superb machine, paid £85 english pounds for it, its in perfect condition, few scratches on the bottom from being mounted but thats it.

I couldn't believe how light the machine was! i thought for a minute i'd been duped and the insides were missing! its <i>that</i> light, scary! but its a solid machine.

The sounds are great, completely crap and completely wicked at the same time. I'm sure you know where i'm coming from when i say that.

The Cymbal sounds (namely the hats) are straight from the TR-505. you can tell them a mile off, very harsh sounding. but lovely when hi-passed, gorgeous!

programming it: piece of p*ss (excuse my language), absolutely, 10 minutes after getting out of the box, i had a few patterns chained together and i was away with the 707 fairies.. excellent. its the easiest drum machine to program that ive got, well the 606 is probably the easiest, with the 707 a very close second de to its classic drum matrix programming lcd, which i love.

I only program the machine when im chilling, otherwise its midi'd up with the rest of the studio (http://www.theverychap.com/studio/).

PROS: 1)I enjoy playing it on my lap. 2)I love how the swing and flam give the pattern a more human feel. 3)you can hook up the indivual outputs to your drum brain's trigger ins(eg. Alesis D4)rather than playing your drum brain with your finger on a keyboard. 4)Since there are less parameters to change on the 707, one has to rely on their creativity in sequencing. 5)After using it for a while and knowing the machine inside and out you can do whatever you like. 6)The real and step programming is fun.

CONS: 1)most of the sounds don't cut through a mix unless EQed, or processed. 2)hitting a pad won't send a MIDI note out, so one can't use it as a MIDI controller (unless you program your patterns, link them to songs, and change a parameter to allow a MIDI note out) 3)I wish it could be a slave and still send out MIDI out and DIN out (but there's ways around that)

I don't care if the bass sounds, or the snare sounds, or the high hats sound like a TR808 or TR909, it's not -it's a 707. If one has an imagination one doesn't have to rely on sounding like everyone else that's trying to sound like the artists who pioneered Chicago House and Detroit Techno (it's 2004...time to move on).

And here's the other big HOWEVER: each drum can't send out its own MIDI channel, it's just one global MIDI channel for the whole thing. That's another feature the RX was able to do, so that when I MIDI up to the Sound Canvas drums, I can use an Evolution MIDI knob controller to tweak the chorus, reverb, volume, panning, etc. of the TR-808 drumkit. Yes even the cheap RX-15 at least had this feature. So I am a little bummed out that I can't completely replace the old beatbox completely, but this thing does rock. Great 80s powerdrum samples, and the demo patterns beat the hell out of the stuff that was in the RX. Unless you are trying to do techno/breakbeat stuff, you really don't need distortion effects, just give it a splash of reverb (and maybe some compression) and run it thru a powerful amp and good PA speakers, and this thing will shake the house.