Tune construction - MC-909

[chargedup]

I am having some difficulty in finding a good way to construct my tunes (hard house, breakbeat, electro) for recording , here is my dilemma…

As you may know the 909 doesn’t have a patch remain when switching either between patterns or patterns within a song, this makes using effects such as delay virtually unusable as the switch between patterns, even when using the same patch is very noticeable.

I am currently working using the following methods:

I create a few different patterns, each of varying length up to about 64 measures, for the intro, main, breakdown, etc – I make sure that any effects applied to patches near to the end of the pattern are faded out. I then resample. This seems to work OK although it takes a long time to finish anything.

I create a part of 8 or 16 measures and copy and change this as the tune develops to create a tune of say, 10 patterns. Probably the sensible option although patch remain becomes a problem and if I change one part I have to make a further 9 changes and save each pattern – very time consuming.

I create my one pattern and play it live and record to my minidisk (I did try playing it live and resampling at the same time but you can’t close the resample window so it’s impossible to know where you’re up to). This method works although I can’t fully tweak all the parts as I want on the fly and it’s a one shot deal. I also can’t then use the 909 to mix in to my DJ set.

These are the only methods I can think of and I was hoping that someone with more time under their belt on the 909 could give me a couple of pointers.

Many thanks,

[V-Ger]

If I've understand it right your problem is that when you change pattern the sounds are cutten when the pattern changes.
I had the same problem that i solved this way:
First of all I turned the Patch remain on going to system/sound/Patch Remain
Then I've created a 'in between' pattern (let's call it pattern B) that make as a step point from two pattern (wich we'll call pattern A and C). If in the pattern A (the first) I have a patch whose sound has to be persistant i set the very same part in the pattern b with the same patch, so when i change a pattern the sound continue until his natural fadeout. You don't need to put midi datas in the part, is enough that there is the same patch in the same part of the first pattern.
I'm not very sure but it should work the same way with the effects.
Quickest way to do this is to save the pattern in two nearby pattern (in sequence) and then erase all midi datas from the second pattern, so when you change from the first pattern the sound is not drastically cutten at the change.
I hope this might help you and i hope i was clear, i'm not very skilled in english language.
Let me know if was what you were looking for...

Bye

[OneMB]

I have the same problem with my Korg EMX-1
The only solution is to record all the long synth in the song mode
I don't know how about the Roland MC's

The bad thing is, you have to record everything in one complete song
If there's a mistake, you have to redo everything from the start

The good thing, we can practice ourself how to play live while making beats
Looking forward to get the MC-808
Hoping there will be a linear update for Roland products

[Artemiy]

On both 808 and 909 you can do both macro and micro editing of your works, you will not have to redo anything from scratch.

[OneMB]

That is a nice feature of both MC 909 and MC 808
Thank you for the information Artemio
May I know what’s causing the mute problem when changing patterns?

Is it an out of beats samples (synth, bass, etc) causing the mute sound between patterns?
Roland really got a great customer support via this forum
Keep on the good things going on guys

Is it possible to produce a good complete song using this product?
Suggestion : I think you guys should make a demo song 100% using this product on the site
Same goes to the other product to make the users convince what really the product capable off

[breakbeatah]

for single song recording i always stay within the same pattern. if you know general song structure of techno or whatever you can write/edit everything. the sequencer runs just enough for a complete song anyways right. just copy/duplicate/erase whatever or whenever you know which measures should be cancelled such as a breakdown. at first, I thought 16 channels weren't enough, but once you get the hang of edit/erasing all that jazz in the sequencer it gets better. sometimes 3 channels are the same break right, just edited differently for breakdown reasons. whenever i bring in hats, cymbals or whatever i do it live with the touch of button. ive never been into pattern changes of automatic. plus it feels real and sounds a bit more real, because a fraction of second when a pad is coming in i prefer! much luck mate

[OneMB]

Thank you for sharing information breakbeatah
It do feel real when trigger it live

[chargedup]

Just an update:

Granted, I didn't give the 909 much time (6 months) but I really didn't get on with it. Switching patterns and having the effects drop out really annoyed me, so did the fact that you can't create a whole song within one pattern - Pattern Full errors all too quickly, and the fact that the sound was very weak compared to the fantom. Anyways, it's gone now - However, I had a play on the 808 yesterday and boy, did it sound good. The sound quality is 100% better than the 909, not so sure about the interface, I'm gonna go back this weekend and give it a real workout!

[OneMB]

I all ready watch the video by Michael Acosta
But I really can't wait for your MC-808 interface review chargedup
MC-808 still not available in my country

[chargedup]

Hi OneMB,

I'm probably not the person to review the 808 - I know very little about equipment, I just like messing around with sounds.

What I can say is that it's a very smart piece of kit - about the size of a Korg Electribe. It felt strange to be tweaking using sliders and not knobs but the way they jump around in relation to the settings looked cool. I did find them quite noisy though (I guess that would be the servos).

What I really liked was the updated patterns and the quality of the patches. I recognised some of these from the 909 and the Fanton, especially the synth basses - they were definitely Phatt!

I didn't have time to set anything up from scratch, I was just playing with the presets so I'll need to do some more investigation before I decide if I'm gonna get one - My local shop had 2 in stock: one on demo and one for sale. If I hadn't just bought an Alesis Micron that day I would have been very tempted to part with 799 UK pounds ($1462 us).

[OneMB]

No worries chargedup
I just interested in your personal thought about the MC-808
You're lucky living in UK because your country has the highest currency value

You can get everything for cheap
People in the development countries have to pay a bang for music equipment
Only the price of Roland/Boss/Edirol products almost equal to US or UK

Good job people at Roland for making this possible