The MC 707 might replace my MPC Live

Yeahzz.. only like purple music. Not purple letters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZeKlqZ6dNU

I recently bought a 707 and there's a lot it does well.

The stock waves and sounds are very well done, though browsing them is a drag - the patches can be browsed by type (bass, lead), but if you want to find a particular waveform, good luck,

The pads are a nice 'halfway house' style suited to drums and instruments, closer to Maschine or Launchpad than MPC, and the sliders and knobs work well. Some of the shortcuts are a little vexing because the position of the Shift button means you need to use both hands - I prefer the double-tap setup of my MPC One here.

In terms of inputs and outputs, it's very flexible - with the current OS you can use it as a four-track mixer / live sampler / looper / FX box, with four tracks of internal sounds (and of course you can sequence the devices that are hooked up). Or you can have a hardware send and return path alongside the two inputs. It beats the One here for sure, though the One has the upper hand with USB devices and MIDI routing.

Sound design options are very broad with a strong selection of generally very good effects, though it can't compete with the depth of the One here - certainly no per-pad FX, and just one FX slot per program. But what's there sounds good, and it's easy to set up nice dedicated controls for the master FX. An advantage here over the MPC is that you get a solid core setup for quick results (but nothing you couldn't fix with an MPC template).

The synth engine is powerful and deep, and they've done a good job of making it work on the small screen with limited controls. It's not as immediate as the MPC's plugins, with their dedicated interfaces, but once you know the layout it's probably a little faster using the 707 - the UI is consistent and logical, and although some menu-diving is unavoidable if you want to get your hands dirty, it doesn't feel like a chore. The VA quality feels about the same, and the rompler synth features are more effective than you might think if you haven't used a groovebox since the 90s...

The clip arrangement style is easy enough for anyone with Ableton experience, and works well for a small screen / device. Giving you two mute pads per track - synced and instant - is a nice touch. The Scatter effects, which haven't usually appealed to me, are interesting here because you can customise the effects on all 16 pads, which means you can craft some quite subtle and useful effects - or you can sequence any of the individual parameters on a 16-step pattern, which you can modify in scale or speed.

There are some annoyances. My biggest bugbear is that the sample and hold LFO appears to just be a static sample slowed down, and if you sync it to a keypress it starts from the beginning every time, so you get a predictable pattern. So you can't, for example, use a slow synced S&H wave to alter the filter on every note. I'm at a loss as to why I didn't see this mentioned in any of the videos and reviews I checked out. And the other big one is that their fairly new clip chain feature is of no real use, because changing a clip cuts off any audio tails from the clip before - again, I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but I have had it confirmed by other users.

I'm sure that'll be fixed, and I'll submit a request to do something about the sample and hold. But otherwise, I think this is a good device, particularly as a kind of 'Roland Museum'. I don't think it's a One / Live killer - there's a different workflow and the sampling features are limited and a little clunky in comparison (and sample time / audio tracks is a big positive for the MPC) - but it could be bad news for a few of my other samplers. It'd be interesting if Roland developed some of the features into a more focused sampling device, like an MV update - then I think there'd be some serious competition.

I will also say that although I was skeptical of the MPC touchscreen approach, I have found myself jabbing the 707 screen a few times...

Thorough review there.

I can't over-state some of that - like the fact that the rompler sounds are much better than might be expected. As a greatest hits of the JV series - it's excellent. As a drum machine, you can get 808/909 kits set up (with effects) that could sell this machine if that's all it did.

Using FX on a per/pad basis is something core to the way I work. My drum kits usually have a snare pad duplicated with some specific delay or gated verb that I can use while programming rhythms, not added later as an afterthought.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Roland to alter their sample and hold LFO. If it's not a "tipping point feature" for sales, they are not likely to look at it. I've had trouble getting my 707 to sync properly to Logic and stuff like that might lead to more complaint emails.

Scott Righteous wrote:I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Roland to alter their sample and hold LFO.

Oh yeah, I'm sure that's low on their list, if it's there at all - the clip chain silencing is far more important, for one. I am curious, though, if this static S&H is a feature across all the Zen Core range, or if the 707 just implements S&H that way to save a bit of CPU.

If it is across the range, that seems like an awful, awful feature to put in high-priced synths and workstations like the Fantom range (or indeed in any price synth). And if it's not across the range, then the claim of being able to share Zen Core sounds across hardware falls flat, because patches could sound very different on a device with a proper S&H source...

707 looks dope. I love the sliders better you can do a mix with that true analog feel. That is dope!
Someone told me Ro Ro was coming for Akai's head. .
My singer is looking into Maschine cause its coming with some new stuff but is now looking at both 707band Maschine . She sold her live.

DokBrown wrote:
CAN I PLUG an AKAI MPD into the MPC LIVE via USB 8 sliders would be nice. I do not like q-links for mixing levels. Plus some extra pre-mapped knobs would be nice.

Yes you can, the only issue is the MPC doesn't recognize fader banking. I still find it odd that Akai MPC is not fully integrated with their MIDI controllers.

Work around: Buy a DMX MIDI lighting controller with 16 banks. Something like this, the Behringer LC2412 V2 512-Ch 24-Fader DMX Controller. It has 24 faders, so in theory you should be able to Midi learn each fader.




Another options is the Akai Professional MIDImix MIDI Control Surface or Novation Launch Control XL Controller.

Use the knobs in row 1 and 2 as PANS on track 1 - 16
Use row 3 as volume knobs and 8 fader as volume faders on track 1-16

Can the Beringher be used as a midi controller then? I can't find any information other than the midi is used to connect two controllers.

If it can be used as a midi controller as well as a dmx controller, I may well have to pick one up at this price.

With the Behringer LC2412 I'm unsure, that's why I said in theory because it has MIDI in and out, but as you said... It's may be for linking two units together. Perhaps a dmx to midi convertor may work, but again I'm not really sure. I wonder if the faders and button send MIDI. If they do then it will work. I need to find someone who has it and test it. It's strange you don't see a work around for this.

This is another option to look into: Behringer BCR2000





Anyone reading this below is a possible workaround and has not been tested.

Possible Work around: Buy a DMX MIDI lighting controller with 16 banks. Something like this, the Behringer LC2412 V2 512-Ch 24-Fader DMX Controller. It has 24 faders, so in theory you should be able to Midi learn each fader.