Roland MC-303 was released in 1996, and is the first groovebox in the series. It embraces a combination of synth timbres, drum machine samples and a built-in sequencer. Its synth part is represented with a rompler which stores a wide range of sounds including classic synthesizers and drum machines by Roland (35 leads and pads from the Juno series, 40 acid basses from TB-303, as well as drums from the legendary TR-808 and TR -909).
The upper part of the device includes effects: arpeggiator with tempo control, quantization with choice of groove, shuffle, delay/reverb for surround sound, flanger/chorus, LFO, low-pass filter with cut and resonance knobs, as well as attack, decay and release adjustment.
In the central section there is a display with a global scroll plate and buttons for kick, snare, hi-hat, clap, cymbals, tom/percussion, and crash. And at the bottom there’s a 16-step sequencer. Groovebox MC-303 is ideal for such genres as techno, jungle, hip-hop and acid.
Roland MC-202 was introduced in the 1983. Its development was inspired with the legendary monophonic synthesizer SH-101 (design, interface) and no less famous bass synthesizer TB-303 (sequencer). The abbreviation "MC" stands for MicroComposer, at that...
The release of MC-505 took place in 1998. Groovebox is based on the same core as the JV series instruments are, and shares a lot with the JV/XP synthesizer lines. MC-505 is designed for aggressive genres of music, like techno, and for this purpose the...
MC-808 was released in the 2008. It has 8 faders and 16 sequencer buttons. The groovebox also has a "D-Beam" and a large "Tap" button. D-Beam allows the user to control filters and pitch with smooth vertical hand movements right above the "sensor"...
In 2003, MC-909 was released by Roland. Its sound core is based on a series of synthesizer modules "XV", and the internal memory is limited to 272 MB. The professional device includes 800 patches, 693 waveforms, and a "SRX" expansion. Among its...