Roland MC-707 8-track Groovebox Reviews

I really didn't know what to expect with the 707. I owned a MV8000 many years ago and struggled to transition from FL software to hardware...
I only settles for the 707 AFTER the RD9 and RD8 I ordered was delayed and/or out of stock.
I picked up a used 707 at CME and tried it out. The volume was low. The Pads were "weird."I couldn't understand the workflow at all...
Fortunately for me. I also had a great reference machine. The TR-08.
Once I figured the TR-08 out ... I recycled the MC707.
OMG!! I Get it.
You have to set it up for your use.
This Box is Powerful!!
Love the Updates.
She is the BIG BRAIN of everything!
The Pads make sense NOW. ZENCORE IS AWESOME! DONT DISRESPECT IT BCUS OF THE SIZE! You can create VERY LARGE SOUND ROOMS!
It's portable; depending on ya backpack size or luggage. Light weight. Very intuitive IF you understand any Roland drum machine.
Probably could use a 4th/5th knob for assignable EFX
Muting Drums could be better or just sync a TR8S for easier control
But overall...
I really love the MC707.
Great for sketches or full production. Imo.

I bought mine used and intended to just use it as a sound module for a live looping setup in conjunction with a rc-505 mkii. But after going through the manual and roland cloud academy videos, I've been using it as the basis for live sets more than the rc-505. Though, I've been experiementing with syncing them together. The level of control you have over each tone and preset is astounding.

First off, it goes without saying my Sweetwater Sales Engineer (Tomir) is always on his game, order processed quicly with skill and care. Thanks Sweetwater.

Secondly, I'm a long time Groovebox owner. I've had the legenday MC-505 since it hit the market in the late 90's. They are workhorses, incrdible machines and the MC-707 is no different, it's in fact a lot better. I keep my MC-505 around because it is what it is, altthough dated in sound, often difficult to menu dive with, its the gold standard.

Inside the MC-707 are the legenday Roland drum and synth sounds as one would expect.

The evolution of the MC-707 workflow is to be commended. It's more like a revolution, Roland far surpases the TR style step and real-time sequencing and enters into something a lot like an Ableton clip/sceen paradigim and work flow. They've abandonded dificult, paper thin sequencing on their flagships like the JD-XA.

The workflow is fast, intutive, and very powerful. This is one Roland synth were the manual (which is never a Roland strong point can almost be avoided.) However one will want to have it on hand for a deeper dive into features, midi implimentation, & all the other amazing features in this box.

One remarkable aspect of the MC-707 is it's external signal processing. The MC-707's sampler uses 1/4" stereo input or tracks from itself. The live looper is almost Abelton-like in it's ability to set up a live performace sequenced with live looping clips and live signal processing tracks- is nothing short of mindblowing and it's all right there at ones finger tips and no more then one or two clicks away. This takes internal sound design to a new level. There's also the effects send and recieve loop for outboard effect chains. All of thes audio inputs and outputs can be routed quickly and assigned to knobs and sliders and stacked within the MC-707 effects chains.

Anther remoarable aspect of the MC-707 is it's ability to quickly assign and customize the Drum machies/pads/tracks. One can mix and match samples with pre made kits at will. It's get's even better and Ableton Drum Rack like with the ability to route the drum pads individually and stack effects, set send and return options, mute groups, and global effects. It's mind blowing, flexible and very fast to use.

Then there is the Zencore synth engine also found in the Jupiter X and Phantom workstations. Kudos to Roland for not hidding access to the 4 synth partials away and deep down in the menu system. It's all right there a few clicks away. A breath of fresh air compared to many of their synths. Many great otions and LFO step sequensing! There's also the Zenology app which allows users to design their own synth and drum patches on a desktop/laptop and import them into the MC-707.

There's also flawless DAW integration, send tracks from your DAW INTO the MC-707 or send tracks from the MC-707 into a DAW over USB. One's entire computer audio can also be routed in & out the 707 like a sound card & audio interface. Midi integration is fast and brilliant when interfacing with other synths and drum machines.

I'm really hard pressed to find a flaw in the MC-707 at this time. Make sure to upgrade to the latest OS (1.81 as of December 2022). Watch the (3) 1-hour videos Roland posted on the Roland Cloud Academy, watch the various reviews on YouTube.

Lastly, I was unsure how much I would like the MC-707 and almost went with an Akia or Electron box. I'm glad I didn't. The only thing missing is FM synthisis, although it's been added to the Phantom and TR-8s. Hopefully soon on the MC-707. One will still need Serum, Massive, Phase Plant, FM8, etc to make the unreal and gigantic bass and lead patches which are all the rage in EDM. I left out a look of great features which are all fast, intuitve and easy to use. Get one to find out.

Who is the MC-707 for?
Musicians
Artists
Recording Studios
Post Production Film and Video facilities
University level Media, Communications, & Music departments.
Live sound rienfocerment
Hobbiests

Love it! Roland has really made a nice product.

There is some real inspiration and some real heart in this instrument.
MC 707 is about making music using your ears and knobs, buttons and sliders. The screen is small but it has all the information you need.
There is no piano roll. There is no touch screen. There is no digital editor you can hook up with a computer.
You have to do everything manually.
But you are not limited. You can make anything with the MC 707; Trap, dubstep, drum n bass, house, etc
Onboard sounds quality. Ample drum library. You get Roland classics plus newer, fresher sounds.
Synth engine is Zen Core. It is the same as on Roland flagship products like the Fantom.
This box would be worth the money if you only wanted a Roland sound module.
Sample management is easy. You can integrate with a DAW via USB. You can send audio out as a mix or individual tracks.

Main thing is that the MC 707 is fun!

Roland is all in on support. They are frequently adding features and improving functionality. Current update is 1.7.

TL/DR MC 707 is for people who are tired of screens, period. Sounds are amazing.

I'm just a hobbyist and sometime industrial video producer. Been using synths since the ARP 2600 first came out. I have had the Akai MPC live, and sold it for the 707. To my way of thinking, the 707 just makes sense. The Akai may as well have fallen off the mothership. I have done a wide variety of projects, including a couple of killer Halloween soundscapes with "live" overlay. My only suggestion is to get a real keyboard, and serious monitors. The sounds are wonderful and the synth is a universe unto itself. I also had the MC-101 before I bought the 707. My advice is don't buy the 101. The 707 is light-years ahead in the one area that really matters - ergonomics and ease of use.

. I have a korg Electribe 2, Yamaha RM1x, and Emu xl-7, Roland sh-201,jp-8080,V-synth,Korg minilogue, and virus c. The MC 707 is by far the most fun to play! If you're looking for a box to make techno,house, ect this will work but it's NOT limited to that like many other groove box's are. What you get is a Fantom that fits on your lap on the couch! Sure it's missing some of the fantom' s features (vocoder would be nice) but you're getting the fantom's engine and saving $3,000! It comes with 3k+ sounds and for a groove box? It's real sounds! There are so many strings & pads (with names) that they stopped naming them Juno pad1,2,3,4,5........28Lol You get a drum machine that's so powerful! Full editing features per pad and that's 4 samples(l+r) with full edit per pad! With eq! The synth engine is the fantom engine with 4 parts ( Sample/virtual synths,pcm's with so many edits per part) per Synth! Sampling goes into 1 of the synths parts so it's a sampler but it's kinda like the V-synth where samples become your osc/pcm. The filters are pretty good and enough types to keep me happy. I found sampling things like quotes from movies works better using the drum machine's pads for these like you would've done Mc-style. The looper is a little weak for now since you can't overdub while looping since it records pre set bars and then stops recording and plays loop. The 8 tracks sounds limited but each clip in a single track can have different synth presets/patches,different drum machines loaded, and different loops. The best part is you can use a track to play and external synth and have it's audio come back in the track like a mixer plus! You can set different patch numbers per clip for external! I can have it play opening pad clip 1 track 1 on my korg minilogue and then track 1 clip 2 changes my Kong's patch and plays a base sound! You can do this internally too! Track one can play 16 clips with 16 different synth patches!! And it's so easy! Which gets me back to my old gear I mentioned. I could do that on the fantom but I would've needed cEvin Key or Trent Reznor to come over to figure it out! The MC 707 is fast, easy, and perfect as the brain of a table with lots of mini mono synths on it. The only draw back I see now is sample memory grr. There's plenty for most things but more would be better so you could load 3 min stems. This box is like a fantom and a v-synth had a baby drum machine. The menu diving is the best I've seen Roland do, I was so surprised and as far as the screen? Yes tilt function would be nice but seriously! They give you so many editing features it's crazy! It's not hard either if you know what your doing and what you want to edit. You can actually assign different filter types to each of the 4 parts of a synth patch with different ranges AND add a random feature to it! Or pan/volume ect pulse each part can have a different left/right pcm/sample This box is worth every penny and they just released the VST synth that is actually and editor for it! You can load the patch into the MC after completely creating on your computer. I am totally happy! Well, the v-synth's supersaw sounds better but to me it's better then the jp-8080's (don't hate) so meh. I say buy this! Buy the vst zenology pro, buy the Juno Jupiter upgrade for zenology Pro, and buy them from Carson! I'm really tempted to add the new Tr6 s to get 6 track non sample drum's to sit next to it! Anyone wanna buy a jp 8080

2 major firmware updates later, this is now the machine it should have been when released. On this unit you can now make the guts of a tune, 8 tracks of it, while sat on the sofa. Then you can record the audio and MIDI straight into the DAW and add peripheral sounds to complete your tune. It still has one major bug, if you save a drumkit made up of your own samples, it gives a memory error when you try to load the same kit into another project. Other than that, this groovebox is really a Zencore workstation that looks like a drum machine. The new pattern chain function makes this a good option for live work. The sounds are great, the drumkits are great, the drum pads are individually mute-able. It has a stack of project RAM, I've never run out of sample memory. Roland will likely keep updating the MC-707, this groovebox is Roland's precocious little baby.

Wow. At first, this was a great sound module with a killer little sequencer. The built-in sounds are really good and can satisfy most itches for synths and electronic drum sounds. The synth engine is powerful - especially considering it's baked into all these other functions. The pads feel great. The knobs and sliders feel solid. The screen is small but crisp and readable.

Now onto OS 1.2 - WOW!
OS1.2 introduces a number of new features but I will only focus on the ones that I like best. One is the two new samplers (drum and tone) and the other (which the forums and YouTubers don't seem to be talking about) is MIDI. Yes. You get a new drum sampler and a tone-track sampler. Additionally, you have a slice/chopping option for your samples. This is a game-changer. The new MIDI capability really blew me away. For a while, BeatStep Pro has been at the center of my workflow for creating ideas because you can sequence 2 pitch tracks and 1 drum track. I would use the BeaStep Pro as a step sequencer for Logic. Welp. Goodbye BeatStep Pro! The new MIDI functions in the MC-707 completely surpass this. You can now have 8 separate step sequencers (which you can mix and match pitch/drum however you want), each one with its own assignable MIDI channel over a single midi channel - AND STILL LEAVES YOU WITH A FREE MIDI PORT TO SEQUENCE OTHER STUFF!

Yes, this is a powerful Groovebox that you can use as a standalone beat/synth sequence studio. Yes, this is a powerful Groovebox that you can use as the centerpiece of your live performance. But you can also have this as at the center of your DAW workflow!

Thank you Roland for the recent software updates (they've sent out two software updates in the past month, and each one has ADDED new features).

I am a guitar player who is also fascinated by synthesis and sound design. Although I write metal, I am mostly inspired by Trent Reznor because he can create heavy and even cinematic songs with very raw sound without a guitar. I, therefore, started research synth plugins, daws, and everything outside the constraints of electric guitar.

I was into Native Instruments for quite a while, since they made software like Reaktor, Absynth, and Kontakt that pushed the limits of sound design and were often used by Reznor himself. As the years have passed, however, NI has become a shadow of its former self.

I looked to their Maschine hardware originally to produce music, but there are several negative caveats that come with it. The main one, of course, is that you need to tote a computer around to use it. As someone who is used to just taking an amp, a guitar, a few pedals and getting into the groove, this would be a chore, especially since a laptop or Mac Mini May short out and kill the performance. Getting into the groove with Maschine is worse because NI doesn’t focus on quality instruments and plugins (or customer satisfaction at all). They throw a bunch of sounds at you, albeit they give you a way to narrow them down. Nevertheless, I wanna sample my own sounds and get quick results, not just use a bunch of software and hardware melded together at the hip just to get something going. Plus, Native Instruments has expensive software that has largely been abandoned and is only hyped up by name only - Guitar Rig being one of them.

Not so with the MC-707. It is made by Roland, who is a big name but with supreme foundations in every corner of music (especially the BOSS brand). Roland, by comparison, delivers results consistently. The MC-707 is exactly what I needed. It is not only a groovebox but also an interface that I can use with whatever software or technique I want - without worrying how it would interact with other hardware and software (take that, NKS!). When I have my sounds, I can simply save them on a flash drive, take them with me and leave my laptop at home. It is like taking my amp, guitar, effects onto the stage and performing live - without a computer. Plus, the AIRA line it is a part of can expand into anything that matches the Ins and outs.

Meanwhile, Native Instruments has figuratively and literally left the chat.

This is a strong comeback for Roland of the Groovebox line! I'll divide this review up up with pros/cons. PROS = The build quality feels great. The knobs, buttons, sliders, and pads feel good. The sound engine is phenomenal. The effects are great. The sounds on the surface sound good as is, but also allow you to dive much deeper into the synth and effects parameters to get into some serious sound design. The pattern sequencer is really fun and immediate. I love that you can use the step sequencer, or play the pads in real time - and do some limited step-edits. Tempo sync parameters are nice! Layering sounds in the drum sampler is great! The factory sounds are phenomenal - much better than the competitors! This machine can help you get ideas sketched very quickly. While I haven't used it live, I can easily see this being the center piece of a live set. The faders, knobs, and pads are really fun to "play" in real time!. CONS: The sampler (and lack of sampling) is really weak. There is currently no way to save instruments you create other than inside of a project. There should be a user sound bank where you can store your sounds, and not depend on saving them inside of its own project. This is real sound design machine and it should have a folder to save your created sounds. WISH LIST for FUTURE SOFTWARE UPDATE: (1) Ability to set default clip lengths - currently set to only 16 steps. It takes some menu diving to step this up. I want to default this to at least 32 or 64 at all times. (2) Needs a real built in sampler. It feels like it's almost there and that it's able to get there - but the sampler functions in here are weak. In the sampler update it should (a) be able to chop samples into pads, and (b) do basic instrument chromatic sampling. (3) User sound bank to save user created tone, and drum instruments. (4) metronome (5) 3/4 time signature in sequencer.

great recent roland product. i have had most of the roland groovebox's and this one is sort of the culmination of all of them. classic sound with new control features and a special "freshness".

I've owned many grooveboxes and I have been waiting for a respectable heir to the Korg ESX-1/EMX-1, so when the 707 was announced I immediately pre-ordered. Each track can have its own length, and even more awesome, each track can play at a different multiple of the base tempo. And quantization is OPTIONAL, something hard to find on many similar offerings.

However, I ended up returning the 707 for a couple reasons. One of the biggest gaps in the groovebox market is a box that has both great synthesis (not just PCM synth emulation), AND great sampling capability. The 707 has a lot of synth capability, but lacks a bit on the sampling side. I mean its better than nothing, but the limits it imposes just makes me go back to my laptop, defeating the whole purpose of an all-in-one box. Live-recorded samples can only be used for loops, and samples you intend to use for one-shots or oscillators must be pre-loaded on the sd card. So not exactly standalone.

The other issue I have is that much of the functionality one would need for sound design is buried in menus, which you view thru a small screen at a bad angle using clumsy knobs. Contrast this to the MC-505, where you have a ton of dedicated sliders and knobs to adjust the current sound. I mean just look at the two side by side and observe how much real estate is allocated to the mixer on each. The 707 does not feel like an instrument in the way that these older grooveboxes do. I'd go further and say that its design and construction make it feel like just another plastic midi controller.

Decent machine a little difficult to learn but im more of a keyboard type of person so this didn't really give me the same feel I had with my keyboard. Still using it tho may just hold on to it.

The plastic LED knob at the top moves WITH THE knob and it shouldn't. The plastic all out of shape as if not moulded properly...the down arrow button sticky..wont be buying a Roland anytime soon..and Roland rude enough not even respond to emails...they suck.