Roland MC-808 Review (Continued)

The next mode on the MC-808 is the pattern mode, in which up to 16 patches can be combined, layered, and played back in rhythms and patterns consisting of up to 998 measures. Again, the 808 provides plenty of presets to work from, with 256 installed in memory, and plenty of parameters to edit each one. Whereas the sample mode is intended for nuts-and-bolts editing of the actual sounds, the pattern and song modes are designed largely with live playback in mind, so that once the basic sounds are established, the MC-808 can be used as a live drum machine with incredible rhythmic flexibility. During live playback in pattern mode, the motorized faders can be used to adjust panning and volume for each of the 16 sounds that can make up a pattern, allowing potentially radical adjustments in layering over the course of playback. The 808 also allows any individual part to be singled out and “played” across either the included 16-button keypad, or any attached MIDI keyboard— perfect for soloing atop a rhythmic backing.

As the live performance tool that it’s intended to be, the 808 has both its good and bad points. Its pattern mode does provide a good amount of flexibility in selecting and changing patterns on the fly—patterns can be selected in various ways, including by setting them to the 16 keypad buttons or by manually selecting them. The song mode also provides pattern sequencing for even more ability to select and play patterns and beats. There’s also a D-Beam controller, which is a kind of optical theremin, a laser beam that can be used to control pitch, filter, or play synth-like tones when its beam is interrupted by a hand. This is a good idea in theory, but in practice it’s extraordinarily limited in the kinds of whooshing up-and-down sounds it can elicit. It quickly reveals itself after even minimal use as a one-trick gimmick.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the MC-808 does virtually everything you could want from a live beatbox or drum machine system, which is a good thing considering its bulky size and hefty price tag. It has considerable versatility in programming rhythms and then changing them on the fly in live performance, and even provides some limited functionality for soloing, thus adding further variety to its live capabilities. At the pattern level, its usage as a live instrument is reasonably intuitive, and the most common functions (panning, volume, pattern-wide multi-effects, octave transposition) are readily accessible. It is, of course, much more difficult to access sample-level parameters in a live setting, and unfortunately the effects or settings on individual samples within the pattern cannot be changed without stopping playback. This limits live operation largely to choosing what patterns to play, and making real-time changes to beats per minute, final effects, and mixing. That may be more than enough for many, but does curtail more ambitious improvisation at the level of the sounds themselves.

For those who want a solid groovebox or drum machine with a large library of sounds and the ability to add many more, the MC-808 will fulfill those tasks quite easily. Its design elegantly splits the difference between a deep studio suite and an intuitive live instrument. The compromises necessary in fulfilling both those functions in one box may bother those seeking one or the other, but otherwise this is a very worthwhile all-in-one solution for a whole host of production needs.

Ed Howard

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