Roland S770 sampler

Only got this recently, with the Roland mouse & the the very rare RC-100.













-Most expensive/Highend sampler roland ever made...
-Maxed RAM (16MB)
-I think it has the 'timing board' which is not in many units, improves midi timing, which does seem solid.... (Can open it again to double check)
-Digi IO
-SCSI
-External LCD screen included.
-Pertaining custom LCD cable included.
-Sampler can be fully operated at the other end of the room, without needing to use the front panel.
-Rare/expensive roland mouse included.
-Large roland sample cd library inc.
-Very clean unit.
-Int. SCSI hard drive removed & fan disconnected, for quiet operation.... as it works with ext. scsi compact flash solutions. (not inc.)
-Can load the OS from SCSI device in secs.
-Final 2.25OS disk included.
-Knob missing....which is never used when operating via mouse or RC-100...no loss.
-Sampler LCD needs a new EL backlight (23€)...but again you don't need this at all, when operating via the ext. LCD.
-Ultra rare RC-100 included.
-Amazing bass-end on this sampler, kills any soft samplers.


Here's something to read about the sampler:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5446278-post130.html

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"Sonically, the 770 is king....especially the analog outputs are incredible. The low-end and stereo imaging are completely sexy and gorgeous sounding.

If you like the sound of the 760 (which was a step down), you'd freak out over the 770....

The 770 has hand picked all discrete components for everything, the 760 has more ICs and consolidation in the circuitry. Still sounds great though."

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"The Roland's are indeed the best sounding hardware samplers ever IMHO.

It's not the filters though, because you can hear the difference even when the filters are not in use.

Roland developed a special sample-interpolation/playback algorithm for those units that actually sounds BETTER than what you put into it. Not accurate per se, just really musical and gorgeous sounding....even strictly in the digital domain, bypass all converters a

If I had the spare money I would buy this. I have the S750 and S760. S750 sounds a teeny bit better and I suspect the S770 slightly tops the S750 although a few people I know who have the S750 and S770 claim they sound exactly the same. The MV does not sound the same. I bought it thinking WOW, I now have my S750 as a sampling durm machine. Sent it back two days later. You can see how they dumbed down the sampler a lot as well. Disgraceful. Yes it can load up the S range library but thats about all it has in common imho.

Without any doubt whatsoever these are the best sounding samplers ever made. It was all a bit of a fluke how it came about I think. Yes, Im on an Akai MPC forum ( Iwon a 4k, MPC2kxl, and the Ren) and I state here and now that if Akai had that S Range sampling engine and electronics the MPCs would be even more legendary. I dont believe or buy in to the hype of the MPC300 sound and whilst I like the sound of the MPC60 it is just 12 bit technology which gives it the crunchiness although I very much like that sound. The 3000 is a very normal sound compared to the almost mystical S Range sampler sound. Akai never really got the sampling engine nailed down. They went for straight reproduction, not mystical Consider the S770 was released at roughly the same time as the S1000 and itwon the day and became the industry standard.

I must ask do you really need to sell this. Are times so tough you need a few hundred euros. Your about to sell the best sounding sampler ever made. A Sampler that actually brings life and colour to the sound is a brilliant way. In 50 years time I guarantee these machines will be the most sought after rack samplers of them all. People are literally throwing them around, even throwing them away,. Their getting damaged, more and more die every year due to negligence.

Anyway, for anyone who wants genuine fat instruments sounds - brilliant for strings and bass, Hi Hats, vocals phrases, but anything really, this is the sampler. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing comes close so this is a TOTAL BARGAIN. Inside that S770 is seriously high quality components.

Oh and yes the RC-100 is rare.

good luck with the sale

Cheers for the interesting read buddy.
I was interested in the MV til I saw the jitter specs.. so went for a 4k too.
Also agree that the mpc line didnt have good sampler engines, except maybe the 60..
I really like the s1000 though, but the s1100 even more so... if you ever use one with some good sample cd library sounds you'll know why I like it.

Anyway I sourced a replacement main knob for this 770, and might order a new backlight, & keep it for the time being..
If you need any 7xx sample cds send me a pm, can share any you dont have.

What country are you in, sounds like this lot would be expensive to ship to UK if I were interested??

would ship from ireland, postage to uk, 30-35€ ...
not totally sure about selling it anymore, but i got an offer of 380 to reconsider
replacement knob should come in the post this week

szr wrote:not totally sure about selling it anymore, but i got an offer of 380 to reconsider

Thats a good price, take it before they change their mind. Some offers are too good to refuse, take the money and run for the hills...

Good luck with the sale. I am more interested in knowing if you know the secret codes that make this machine do special things?

In researching this and a few other old Roland samplers years ago I kept reading about hacks that make these machines allow for extra memory, special features and funny pictures that can scroll across the screen.
Back in the day coders used to always put secret things in machines.

Cheers,
Ian

roland put easter eggs in their samplers? that is too funny... I would never have expected that.

Thanks guys.
Yea there's a so called 'hacker mode', I heard there's a game of tetris in it.
I tried the codes, but haven't got the magic touch to get them to work.
Trying to find them again, will post the info, think they're in the service manual.

Anyway the hacker mode is what you use to calibrate the machine, you'd use it together with the trimpots inside the unit......
..Plus the easter egg stuff as mentioned.

uploaded the service manual, check out page 10 .. hacker mode instructions
http://fromafarawayplace.com/files/ROLA ... Manual.pdf

Don't sell it. That S770 with the rare controller is worth way more than what their going for - in another reality I admit.

I just wish these samplers had the back up cottage industry the Akais have - all those mods and stuff. Their kind of left out to dry when there's so much could be done to them to bring them a little more up to date.

Roland made this when they were at the top of their game. That mouse CRT option (a must) was brilliant. Fastest to work with sampler I have ever had. I got sooo fast with that thing. Sample direct in to a patch. no need to sample, then add to a partial, then add partial to a patch.

Then there's the excellent comprehensive editing capabilities, and the superb filters - way to much to go in to. To this day there is no sampler I have ever used which can sample a string/synth note isolated on a record and loop it flawlessly like the Roland. No Akai sampler comes close, not the Ren or the 4k. Maybe only Kontakt, Halion can compete there. The S770/50.60 has that brilliant Alt looping which to this day few samplers have. Obviously stuff like cross fade which the 4k has but alt looping is the secret. It loops and reverses and loops and on and on we go. It used to amaze me how easy it was.

Don't get me wrong I love the Akai stuff but always thought the samplers in all of them were lacking. They caught up with the Z and MPC 4k ones, but even then the Roland S770/750 still beats it on raw samplist features.

I will never say who I am (I like my anonymity) but I made tons of records with the Roland. People would ask me all the time how I got my sound. I didn't think anything of it at the time. I thought it was more about how I mixed my records - ok partly true. But as the years have now passed I realise now what they were hearing. Its called 'magic' - Roland S750 (in my case). This was further reinforced when I started buying other samplers and would think WTF, where are all the features, why doesn't the bass fill me with joy. I used to take it for granted that all samplers were as feature rich as the Roland S range and sounded as good. I was totally wrong of course. Just one little feature (not amazing or anything) but it was so useful. I The Roland's are always sampling. So I would pipe in live TV and if I heard something after the fact you would capture it. How cool was that back then . I never used any of Roland's Library except for multi sampled strings. l always sampled my own stuff. Its criminal to just use it as a preset sound module which I think many did.

Ok, I think I have ranted, raved and frothed at the mouth enough - except damn you Roland for fking up the MV. Doesn't sound as good as the 770/750, and you dumbed down the sampler + you fcked up the timing clock!!!!!!!!!

Great reviews, this should have been a proper thread lol.

But yeah, too much emphasis on Akai samplers around here. I'd like a Roland S or Emu Ultra to compliment what I have already. Seen a few of those 'rare' remote controls on eBay but obviously had no use for it. So was the S770 the top of the range feature wise?

@labcoats

Think I'll hold on to the 770 for now, the only sample cds that I liked where some of the orchestral ones.... the beefy sound of the sampler worked well with those... The rest didn't blow me away.

Anyway for me the best setup is mpc as sequencer, and various rack samplers for sampling.... as like yourself I'm not keen on mpc sound engines, actually the mpc4k is my least fav sound engine of all, hurts my ears....although of course it can be tamed with eq.

@clint
Any chance you could move the thread to the sampler section & change the title and if you want edit my 1st post to take the salesman text out....
defo turned out to be an interesting thread, could add some tech info thats not well known on this sampler too.
...re: top featured samplers... ensoniq are also quite deep in that respect, and the z4/8//mpc4k... fairlight & maybe synclavier too, but havent used those.

..the s7xx allow you to draw waveforms, and edit in microscopic detail.... apparently work great for editing clicks out of audio for example.
I just used the waveform draw/edit or what it's called to make custom waveforms, when trying to use it as a synth.

there are also customizable shortcuts.... with those you can with the rc100 click f1 for example to go to whatever menu you want....
...like when I tested the sample cds, I config'd f1 to sample load menu, f2 to performance menu I think it was called, f3 to save menu....
....so basically
f1->load
f2->tinker with layers
f3-save

thats just one example, by using the shortcuts for when you're sampling you really can race around the sampler like labcoats said.

szr wrote:@clint
Any chance you could move the thread to the sampler section & change the title and if you want edit my 1st post to take the salesman text out...

Done. You're a rubbish salesman anyway lol.

Clint wrote:

szr wrote:@clint
Any chance you could move the thread to the sampler section & change the title and if you want edit my 1st post to take the salesman text out...

Done. You're a rubbish salesman anyway lol.

yeah he sold himself on it hahaha..