Roland TR-707: Going Back In Time With Bill Holland

Digging up a relic of yester-score, Bill Holland takes a look at the Roland TR-707, which is finally stepping out of the shadow of the Roland TR-909 for throwback eight and six bit drum samples, which are all the rage these days.

See the TR-707 at its campiest, complete with more cowbell and even more tambo. It'll be like that time Ben Stiller seized all my candy when I was a kid.

See more on Gearwire.com.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Roland
• TR-707

[foraxx]

"unlike the 808 they don't have a tap function"

"i'm going to hold shift and hit pattern step / TAP"

[gearwire]

thanks for that. I figured that out after borrowing it. I never get enough time with the gear before we demo.

[lych14]

can you sequence more than 1 measure? if not can you save several patterns and play them in the order as you want?

Great demo anyway thanx!

[gearwire]

64 patterns can be stored, but I forget the number of measures per pattern.

[acidchild]

#5. Pattern length can be altered via the "Last Step" option. It has nothing to do with the length of the drum samples. Don't know where that came from.

#6. What's weird about the tempo? You turn the Tempo knob, it changes tempo. What's weird about that?

Once again, gearwire offers up more misinformation.

[gearwire]

5. I was talking about the release on the drum...i'm more used to using samplers as drum machines. I did not demo "last step" because the button on this particular model was acting up.

6. The tempo knob is not very accurate, so I would most likely slave it to a midi sequencer of some kind.

Thanks for catching a few of those. I hope this clears the other up.

-Bill

[OctaveRange]

Putting an Accent on every step kind of defeats the purpose of having an Accent - Just turn the volume up a bit if you want everything louder!

[fender1000100]

Good machine but a Yanaha RX11 has more punch and a better bass drum and clap. For less bucks.

[teknofon]

the 909s have some sampled sounds like the crash and hi hats!

and by the way you can tap in the patterns on the 707

and also you can change the pattern length on the 707

do you know anything about the 707?

[POLCAPI458]

The best drum machine ever!

[dusp2k]

@andy92811 No

[dusp2k]

@dubadoobie With the clear button?

[dubadoobie]

how do you clear the patterns?

[funkocoriko]

The "shuffle" function on the tr707 is DOPE.

[smackyjack]

I remember hating Roland for making these. I still do.

[theepastajoe]

Great Video...very helpful. Was reading through your comments, and sorry to see there are people just trying to prove everyone wrong. I thought EVERYTHING you said was helpful. Thanks for posting!

[PHAEDRIDER]

i bought one of these last week, i didnt "need " it because i have a drumtraks, BUT the brain OOOH the brain on this sucker. within a few minutes i had it clocking the arppegiator on my juno 60 in wonderful ways. and theres still midi AND dinsynch in case i wind up with an 808 i can slave it or ( more realistically a 606 or dr 110) to midi. best part is is was cheap . i walked out with it for 186 at a pawnshop . ohh. and it has sounds in it too.