555 rant

[mmelon]

Hi all,

I've had a 555 about 18months now and have only just found the time to delve in and start using it.

I'm of the opinion that it is almost a really inspiring instrument but falls slightly short and ultimately leaves me frustrated.

If anyone disagrees I would love to hear your views.

My top annoyances with the 555:

loop capture
I thought this would be a cool way to overdub live singing or other performance over a pattern. Almost like a one track audio recorder. It doesn't serve this purpose because you can quantize the sample length (albeit with silence forced near the end,) but you can't quantize the loop start point
The bottom line is anything you try and grab with loop capture won't nescessarily ever sync back with the material you recorded it against. How I wish it would start the capture when the pattern started so I could confidently say the timing will be the same when I copy to pad and trigger from the pattern. As things stand, the timing is as tight as my ability to hit overdub (or press a footswitch) on the exact top of the bar. This means I have to mess with the start point to put it back into sync. Shouldn't be necessary.
Similarly, supposing I just wanted to bounce down 4 bars of the unit playing a pattern. You can't seem to do this!?!. Hit loop capture and you end up with something 4 bars in length, but again subject to human error of starting the capture. Have I got this all wrong? I hope so.

Resample
I understand the intended paradigm of building up music in layers on the 555. Sample a loop, apply an effect, resample to a new pad, apply another effect, resample again etc. Well that's fine except each time I resample I loose my carefully marked end point. I may have specified that this loop is 130bpm by marking the ending (the unit helps with this by quantizing the end to the nearest beat. Yet every time I want to resample I loose my end point and have to remark it. AHHHHH! Why? The pad I'm copying new the tempo of the loop. This really puts me off using the unit. It's a shame, the effects are great. Please tell me i'm wrong about this too?

DSynth thing
If this responds to midi in like a monosynth then you have a self contained groove box. You can work with the basic waves provided and still create a diverse range of sounds by layering effects/eq's and filters. I mean, the midi in port is there?! How hard would it have been to make the synth respond to note on/off? Who ever wrote a proper melody by waving their hand in the air?

They are my main gripes for now. It's so nearly a great unit. Having that volume of audio available so quickly makes it potentially amazing live. Even loading new pattern sets is quick and intuitive. The effects are fantastic. The USB throughput from the PC is genius. The UI is mostly spot on.

Why don't the basics work?

I'm considering selling mine pristine along with max card, usb cable, proper roland padstand and a suitable flight case. Let me know if anyone in the UK is interested.

Best,
Mike

[electrolegs]

Completely agree!! Get an octatrack

[cartesia]

Everything it claims to do works, just sounds like you want something that it's not.. in which case sell it and buy something else

[mmelon]

my post was a bit negative. Just borne out of frustration. some people accept things as they are, some people see the way things could have been. I won't sell it as the effects and the effect memories are fantastic. I've warmed to the unit as a whole.

I'm going to ask roland about controlling the synth. I refuse to believe they didn't add provision to change pitch via CC at least.

[electrolegs]

while you at it - ask them to kindy fix the annoying looper going out of sync with the pattern sequencer via OS update. Kthxbai.

[tedstryka]

@ electrolegs

you got an octotrack huh? please start a thread about it. i'm eager to learn about this piece of gear...looks complicated but some of those features are fucking INSANE