i love the sound of it, its so in your face, it cuts through the mix wheter its playing the ominous 303 sequence or some weird frequency mod line. i love to TWEAK IT TO DEATH through a delay unit FREAKY!!!!! comparing VA to analogue isnt very erm...bright. read the VA gear reviews - all the posts usually state "the (insert name of VA instrument here) sounds analogue" or "the (see above) does not sound analogue". the 777 breathes and hisses while playing, my proph doesnt. its all i want to say. the sequencer is also a killer, pattern sequencing is kind of limiting, but who cares if its one bar instant mega boombass you're looking for. im actually thinking ob buying a moebius and selling the 777 (yes im beyond hope).

which brings me to the cons: ok, i knew when buying it that it was monophonic, sonically a bit limited, that it had no real midi implementation (basically only note on-off). i wouldnt be thinking of selling it if cutoff and resonance were midi responsive. im really no midi boffin and i hate computers but look at the xbase: all analougue sound generation (xcept the hihats) with full midi control: this is real cool. imagine the 777 with only one third of its knobs midi controlled: MEGAULTRAKILLABOX. the price would probably have gone up a bit and it wouldnt sound so analogue tough, but i could have coped with it (maybe not with the higher price...). patch storage would also be nice, but the digital control it implies would also make changes to the sound, like more midi control, i guess.

this is a box for the hardcore analogue technoids or for the pros who just want that sound. but im neither a purist nor a pro. it does exactly what it says it does (or what jered says on the 777 site), but if i had a choice i would take my microq over this (i know its no real comparison apples and oranges blahblablah).

at the moment im keeping both hahahahahahaahhh

david

i run this baby with a yamaha rm1x and a roland dj70. nice little combo and with a little effort, professional sounding tracks is more of a reality than without the 777. this is the first synth that i have actually found some good presets. just start tweaking those knobs and your there!

what i like to do is record some presets into my rm1x and then alter the MIDI note data with groove settings, etc... and use the 777 as a tone module.

when i first got it, i couldn't stop playing it. my neighbors were thoroughly pissed for a long time. this little box made all the windows vibrate and without a deep-sounding bass line.

the only gripe i have is that it doesn't receive even the most basic CC's. it would be nice to just program volume messages for a gradual increase as the bass line comes in instead of having to turn the volume knob manually.

jared is one cool cat. very friendly and quick with replies.

I was expecting a 10 week period on the waiting list and further time while the thing was shipped to Australia. I placed myself on the waiting list and- voila! No more than four weeks later my 777 was sitting in my studio. I know it doesn't really affect the quality of an instrument, but I feel that it is worth mentioning the exceptional service I (and apparently many others) have received from Future-Retro. All questions I had prior to purchasing the synth were answered within 24 hours. The friendliness of the company shone through in all correspondence. The speed at which the product arrived was amazing.

The sounds that come out of this synth are fantastic! I've heard a lot of people complain that the 777 is only capable of souped up 303 type sounds and this is somewhat true if you only use the filter and amp sections. If you can take the time to learn a little about cross modulation you can create some very usable non-303 timbres. I personally feel that the real strengths of this synth are in the oscilator and frequency modulation sections. Not to say that the filter and amp sections aren't great, because they are, but there is a lot of scope for creating original sounds in the osc/fm section.

The step sequencer is incredibly user friendly. All parameters can be edited in real time. I'm running version 2.0 and find the midi is really tight (apparently there were some problems with earlier versions). Everything you could want in a step sequencer providing you only want to trigger the internal sounds or another similar synth. Velocity and duration are transmitted, but are variable only by accent and glides. If you are sequencing velocity sensitive gear, or would like non-regular gate times you wil need to transfer the sequence to another sequencer and get in and get yourhands dirty. A little more midi capabilities would have been nice, but would have made the sequencer a lot less *instant* which I feel is part of its appeal. I personally don't mind getting my hands dirty with midi, so I don't find it is a real drawback.

My only real is that both the oscilators on my 777 seem a little flat. When the frequency knobs are turned to 12:00 the pitch should theoretically be spot on. I find that to tune my 777 to other synths (digital, so the tuning should be spot on) the knobs need to be turned to abut 12:30. Once again, not really an issue. I suppose I could always get inside and tune them differently but I know to turn the knobs to 12:30 so it's not an issue.

All in all a very friendly (or evil) synth. Lots of scope for sounds. Lots of fun to use. The best monosynth available at the moment.