I just got my 777 a few days ago... This is my first analogue -- until now all I've had are digital synths -- some roland and yamaha stuff. This is quite a change. First of all, I have to say that I'm amazed how 'professional' analogue sounds. When I liten to my favorite goa music, it seems like all of it uses 303-ish sounds to a ridiculous degree... but now I've got those same sounds coming out of my own speakers...

There are more knobs than I know what to do with. It's really nice being able to play with a cutoff and res that work really nicely, unlike on my roland where only about 30% of the range is 'functional', with the rest of the settings sounding like crap. The 7 pole filter, when combined with the B-oscillator filter modulation, yields some *incredibly* deep deep bass. I'm gonna buy a new subwoofer just so I can take advantage of it.

Real Audio really muckies up sound. It sounds even better than the RA samples on FutureRetro's site... the RA seems to make the high frequencies swishy, but it sounds extremely clean. I recommend listening to a 777 live if you can...

The sequencer is really awesome. At first I was expecting it to be 303-like, which I find kind of annoying, but was delightfully suprised to see that it is much more intuitive. (Note on/off info is put into the 16 buttons at the bottom -- then the pitch is selected with down/up buttons)

It really shines through MIDI... you can trigger accents and glides through midi, too, which is really nice. It's much faster to program the front panel, but if you want to tweak minor things (I use a lot of wacky non-uniform gate times for my stuff), the MIDI is helpful.

Now only if the knobs were midi-controllable :)

I am very glad that someone introduced me to the 777 before I bought a 303... this thing is just sooo much more versatile. 7 pole filters are your friends. :)

I have not yet figured out how to get good percussive sounds out of this... but that may only be due to my never having used an analogue before. I got a pretty deep bass kick, but I can't get any decent open high-hat types of sounds.

My only complaint is that I can't afford two more of these, so I could do multitrack stuff realtime. (bass + lead parts)

If you buy a 303 you are crazy. If you sell a 777 you are beyond hope.