Roland MC-505

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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.

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Demos & Media

Roland MC-505 Groovebox walk through part 1
by
BluePlanetMedia
Roland MC-505 Groovebox walk through part 2
by
BluePlanetMedia
Audio Clip 1 Here are some cool techno and trance song and pattern demos from the MC-505.
ManualRoland has made manuals for most of their products available as free PDF downloads.

Specifications

Polyphony - 64 Voices
Oscillators - Acoustic Simulation and ROM Samples
Filter - real-time resonant filter
Drums - 26 kits
Effects - 24 effects
Arpeg/Seq - Has Arpeggiator and Sequencer (up to 95,000 notes)
Keyboard - 16 small keys/buttons
Control - MIDI
Date Produced - 1998

Resources