Roland • MC-505 Groovebox
An all in one techno music production studio, this machine has it all. A massive collection of professional and coveted electronic synth and drum sounds, effects, built-in real-time VCF and envelope knobs for tweaking, a sequencer/arranger, and many other great additions. This is the successor to the MC-303 and is now much more advanced. Its sounds will be familiar to any techno-head.
The LFO and resonant filters allow quick and easy sound manipulation. The new D-Beam allows you to randomly tweak your sounds by passing your hand over an infrared beam! It has a great sequencer for building your songs (with groove quantizing and part level faders for mixing) as well as many idea catchers like the phrase sampler and arpeggiator.
This is an all-in-one music machine that's great for DJ's or anybody else who wants to create slamming dance tracks. Designed as a stand alone machine, they do not work quite as well when incorporated into a multi-synth keyboard rig. It's perfect for beginners and advanced users, but offers the most possibility to those who will use it exclusively. By the way, in comparison to the MC-303, this is far better especially in the quality and quantity of sounds! It is used by Beck, Chicks On Speed, Peaches, Freddy Fresh, and Cibo Matto.
I have repair the display for like 65$can. , by ordering a replacement display from rightkeyrepair.com , . It's a upgraded display , it won't heat and loose pixel again . I've been able to install it by myself in one hour of work . They can provide a good DIY .
http://chomikuj.pl/astral_zone/Syntezatory+Dema
you can also find some other vintage stuffs sounds up there
you just have to click blue 'play' button on the right
I boycotted buying Roland products for a while espescially on items another manufacturer might make also. Which in my book is a shame because I've been buying Roland ever since the SH1000.
So for me, 8/10 without accounting for the display issues, or 3/10 with display issues. (You need to see what you're doing when you're doing it - like the names etc.).
Very, very disapointed with Roland over this display issue.
I like this machine a lot for all the things it can do like Midi control over other synths, pattern sequencer real time control etc.
What I didn't like was that the display pixels went on it and Roland would not replace the display screen under some sort of 'hidden warrantee'. Which is a shame because it seems just about all the ones I've seen listed for sale have the same issue.
Since I use it as a 'band in the box' with my original patterns to play against, I needed that screen fixed. So at great expense to me, another screen was customized for my MC 505 by techs. It cost me just over $200 to get it repaired.
Part Two to follow...