Roland MC-09 Phraselab User reviews -Page 1

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Average rating: 3.2 out of 5

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sam a hobbyist user from U.S.A. writes:

I had purchased an MC-09 off Ebay a couple years ago for $75. Last year, I sold it for $200, and believe me, I wish I still had it. I could care less about "TB-303 emulation", so don't tell me about how weak this synth is compared to that over-priced antique (don't get me wrong, the TB-303 sounds great, but I'm not paying that much for a monosynth). People, don't think as the MC-09 as an all-in-one unit, think of it as a Swiss army knife. Quit acting like Smartmedia cards are "so hard to find", they're not (Ebay). It's true that saving and loading samples is a pain, but you get used to it (I wouldn't use it live as a stand-alone unit). The loop control functions on this thing are wonderful for chopping up samples. The sequenced effects are useful when used with an external input source. The looper is lo-fi, yet fun and simple. The drums suck (until you lower the pitch), but that's where the loop control comes into play (make your own kit with the "chop" function). By the way, I can't find one of these on Ebay right now (12/18/08), so that tells me that people have found some use for this thing.

Rating: 4 out of 5 posted Thursday-Dec-18-088 at 15:58

mat a professional user from goa writes:

i guess i should stop reading the reviews as most are obviously written by (chavs who use electribes)ha ha .....well i was expecting a completly boring piece of crap after reading you lot!!!down below there.....got one cheap Â£40 and i can stop tweakin it.ive sampled sequenced and mixed it into reagea ,techno acid ,house and abstract avant gaurd,and im not fatigued at all by the experience.excuse me but the electribes piss me off.i like alternatives and this is the perfect under dog.works as midi controller.try plugging it into midi keyboard and it makes an interesting monophonic synth.love sound here.rich roland lushniss.i use wired straight into the sp808 ex.this combo works for me.the esx is going on ebay..just make sure you dont use it as the main unit.and use an fx bow.peace

Rating: 5 out of 5 posted Tuesday-Oct-07-088 at 07:06

sam a hobbyist user from UK writes:

very easy to use with some nice bass sounds, but you soon realise it's limitations. as mentioned before, the knobs don't strech the sound enough and the accent feature does not give it the full 303 effect. i brought this blindly - wished i discovered this site first. still i'll keep hold of it, but i wouldn't recommend it

Rating: 2 out of 5 posted Tuesday-Mar-11-088 at 18:24

x7 a professional user from u.s. writes:

wanna make $50? get your drum machine loving friend to buy a phrase lab and you buy an electribe. sit side by side and start tinkering. within 8 minutes he will buy your electribe for more than you paid or trade you the phrase lab and $50.

i bought both 3 years ago. the electribe has ALL 250 pattern spaces filled with beats i made. the phrase lab has 2 or 3 used. i keep saying ill use the phrase lab but the knobs dont stretch the sound far enough from its original sound for me to respect it or myself for what ive made. im gonna sit on it for another couple months and try some things ive seen suggested here.

one thing i noticed was that most people were capitalizing on 1 thing at a time whereas i like to make an entire song on 1 device and layer it thick. i feel my free form creativity is stagnated with this device in exchange for slight technical precision.

how is a device that emulates a legendary device gonna be legendary? the legendary device already exists.

one of the 5 worst purchases ive ever made

Rating: 1 out of 5 posted Thursday-Dec-06-077 at 20:49

Marius from Norway writes:

The sequencer is good. but its limited to a legth of only two bars(32) steps. It does Accents,Slide and tie. Just like a real TB303 does. but that is the sequencer..! the DSP synth engine has some cool base sounds, but i mean what the hell were roland thinking when they made this tb303 clone and dident made it so accents from the seq effects the filter..? Thats right!!? The Accents you program only effects the amp(volume) and not the cutoff, like a real tb303. So then you`re cinda stuck with a half cool half usseless clone of a tb303. The only thing i feel i can use this machine for, is to let it control my other synths with mutch better oscilatorsfilters.

Its so anoing. The most important thing about the classig tb303 is that the accents effects the filter, not just the amp. I have mostly given upp on the internal dsp synthesizer on the mc09. (Even tho it sounds pretty cool.) Just using it as a sequencer to control my @Juno, Poly800, Ms2000 etc. They sounds better anyway, and midi accents can be sett to affect their filters!

I cant find my manual to the MC09 , but dont remember that it was posible to turn that on and off. The accents controling the filter also i mean. i remember i got pissed of the first time i tryed it and realized it. That`s the thing that realy makes it sound like just another non succesed tb303 clone. I havent realy gotten to use the sampler unit either. When i bought it, it ocoarse was without a memory card. Here in Norway you cant by them anymore since they are so outdated, so every time i have a cool sample in my mc09 , it disapears when i turn it off. yeeeey. Why couldent roland just equipped it with 8mb internal sample memory after all. 8mb what price does that cost..? Close to nothing i guess. Even in 2002 when it came out. Roland stupidness if u ask me. Why cant they just start reproducing the origial tb303`s. Jupiters, Junos and all the other synths that sounds so amazingly mutch better than any other digital crap clones. If anyone ever finds a way to uppdate the dsp synth in the mc09 so that the accents will effect not only the amp, but also the filter. EMAIL ME AND LET ME KONW:D

-Synth hobbyist from Norway19

Rating: 2 out of 5 posted Tuesday-Oct-16-077 at 13:29

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