The Roland MC-808 was a

groovebox A groovebox is a self-contained electronic or digital musical instrument for the production of live, loop-based electronic music with a high degree of user control facilitating improvisation. The term "Groovebox" was originally used by Roland Co ...

, announced at the Winter

NAMM The NAMM Show is an annual event in the United States that is organized by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), who describe it as "the industry’s largest stage, uniting the global music, sound and entertainment technology commun ...

in 2006. It is the successor to the late

Roland MC-303 The Roland MC-303 is the first of a series of musical instruments known as a Groovebox. It combines a simple sound module with a sequencer to record and store notation, along with controls aimed at encouraging the musician to improvise the music ...

Roland MC-307 The Roland MC-307 is a combination of MIDI music sequencer, synthesizer, drum machine and control surface produced by the Roland Corporation. This combination is commonly referred to by Roland as a 'Groovebox'. It is a scaled-down version of the ...

Roland MC-505 The Roland MC-505 is a groovebox conceived in 1998 as a combination of a MIDI controller, a music sequencer, a drum machine, and a desktop synthesizer with many synthesis features: arpeggiator, oscillators, and voltage-controlled filter, contro ...

and

Roland MC-909 The discontinued Roland MC-909 Sampling Groovebox combines the features of a synthesizer, Music sequencer, sequencer, and Sampler (musical instrument), sampler, with extensive hands-on control of both the sound engine and the sequencing flow. It ...

Background

Though cheaper than the Roland MC-909, it has a number of features the Roland MC-909 lacked including double the

polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, ...

(128-

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

) and motorized faders. It lacks SRX card expandability, and turntable emulation, which the Roland MC-909 has. It supports more flash memory (1GB

CompactFlash CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994. CompactFlash became one of the most successful of the e ...

,) and more

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

(up to 512MB,) than did the Roland MC-909. It has a 2-line segment built-in LCD that is less flexible - similar to the late Roland MC-505, and much smaller than the Roland MC-909 large

LCD screen A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but i ...

. It also has a large

LED display A LED display is a flat panel display that uses an array of light-emitting diodes as pixels for a video display. Their brightness allows them to be used outdoors where they are visible in the sun for store signs and billboards. In recent ...

, similar to the late Roland MC-303. The Roland MC-808 requires a USB connection to a computer for full

patch Patch or Patches may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Patch Johnson, a fictional character from ''Days of Our Lives'' * Patch (''My Little Pony''), a toy * "Patches" (Dickey Lee song), 1962 * "Patches" (Chairmen of the Board song) ...

editing, unlike the Roland MC-909. (However, the OS v1.03 update available on the Roland website allows for some patch editing without a computer, most notably sample chopping, including auto-chop.)

Features

The key features of the MC-808 are: * MIX OUTPUT Jack (L (MONO), R), DIRECT 1 OUTPUT Jack (L (MONO), R), INPUT Jack (L (MONO), R), Headphones Jack, MIDI Connectors (IN/OUT), USB Connector (USB MIDI, Mass Storage Class), DC IN *Sound generator with 128

note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened version ...

* 16-track sequencer+Tempo/Mute Ctrl Track *

D-Beam controller The D-Beam was originally manufactured by Interactive Light, as a stand-alone unit, around 1996. It was then soon purchased by Roland Corporation, becoming trademarked and rebranded as D-Beam Controller for their own music equipment. Background Af ...

* Wave based synthesizer with fully programmable patches (including rhythm kits) * 683 preset

patterns A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated li ...

* Stores up to 800 patterns (each with 16-tracks called parts) in user memory, and up to 700 more on a

Compact Flash CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994. CompactFlash became one of the most successful of the e ...

card * Three record modes (real time, step and TR mode) * Song mode, which allows sequences of patterns to be recorded * Sampler (Standard sample memory is limited, but sample memory can be expanded with a

PC-100 The NEC Corporation, NEC PC-100 was a Japanese home computer available on October 13, 1983. It operated on Intel 8086, 8086 CPU 7 MHz, 128KB RAM, 128KB VRAM, a Japanese language capable keyboard and a two button Computer mouse, mouse. It had thre ...

or PC-133

DIMM A DIMM () (Dual In-line Memory Module), commonly called a RAM stick, comprises a series of dynamic random-access memory integrated circuits. These memory modules are mounted on a printed circuit board and designed for use in personal computers ...

up to 512MB) * 7 banks of 128 user editable patches * RPS sets, which can be used to trigger individual parts of patterns in real time *

Arpeggiator A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

with 128 presets * 16MB of user memory for storing patterns, songs, patches, RPS sets, pattern sets and samples * 4MB of sample memory (to hold newly recorded samples, or samples for playback) * RAM expansion slot (up to 1GB

or PC-133

) *

slot (up to 1 GB) (for storing patterns, songs, patches, RPS sets, pattern sets and samples) The factory box comes with the following accessories: owner’s manual, sound and parameter list, AC adaptor, CD-ROM (with editor and USB MIDI driver), ferrite core, a band for fastening the core, and a leaflet ("Attaching the Ferrite Core").

Sound Generator

The 808's sound generator produces sound from two different kinds of patches. A "standard" patch is made up of four tones. Each tone can have two different waveforms, one for the left channel and one for the right channel. Waveforms can be either preset waveforms, or samples (both work the same way.) Rhythm patches are made up of 16 tones, each one assigned to a note. Rhythm tones can be made up of up to four waveforms. Tones are generated by a wave generator then sent to a Time Variant Filter (TVF) and then to a Time Variant Amplifier (TVA). The WG, TVF and TVA all have an envelope which controls their operation. Standard patches have two LFOs available, which can be assigned to modulate the WG, TVF or TVA. This design is similar to many synthesizers using subtractive synthesis. Rather than being restricted to a small number of waveforms, any wave file can be used as a waveform. Some parameters can be modified in a patch using a fader. For more complete patch editing, the 808 must be hooked up to a computer via a USB cable running the 808's patch editor. The sound generator allows for the routing of parts into two Multi-Effects(MFX) units. There are 46 different effects. Each MFX can be set to one of the 46 effects.

Sequencer

The sequencer can play patterns, or songs that are made up of a series of patterns. Each pattern can have up to 16 parts. Each part is assigned to a patch. Parts contain a sequence of MIDI events such as notes and control changes. There are three ways to record data to a part: step recording, realtime recording, and TR-Rec. Step recording allows the entry of notes step by step. Realtime recording allows both notes and control changes to be added. TR-Rec allows each of the 16-pads to represent a beat, and makes it easy to enter percussion tracks. There is also a microscope editing mode that allows detailed event editing. Songs are made up of steps with each step having a pattern associated with it. Muting and unmuting parts can be done for each step. The overall level of each part can be modified at each step as well.

Sampler

The MC-808 can import samples (as

WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...

AIFF Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices. The format was developed by Apple Inc. in 1988 based on Electronic Arts' Interchange File ...

files,) and can also record samples from its input. Editing of samples can be done using the sample edit feature of the patch editor program. Some basic tasks can be done from the MC-808 without the need for the editor program. Newly recorded samples are stored in sample memory. Samples must be loaded into sample memory to play them as well. The MC-808 will automatically load samples into memory when needed. There are also some manual operations for loading samples into memory and unloading them. As shipped, there is 4MB of sample memory. Samples can be saved in user memory or card memory.

Users

The Roland MC-808 was used prominently in the album '' Téo & Téa'' by French composer

Jean Michel Jarre Jean-Michel André Jarre (; born 24 August 1948) is a French composer, performer and record producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and new-age genres, and is known for organising outdoor spectacles featuring his music, accompanie ...

, who used some of the preset patterns as the base for a number of the tracks of that album. DJ Uplighter and Friends uses the MC-808 on the album "Lighten Up New Synthesizer". The extracts used from the MC-808 are looped sound samples recorded with Audacity and trimmed to be used in Sony Acid Music Studio.

Unsolved bugs

Some operating system bugs were gradually solved since its release; the last operating system upgrade (Version 1.03)* was introduced on January 15, 2007. (Note OS v1.03 update available on the Roland website allows for some additional patch editing without a computer, most notably sample chopping, including auto-chop.)* There are current unresolved issues with the implementation of effects when switching patterns, but the MC-808 was "designed by specification". Roland might refer to the end users' requests for effects that sustain past the point when the pattern switches as they are "developing a future new product".

References

External links

MC-808 PDF Manual Links:
Online Roland MC-808 PDF Owners Manual Location

Online Roland MC-808 PDF Sound & Parameter List Location

Online Roland MC-808 PDF Sound & Parameter List Location

Online Roland MC-808 Product Brochure Location - 2007 Roland Catalog
Other Links:

Roland UK Limited, MC-808 site and files.

Roland US Corporation, MC-808 site and files.
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* ttp://www.roland.com/demos/en/i0017/index.html Roland MC-808 Demonstration Video Library (Demo) by David Ahlund
Roland MC-808 Winter NAMM 2006 Video Booth (Demo)

Roland MC-808 Videos (Demo) by Mike Acosta

MC-808 forum at Roland Clan.

FutureProducers.com
forum - 'musicians learning from musicians' - Search 'MC808'
grooves Magazine Articles - Roland MC-808 Sampling Groovesbox - GEAR REVIEWS

REMIX Magazine Articles - Roland MC-808 : Nov 1, 2006

REMIX Magazine Articles - Roland MC-808 : Sep 3 2007
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