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.

R3

December 3, 2011 @ 2:43 pm

Imagine having the Roland JD-800, an eight track sequencer and samples from every vintage Roland drum machine all in one box. Yes, it is digital. Yes, the preset patterns and large chunk of the patches are dreadful, but the amount of detail you can put into programming patches and songs on this thing is absurd. The phone-book sized manual is testimonial to this. Peaches and M.I.A. built their entire music careers with this box alone. If you can't make this thing sound good, then there's something seriously wrong with you.

Smoinync

November 23, 2011 @ 9:41 am

Amazing unit, everyone should own one, cuz u would have all that legendary sounds from Roland's timeline. it can be applied to other midi equipped machines with ease. Ive tried midi syncing it with MKS 7 which would be adding up an analog-densed sound into a sequence, lookin great when amplified. I also hooked it up with iPad's ims20, animoog thru midi usb cable which gave a good fun result.
Nothing to complain bout it but forcing myself to read thru the thick manual was the most pain in ass.

Thomas

November 8, 2011 @ 8:46 am

Nice machine... classic Roland sound (and a lot of it!) in a box.

The user interface is almost worse than the manual, but once you start getting the hang of it, it's got a lot of mileage in it: This machine was intended for live use - the RPS and the Pattern Call features, not to mention the D-Beam.
The presets are good, but force you into clichés - make your own suonds and patterns. As for sonic variety, remember that it has 2 extra stereo outputs.
Only problem is that it's userinterface is odd and way too deep... I've had mine for years and I'm only starting to get into it.

Greg M

November 1, 2011 @ 1:06 am

this is the ultimate machine for electro music
got since 1996 and i juste love
forget all the vst crap
this will kick in yoour ear trust me

Terry Tekno

September 29, 2011 @ 1:19 am

err... toy lover I vaguely get what your saying jeez it was a struggle!
Anyway reading comments for the 505, gotta agree its a good unit.... better than the mc303 and mc909. Will become a classic if it isn't already even with the analog snobs looking down! The sounds are very useable across the board, just ignore the presets as much as possible. Also get the storage cards while you can as they are getting rarer.

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