The discontinued Roland MC-909 Sampling

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 ...

combines the features of a synthesizer, sequencer, and sampler, with extensive hands-on control of both the sound engine and the sequencing flow. It was intended primarily for live performance of pre-programmed patterns consisting of up to 16 tracks of MIDI data. It was released by Roland Corporation on October 8, 2002. This product was announced at the AES Fall Convention in 2002. It is the direct successor to 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 is the predecessor to the Roland MC-808. Which eventually ended the "

by year 2010" line of products by Roland which began in the year 1996 with the Original Roland MC-303 groovebox. The Roland Groovebox began again resurgence in the year 2019 with a two new modern & redesign Roland MC-707 GROOVEBOX/Roland MC-101 GROOVEBOX. The Roland MC-909 was developed from the blueprint of Roland's own "Roland Fantom-S Workstation &

Roland Fantom-X The Fantom-X (Xa/X6/X7/X8/XR) is a music workstation/ synthesizer produced by Roland Corporation. It was introduced in 2004 as an upgrade from the Fantom S series. The Fantom-X competes with the Korg Triton/Triton Extreme, the Yamaha Motif ES a ...

Workstation" and uses the same structure and operating system, with some differences regarding the Patterns section, not implemented in the Roland Fantom S/X6/X7/X8 Workstation.

Sound generation

The MC-909 has a

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

-based sound generator (sometimes referred to as a

rompler A rompler is a synthesizer that plays pre-fabricated sounds based on audio samples. The term ''rompler'' is a blend of the terms ''ROM'' and ''sampler.'' In contrast to samplers, romplers do not record audio. Both may have additional sound ed ...

.) Its

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) ...

es are built from up to four tones. The tones are based on waves stored in the machine. Patches can also utilize user-created samples. Roland's literature states that the MC-909 has "new-generation XV synthesis", the synth in the MC-909 is a very similar sound engine to that of the XV-5050 64-

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 ...

Synthesizer Module. The number of PCM

waveforms In electronics, acoustics, and related fields, the waveform of a signal is the shape of its graph as a function of time, independent of its time and magnitude scales and of any displacement in time.David Crecraft, David Gorham, ''Electron ...

is 693, ranging from vintage synths to strings, drums,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

s and

pianos The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

. It can be expanded by adding one SRX card* from 12 different cards available. * *Note: SRX-05_"Supreme_Dance"_expansion_card,_you'll_get_special_Patches_that_can_only_be_accessed_on_the_MC-909..html" ;"title="SRX_expansion_board.html" ;"title="f you choose the Roland SRX expansion board">SRX-05 "Supreme Dance" expansion card, you'll get special Patches that can only be accessed on the MC-909.">SRX_expansion_board.html" ;"title="f you choose the Roland SRX expansion board">SRX-05 "Supreme Dance" expansion card, you'll get special Patches that can only be accessed on the MC-909. The MC-909 is always in sequencer mode, as opposed to other workstations that have also a simple Voice or Combination mode for straight playing. Straight playing via an external keyboard is however possible directly from the sequencer mode by simply selecting one of the 16 tracks (parts) where a patch (voice, sound) is stored. In this case the MC-909 performs as a regular, 16-part multitimbral sound module, that happens to have a sequencer, too. In essence, the MC-909 can be used as a very capable sound module without ever needing to fire up its sequencer. The MC-909 is the first Roland groovebox to feature a sampler. It can record audio from any of the external audio inputs,

SPDIF S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a type of digital audio interface used in consumer audio equipment to output audio over relatively short distances. The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable (using RCA or BNC connectors ...

connectors, or import

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 ...

and

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 from a computer using a

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

port. The sampler can be upgraded up to a total of 272 MB

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 * ...

(16 MB User + 256 MB

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-133 168-Pin

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 ...

Module), and the samples can also be stored on a 128 MB 3.3 volt

Smartmedia SmartMedia is an obsolete flash memory card standard owned by Toshiba, with capacities ranging from 2 MB to 128 MB. The format mostly saw application in the early 2000s in digital cameras and audio production. SmartMedia memory cards a ...

card. The unit is also able to store on two 128 MB

cards if there is more than 256 MB DATA in its user memory. There are tricks from user forum sites that have found ways to go beyond this limitation using

xD-Picture Card The xD-Picture Card is an obsolete form of flash memory card, used in digital cameras made by Olympus and Fujifilm during the 2000s. The xD in the xD-Picture Card stands for eXtreme Digital. xD cards were manufactured with capacities of 16&nb ...

s as other means for storage.

Sequencer

The MC-909's sequencer is based on pattern composition. Each pattern has 16 tracks (parts) and can have up to 999 measures (bars). The "pattern" in the groovebox concept as developed by Roland (and thence adopted by other manufacturers) is intended to be a 4-to-16 bars-long small musical phrase made up of 8 to 16 tracks. The chaining of several patterns together (with seamless passage between one another) will create a full song, or the patterns can be looped as wanted and messed with using the on-board real-time controls. However, if this was more properly true in the older MC-303 and MC-505, in the MC-909 the massive capacity of the sequencer makes the patterns capable of storing almost 1000 bars, and 16 tracks, thus capable of storing complete songs with arrangements and drum styles. Each of the 16 parts (tracks) is set to a specific

, with its own mixer settings (pan, volume, key, effect, routing, and so on). There are a variety of editing modes: The main modes allow real-time recording, step recording and TR-REC recording. In step recording,

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 ...

s or

chords Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord ( ...

can be added one at a time. In TR-REC mode, each of the 16 pads represents a point along a musical measure. This speeds up the entry of percussion tracks.

Pattern 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 ...

s can be strung together into "songs", which, in fact, are mislabelled, merely being chains of patterns played in a specific order. In fact, there is no recording or sequencing capability in Song mode besides pattern chaining and some playback settings. The sequencer can load Standard MIDI Files (albeit with some workarounds to avoid loading bugs that have never been fixed) and play them back. Additionally, the sequencer will also include samples stored into its memory in the pattern tracks.

Performance

The MC-909 includes a number of features for real-time performance. These include: * Muting/unmuting parts * Adjusting the level of parts * Turning on and off effects * Adjusting the tempo * Playing notes * Adjusting various parameters such as filter cutoff * Playing phrases on the fly (RPS mode) * Using Arpeggiator on the fly (with editable ARP presets) * Twin D-Beam with 4 modes (incl. assignable mode)

Features

* Sound generator with 64

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 ...

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, ...

* 16-track sequencer+Tempo/Mute Ctrl Track * 16MB sample memory (expandable to 272 MB max.) * SmartMedia card handling (8-128 MB) to store audio and midi files and backup (16MB) * Effects generator (24-bit reverb, two multi-effects processors, compression/EQ and mastering effects) * 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 ...

* Expandable with SRX-series wave expansion boards, SmartMedia cards (smf, wav) *

port for

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

and transfer of data (full duplex) and for remote editing (groovemanager) *

S/PDIF S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a type of digital audio interface used in consumer audio equipment to output audio over relatively short distances. The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable (using RCA or BNC connectors ...

input and output plus coaxial I/O (digital) * Line In with selectable sources (line in, mic) for sampling, re-sampling * Dual D-Beam controllers (solosynth, cut+reso, turntable, assignable) * Turntable emulation (pitch control, BPM control, hold, push) * Velocity sensitive pads * V-LINK connecting audio & video in performance

Users

The Roland MC-909 was used by the hip hop producer RZA while working on the movies Blade: Trinity and

Kill Bill ''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' is a 2003 American martial arts film Martial arts films are a subgenre of action films that feature numerous martial arts combat between characters. These combats are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment ...

. RZA uses many Roland products including the Roland Fantom, MV-8000 & Roland MV-8800. Another artist that uses the Roland MC-909 is Switchfoot keyboardist

Jerome Fontamillas Jerome Fontamillas (born June 20, 1967) is an American musician. Fontamillas has played in several bands, notably with industrial rock band Mortal and alternative rock band Fold Zandura, with longtime musical partner Jyro Xhan. Since 2003, he ha ...

for live setups.

Criticisms

The Roland MC-909 received good reviews at tech magazines like

Future Music ''Future Music'' (stylised as ''FutureMusic'') is a monthly magazine published by Future plc in the UK. It was founded in 1992 and is aimed primarily at record producers working in the electronic music field. ''Future Music'' includes hardware a ...

and

Sound on Sound ''Sound on Sound'' is an independently owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, ...

. However, it faced serious competition from the equally powerful Yamaha RS7000. Many MC-909 users complained about several operating system bugs at the

Yahoo! Groups Yahoo! Groups was a free-to-use system of electronic mailing lists offered by Yahoo!. Prior to February 2020, Yahoo! Groups was one of the world's largest collections of online discussion boards. It allowed members to subscribe to various group ...

forum and also Roland Clan Forums. In fact, even when the machine was released in 2002, it took Roland Corporation 5 years until some of the more complex bugs (like the inability to store RPS patterns) were fixed in the operating system upgrade v1.23 in early 2007. Another common complaint refers to the unit's size, which makes it less portable than a laptop with a midi controller. The unit has been designed with only a 2-prong power inlet, without a ground lift; hence, there have been complaints of light electrical discharges from its metallic body when handled with less-than-dry hands. Further criticism pointed out the uneven volume ranges of its voices, waveforms and sounds. Additionally, critics noted that, for a machine aimed at the dance/techno/electronica market, the sound engine was excessively rich in sounds from ethnic, classical and band instruments. The sampler, although powerful, has a very complex access-and-editing route and lacks the ability to set keyboard ranges for different samples, making it difficult to create realistic sounds from a set of multisamples. There is, however, a work-around for this via an external editor on the PC & Mac called: MC-909 Editor Update v3.1, that is freely available for download a
this site.
The inputs, used for either sampling or sound processing of an external sound source, are routed through the effects engine and heard at the outputs during real-time. However, re-sampling is necessary in order for the sample to contain the effects as a part of the sample. Following any re-sampling, the sample playback can be further re-sampled or processed by more effects at the outputs during playback. The Roland MC-909 is no longer in production by Roland Corporation. The Roland MC-909 is consequently called to become a cult item, as Mellotron or the

TB-303 The Roland TB-303 Bass Line (also known as the 303) is a bass synthesizer released by Roland Corporation in 1981. Designed to simulate bass guitars, it was a commercial failure and was discontinued in 1984. However, cheap second-hand units were ...

. While no longer in production, the MC-909 can be bought these days second-hand at places like

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

, with a typical second-hand purchase price, as of 2021, around US$1000. The original MSRP price set by Roland in 2002 was US$1,795.99.

Unsolved bugs

Several operating system bugs were gradually solved over time; the last operating system upgrade (Version 1.23) was introduced on March 30, 2007. The current unsolved problems at the present moment are: * It is not possible to load a Standard Midi File or other sequence file from a card to internal memory onto an existing pattern without initializing all the existing pattern's settings back to basic format. In order to load a SMF onto a pattern and retain that pattern's settings, the SMF must be first loaded onto an unused or empty location within internal memory, then moved to the wanted location with the Copy function. * Many users complain that there is no sustain in Song Mode, resulting in a noticeable audio gapping between patterns. This is most noticeable at slower tempos. (Although different Machine, see also: MC-808 Roland MC-808#Unresolved issues) * Even when a part is set to EXT, the internal sound engine will continue to produce sounds. You can work this around by assigning a blank patch to that part; however, this is not the expected behaviour described in the manual. * Going into MENU (e.g. USB transfer) resets the 909 to Preset Pattern 1 when you come out of menu. * Tracks 6 and 13 will not mute/unmute when pressed at the same time (introduced in v1.22) There are current unresolved issues with the implementation of effects when switching patterns, but the MC-909 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 "developing a future new product". The last operating system upgrade (Version 1.23), corrected few issue with: * RPS Setting, RPS Mixer WRITE editor of the contents of operation does not save a fixed point. * Import BMP features and functionality Realtime Erase fixed. * Song editing function has been strengthened. * Sounds & Effects strengthened, Stable for tuning various countries. (Roland Corp. Japan Trans: MC-909 VER. History Lis

References

External links

MC-909 PDF Manual Links:
Online Roland MC-909 PDF Quick Start Manual Location

Online Roland MC-909 PDF Owners Manual Location

Online Roland MC-909 PDF Addendum Manual Location

Online Roland MC-909 PDF Midi Implementation Location

Online Roland MC-909 PDF Patch/Performance List Location

Online Roland MC-909 TurboStart Location

Online Support Documents: Roland MC-909 "Getting Started Guide - July 29, 2003" Location

Online Support Documents: Roland MC-909 new features added Version 1.10 Location

Online Roland MC-909 Product Brochure Location - Sep. ’02 RAM-3619 C-4 ERK-UPR-SE
Other links:
Roland MC-909 OS/System Program - Version 1.23 (Download From Roland Corporation World HQ).

(Translated) Roland JP Corporation, History list on MC-909 system program (Ver.1.23) site and files.

Main Roland Corporation World HQ, MC-909 site and files.

Roland UK Limited, MC-909 site and files.

Roland US Corporation, MC-909 site and files.

ROLAND MC-909 EDITOR WINDOWS OS VERSION 1.22, Support for the SRX-11 and the SRX-12 expansion boards.

ROLAND MC-909 EDITOR MAC OS X Tiger VERSION 1.22, - Support for the SRX-11 and the SRX-12 expansion boards.

Roland MC-909 Product Demo Module - Version 1.1

Roland MC-909 Product Brochure - Sept. 2002 RAM-3619

French forum web site www.MC909.org translation in English.

Roland Clan Forums - Groove Zone.

Roland MC-909's discussion Group Forum
at

.
FutureProducers.com - 'musicians learning from musicians' - Roland MC-909 Forum.

Harmony Central - 'Leading Internet resource for musicians, supplying valuable information from news and product reviews' - Roland MC-909

KEYBOARD Magazine Articles - KEYBOARD Reports Roland MC-909 SAMPLING GROOVEBOX By Ken Hughes : April 2003

REMIX Magazine Articles - Roland MC-909 By JOE SILVA : June 1, 2003

Making Tracks Magazine Articles - MC-909 By Kent Carmical : July 2003

NZ Musician Magazine Articles - DJ Tools: Roland MC-909 Sampling Groovebox By Chris Macro : June/July 2003

Electronic Musician Magazine Articles - ROLAND MC-909 By Jim Aikin : Sept. 1, 2003

Roland MC-909 Tip/Trick: using a H256 MB xD card via a xD to SmartMedia adaptor - from this site.

Site to download MC-909 Sample Editor/RPS Editor - Applications Tool. (PC Software and Utility).

Roland Clan Forums - Groove Zone "Info on connecting both Roland MC-909 and Roland MC-505 with a (MIDI Solutions Event Processor)".

* ttps://proaudioexp.com/products/roland-mc-909-dvd-tutorial "Roland MC-909 DVD Owner's Manual" - by: ProAudioEXP.com - (Roland MC-909 DVD Video Tutorial Owner's Manual Help Instruction Training).
"Roland MC-909 DVD Training Tutorial" - by: SampleKings.com - (Roland MC-909 DVD Part-1 & Part-2 Video Instruction Training Tutorial).

YouTube.com - Lists of Random Videos on Roland MC-909.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roland Mc-909 MC-909 D-Beam Grooveboxes Japanese inventions