Conference napalm::commusic_v1

199.0. "New Roland Sequencer" by SIVA::FEHSKENS () Mon Dec 02 1985 17:28

Well, I'm sure they'll call it a "Keyboard Recorder".

I spoke with the local Roland rep a month or so back, and my vow of silence
has expired, so I can tell you all what he told me about the new Roland
MC-500 sequencer.  For about $1000, sometime in or after February, you'll
be able to get a 4 track, 3.5" disked sequencer from Roland.  The disk's
capacity is (I think) about 40000 notes.  It combines all the features of
the MSQ-100 and MSQ-700, plus some new stuff.  It also leaves out some
stuff that Roland considered redundant (e.g., tape sync - they assumed anybody
who wanted already had it in a drum machine or sync box) to pack in the most
bang for the buck.  It's got a numeric keypad and LED window display, no more
of this 14 functions on a button depending on what your last five button pushes
were.  It also has a drummachine like feature whereby an implicit (i.e., not
one of the 4 explicit) tracks can be programmed with patterns and the patterns
invoked by number to form a song, so you can drive MIDI compatible drum 
machines without MIDI note ons without going crazy from the repetition.
You can also edit ANY MIDI message field, and inserts and deletes are what they
call "Phrase coherent" (i.e., your legato playing won't get screwed up by
time correct or a bar/note insertion deletion).

If you don't want one of these, you still benefit, as you'll be able to pick
up an MSQ-100 or MSQ-700 (both very capable sequencers) for a song next month.

PS, it will also record MIDI exclusive data, so you can change your programs
in real time and the MC500 will record the changes.  I mean EDIT your programs
as part of a performance, not just select another program.

len.

Len, do you know how this new Roland sequencer compares with Sequential's Multi-
track machine in terms of functionality?

I don't know anything about the Sequential Multitrack, so I can't comment.

But I did remember one more interesting thing about the MC-500 - it will
separate overdubs (probably by MIDI channel number).  This was Roland's
justification for providing only 4 tracks instead of 8 (or more).
Presumably the way they expect you to use it is to overdub to an empty
track, correct the addition until you're happy with it, merge it into
the running "mixed down" track, then overdub again.  Later if you decide you
want to change something, you extract the problem channel from the mixed
down track to a blank track, fix it up and remerge it back into the mix.

As someone pointed out, it's sometimes useful to be able to keep data streams
destined for the same channel separate.  With the MC-500 you could only have
3 such streams active at once (the 4th track is the merge of everything else),
so you'd have to decide early on that something was not likely to change.

All these issues become irrelevant if you can edit a visual representation
of the track.

len.