to buy one in this week....congrats! luv your jam!

[sirpryde]

tidy stuff can u do side chain compression on this box of joy, ne other feedback on the eeffects chains be great cheers

[dcer10]

Also I noticed that when using the midi jacks only 1 midi channel (part) can be used at a time from an external sequencer (unless theres some setting im unaware of) but via the usb midi I could manage to use all 16 channels (only tried from 1 soft seq so far being SEQ303).

[dcer10]

Another thing not so cool about it is that the USB aspect is very messy. You can have midi via USB or storage (via card or internal memory) to the pc for backup and sample dumps etc. The normal midi jacks wont work when the storage mode is enabled.

[dcer10]

Also as a sample player this machine is very good. The only thing that I think is not all that great is the need to hook up to a PC to do the detailed sample / patch editing. For the money you couldnt complain about that aspect... I am thinking of building a very slim small PC from a VIA Epia mainboard and making a custom case that the 808 can fit on top of with a touch screen popping up above the MC808 for real time editing of the patches and samples with a stylus.

[Peeloffrx7]

if you ever do get that done... spare some time to post a video... i'd love to see something like that done!!!

[dcer10]

The FX are great as you said, esp the routing aspect. With having drums on seperate tracks thats easy to set up, you could have 16 tracks of just drums if you like. Put one drum sound per track and you would have full control of level, pan, fx, filters etc per drum sound - then sample your reuslts and put them into 1 part by themselves and free up all the voices and 15 other parts again!

[dcer10]

Hiya, thanks for your positive comments! I do use all of the recording modes, real time (fed from my midibox sequencer, a keyboard or live from the pads - but the pads arent velocity sensative), TR mode (I have a TR 909 so for drums this is the most natural for me) and also step mode a la TB-303. They are all awesome, but I havent used the MPC or Korg grooveboxes to make any fair comments about the comparison.

[H4NDCRAFTED]

Could you answer a question though, can you have a rhythm set on individual tracks, I.e kick on 1...snare on 2 clap on 3..etc.

On the other roland boxes you had to have 1 track for the whole rhythm set and no choice of panning drums..they were stuck in the stereo position the preset was at.

[dcer10]

Pls see comments below.

[H4NDCRAFTED]

This track is alot more interesting than most I have heard on the MC808, good work.

The amount of people that post that can't even get their sounds in the right key amazes me. I wonder how some poeple can be so tone def LOL.

Anyway nice to see somebody putting it to good use for a change.

[H4NDCRAFTED]

I wish this had more outs tbh. How you finding the sequencer, I have a D2 which is is the exactly the same sound engine as the mc505 but is only £80 on ebay, you can even use the mc505 pc editor for it. I don't really like rolands step editing compared to the yamahas and electribes I have had ;(

Sounds like your having no probs...or do you use reatime alot ?

[H4NDCRAFTED]

Cool, I know you can always turn them off if you want.

I just need a sample player as I work in ableton live, This could be the thing, its that or work with an mpc which I would like but the effects on roland gear are good even at the budget end. I keep my old sp808ex just for the effects section ;) Love the verbs , space echo and flanger emulations of the old boss and roland gear. Beats alot of plugin fx anyday.

[bananepoep]

yesss more mc808 groovers NICE.!

[H4NDCRAFTED]

wow those faders are noisy...i give them a year before they need replacing.

Nice tune though.

[dcer10]

Thats exactly what I thought but then when I heard it and tried it out I decided the noise was worth it.