SP-FORUMS

i thought i remembered one of you guys saying something like that...

if you owned an 808 and are willing to chat with me about it holler.. if you owned an 808 and moved on the an mv im even more interested..

holler

I had a MV8800 before I bought an MC808, but I do have both.

What are you wondering about??

In my personal opinion the MC-808 is great for it's sounds, synth capabilities and of course the groovebox type loops you can make within literally seconds.

The motorized faders are cool, but sort of overrated. The MV can do similar fader / slider automation as well, without noisy faders.

When it comes to FX, the MC-808 is great. Very comparable to the MV.

The arpeggiator on the MC-808 is of course also very useful.

I'm mainly using the MC-808 instead of a normal synth, for it's sounds.

Downside of the MC-808 is that it's not very fast to use. Be prepared for lots of not that obvious key combinations to do quite basic things. This can get quite tedious.

The MV is a whole lot better when it comes to this. It works more convenient.

Where the MV totally blows the MC-808 out of the water though is when it comes to making entire songs with lots of lots of midi tracks and audio tracks all in one box.

I would probably recommend the MV over the MC-808, especially if money isn't an issue. The MC-808 is certainly great, but it sort of has a steeper learning curve than the MV8800, oh and also isn't flawless when it comes to it's Operating System. I ran across some bugs and freezes.

There's a good chance Roland will release some updates in the near future though, as contrary to earlier plans, they did not discontinue the MC-808 machine just yet.

When it comes to sounds, I'm sure most people can really appreciate the MC-808, especially if they into more trance / dance and techno kind of music too.

Not saying you can't make all kinds of music with it though, just check YouTube.

Do you have any specific questions?

damn phemox its like you read my mond all the way from the netherlands!

you pretty much summed it up for me.. and touched on everything i had sorta heard or thought about the 808 already.. basically i hate buying used gear because you never know what youre gonna get.. ive been working on my 404 and on an esx1 and i really like the programming and visual thing the esx has over the 404.. which is what drew me to the mv... i had pretty much talked myself into committing to the mv8800 as far as cost goes but i guess im getting cold feet... im still pretty new to all of this and i want to progress and make better more full songs rather than loops and simple stuff.. i also dont find the limitations of my hardware inspiring to push them harder and find work arounds.. i know the mv is a BEAST and has so much to offer.. i know its more worth the 1600 to 1900 than an mpc at the same price range.. but im just thinking now that it might be MORE than i need at this point.. i really like the built in daw thing and the vga action i was just hoping that the 808 was "better" that what i have already.. it is in some ways but i think its too close to what i have already and not nearly close enough to an mv.. shit its not even in the same game.. im not really interested in the mpc line because they seem overrated and not reliable and for the same money/a little more/less money i could get the mv..

ugh...

decisions

It's like reading my own short history with samplers.

If buying an MV is a realistic option for you budget-wise, I'd totally go for it for sure. Doing such an investment naturally will mean you will be putting more effort into learning and mastering your machine, so I really wouldn't worry too much about being a beginner. Just make yourself a promise and don't give up within 2 weeks or 2 months, but stick with it.

Also, you are indeed getting a whole lot more for that money than an MPC in the same price range, that's very true.

If you're stuck, you can always ask me or other MV-ers questions here or post them on MVNAtion.com.

Ask Olby, he'll say the same, learning the basics of the machine can be done within a few days. I came from the SP-606 and was able to make beats on the MV on the same day I got my MV.

Honestly, I'm sure you will too. I've learned by far the most from using the MV and am still learning, but that's the great part of it. It has a whole lot less limitations than an SP-404, SP-606 or MC-808, meaning it will take some time before you're able to get the most out of it. It will never become too much of a challenge and this also means it won't easily gets boring to mess with the machine.

thanks so much for replying to this thread..

i wrote olby an email a while back and asked him a few stupid questions i realized the answers to AFTER i wrote him asking him...

lets do this..

give me the thing(s) you dislike or would change..

ive got the basic idea for setting up an intro and getting into the meat of what im trying to make.. i can turn parts on and off and change stuff up to make things interesting.. on my korg its a lot easier to do this than on the 404.. but the korg feels more like programming than playing when it comes to creation.. i get lost on the 404 with into part a b c d it just is too simple or not complex enough for me to get much more than loops.. and ive seen amazing stuff people make on here.. would the 555 or anything else youve worked with sound good for a nerd like me? i was looking hard at the 606 for a while but then i read a few bad things about it... the 555 always seemed too much like a slightly better 404 with twice the price tag.. the loopcapture thing looks cool but i donno if it would make things that im trying to do any better/easier...

i could buy an mv if i was totally set on it... the money is def there and i could do it if i want to but im trying to see if maybe theres another option there that more than likely ive explored or doesnt exist... especially if i stay away from akais stuff... it just kinda sucks there is such a huge jump in price and component from the 555 to the 8800.. youve for the 404 at 3-400 the 555 at 5-600 then the mv at 1600-1900 with nothing in between

sorry if it seems like im rambling or blabbering on talking in circles but i have no friends who do this and the guys at guitar center and sam ash know NOTHING about this stuff.. a guy at g.c. kept referring to "his" mv "my" mv "when i work on the mv" and i think i figured out he was talking about the floor model not one he actually paid money for and owned..

it just kinda sucks there is such a huge jump in price and component from the 555 to the 8800.. youve for the 404 at 3-400 the 555 at 5-600 then the mv at 1600-1900 with nothing in between

It's kind of sad, but as far as I know there isn't quite anything in between the MV and SP555, except the older SP-505, SP-808 and SP-606 to some extent.

The most popular Akai choices in between the Roland MV and Roland SP-555 probably are the MPC1000 and MPC2500. Feature wise the MV is a whole lot better then the MPC2500 though, which is also too expensive in comparison.

i was looking hard at the 606 for a while but then i read a few bad things about it... the 555 always seemed too much like a slightly better 404 with twice the price tag.. the loopcapture thing looks cool but i donno if it would make things that im trying to do any better/easier

I normally also very much recommend the SP-606. I really loved that machine.

What did you hear about it that's not good? One thing that really bothered me within a few months, enough to want to make the move to the MV, was it's 4-track sequencer which is really not all that good. Good isn't the right word here, but it's too limited. I had great fun using the SP-606 and you can build full songs using Song mode and stitching patterns together. That works fine.

If you can afford it though.. the MV is on a whole different level when it comes to the sequencer. Pattern mode, Linear Song mode, it has it all. There's a ton of ways to make songs, whether loops like you're used to, or full blown songs with intro, chorus, refrains, build ups and outros. It's all very possible.

In fact, you can use Song mode, set the sequencer to loop between two points for for example 10 bars and totally make your loops within your songs shine. That way you can still continue to make music the way you want, but also add intros, outros and so on.

There's a dedicated Pattern mode as well, giving total freedom here.

sorry if it seems like im rambling or blabbering on talking in circles but i have no friends who do this and the guys at guitar center and sam ash know NOTHING about this stuff.. a guy at g.c. kept referring to "his" mv "my" mv "when i work on the mv" and i think i figured out he was talking about the floor model not one he actually paid money for and owned..

No worries man. In fact, I had something similar happening quite a few times too. One time I was looking for a good mic. That guy was simply lying his socks off talking all kinds of nonsense about condenser mic this, dynamic mic that ( he was comparing instrument mics to vocal mics, even though I explicitly asked for vocal mic advise lol ), so I demanded doing a test.

Never regretted doing that as I was able to test a whole bunch of mics, from very cheap to very expensive and was ultimately able to choose the best one for me for the best price.

I don't know any Guitar Center like store here with people that actually really know how the MV works, most stores don't have anyone who can do a demo... Because of that they usually blindly recommend the MPC5000 over the MV, because they know the MPC1000. So unfortunate.

You know, I don't think you will regret going for the MV. It will be expensive, but it also will be an exponential step up from where you're coming from.

Good thing is that in essence it still very much works the same as your current sampler, but gives you a whole lot more flexibility and possibilities.

It's easy for me to rant on about the MV for days, but ultimately it's difficult to estimate whether you would consider it a good investment. If you're serious about making music (not necessarily in a commercial way at all), I'd do it.

give me the thing(s) you dislike or would change..

Excellent idea. The MV is definitely not a perfect machine, so naturally there are a few things I would have loved to see different.

- The MV has great FX, but it has only one Multi-FX at a time. It still has a separate Reverb and Chorus / Delay FX which is great, but it somehow feels a bit spartan having to resample or bounce to an audio track a whole lot, just to get various (shorter) FX into a song. ( It does have 3 simultaneous FX, but 2 of them are reserved for Reverb or Chorus/Delay related FX.).

- Piano Roll editing for detailed editing of midi tracks could use a few touches to make it easier to work with. This is for the most part just a cosmetic thing (for example having to click really thin bars is annoying if you want to do some fast editing).

- It can be a tad slow whenever it needs to load things. But it's nothing I can't live with.

- Not quite a con, but worth mentioning. You will probably want to upgrade to 512MB of internal memory quite soon. It's worth doing this and will save you frustration of running into the limits of the stock 128mb. The average project will be anywhere between 120mb and 200mb when you're going to make use of samples a lot, not to mention a cappella vocal samples.

I would have to think hard to come up with some other cons of the MV though. Yeah, perhaps the fact that the MV-OP1 outboard expansion giving you lots more outputs was discontinued, but currently I wouldn't have a good use for it anyways. It's probably why it was discontinued, people didn't need it.

One could look at the price as being a lot, but for that you're also getting a whole lot. I still very much think my MV was worth every buck spend on it.

One of the biggest pros is also the bug free OS. It has virtually no bugs at all.

thanks again so much for the replies..

you touched on the stuff on the 606 i heard about.. the sequencer being the main thing i heard about.. a lot of the other features i read sound real good i just donno if it would be different enough from my 404 to make that much of a difference.. the sp series has funny pads that scare me off.. the 555 and 808 pads seem nice (the 808 seem more like buttons than pads) but ive never touched a 606.. if i were to save up for the mv it would take a long time so ive got time to think about it and try out some other stuff and get more advice.. i only spend money on music stuff i round up.. like from selling other stuff to make money for new stuff (bike stuff and other gear).. plus namm is going on and maybe something new will come out (prolly not) but who knows..

Yeah, Summer Namm gives us the Beat Thang virtual (which is a software and coupon for the hardware Beat Thang that comes out later this year). It's shaping up nicely looking somewhat like an MPC500 or MPC1000, but with less features than both while also being portable.

The pads on the 606 are a lot different than on the sp-555. I liked the pads on the 606 a lot better, but they're not so much like buttons that need to be pushed far inwards. I'm thinking any kind of sampler needs time to get used to the pads, the same was true for me with the MV. It's a whole lot more like those MPCs were you need to hit the pads quite hard.

It's good to keep an open minded view on what's coming though. I don't expect an MV9000 any time soon, but there certainly are alternatives.

In comparison with DAW/synth workstations, the sequencer on the 606 i way limited, but as i see it, its the other way around, its the biggest sequencer available in the sp- series.

id love for it to be on par with the mc series sequencers, even the original groovebox had 8 tracks of sequencing, and on the drum track, you could mute 8 different sounds.

but, with only 8 voice polyphony, a 8 track sequencer is kind of overkill anyways.

the resampling abilities of the sp-606 is powerful enough to let you bypass the shortcomings in polyphony and sequencer capabilities, but it is indeed the old school way of getting the most out of your equipment.

Modern DAWs, the largest MPCs and the MV series soves this by just giving you enough tracks to sequence on, and enough polyphony to stop worry about it. You might not even have to concider to sample in mono or low grade not to run out of memory either

roland has discontinued the sp-606, hopefully for a reason, id love for a mv-808 (the sp-606s semi production center was clearly a step away from 303/404/505/555 s live approach to sampling) to bridge the gap, giving us an entry level bedroom producer all-in-one box at a reasonable price. but its probably not gonna happen anytime soon.

until this happens, two sp-606 synced via midi(if possible, orelse by ear(1)), will give you 4 fx processors, 8 tracks of sequencing and 16 voice polyphony, if you buy them second hand, then you´ll get a great setup at 1/3 the price of a new mv. But if I had the money, id definately get an mv.

(1)a friend and I did this with two mc-303s when playing live a decade ago

btw; the pads on the

the sequencer on the 606 i way limited, but as i see it, its the other way around, its the biggest sequencer available in the sp- series.

Yes, that's true. It seems to have more features than the SP-808 4-track and similar features to the SP-505 if I'm not mistaken. It definitely is the most complex sequencer available in the sp-series no doubt.

The 8 polyphony may not seem like much, but an 8-track sequencer could have been nice for sure, even with only 8 voices.

roland has discontinued the sp-606, hopefully for a reason, id love for a mv-808 (the sp-606s semi production center was clearly a step away from 303/404/505/555 s live approach to sampling) to bridge the gap, giving us an entry level bedroom producer all-in-one box at a reasonable price. but its probably not gonna happen anytime soon.

I think they definitely could release something at some point that will bridge that gap, but at the same time that would cost them MV sales, so there's a good possibility it won't happen.

If they would have make a "portable" MV, I'd buy one.

they could do a mv-8800 LE version, just like digidesign did with their pro tools DAW.

The same box, same display, no vga, no mouse, half the number of poly/seq tracks/audio tracks, and fx from the sp series

sooooooo much good info in here thanks so much fellas..


phemox im going to attempt to pick your brain on the 808 a little

to ccreate a more full song is like creating on an esx or emx right?

make a pattern as an intro then each verse and you connect them all via song more right? turning parts off and on to make verses and stuff?

as stupid as it may sound i like how the sequencing on the akai xr20 is or seems.. there is a button to activate the different parts youve created and as far as i know you can record yourself turning that stuff off and on to create the songs youre making "live"..

it looks like the 808 just has a ton of tracks you can turn off and on and do mainly loop based stuff like the electribes unless you dig in and make several patterns into a full song.. could you resample a pattern to one of the tracks and use that as the into and go through that way with 5 parts being 5 tracks and trigger the pads via the sequencer? sounds like more work than its worth but it might not be too.. then there is the sample time?

to ccreate a more full song is like creating on an esx or emx right?

Yes, more or less, but whether that's really a good thing or a bad thing is a matter of preferences.

I'm not quite an MC-808 pro, but yeah, basically you make patterns, save them and stitch them together by manually assigning the pattern numbers or recording live play of pads that have patterns assigned to them using the
Pattern Recall function.

To be honest, this process can be quite tedious. Definitely not my style of making music, hence why I usually just make short loops, sample and sync them into my MV and go from there.

then there is the sample time?

Yeah, it comes stock with ONLY 4MB memory, which is like 47 seconds mono sampling time. That's nothing and will drive you nuts if you don't upgrade.

I've currently upgraded to 256mb, which is about 60 minutes of sampling time. Maximum memory capability is 516mb which is obviously about double that amount.

could you resample a pattern to one of the tracks and use that as the into and go through that way with 5 parts being 5 tracks and trigger the pads via the sequencer?

Well, you can assign patterns to individual pads yes, and mute or unmute / play them. But that's as far as I know, to be honest I haven't really dug into the sequencer that deep.

You can also mute / unmute individual 'parts' of a pattern and all that crazy more advanced stuff. (Basically it's a 16-track device, but they use to refer to the 'tracks' as parts.)

I'm sure someone who really takes time and effort in learning the sequencer part inside out will be able to get way more out of it than I have done so far. But like I said, basic sequencer functionality is rather tedious at times!

In my opinion the best part of the MC-808 is probably it's MFX and it's sounds though.

It's still a quite powerful machine, but I really haven't ever used it to it's full potential yet, especially not as a stand-alone machine.

cool as usual thanks a ton man