The Roland MC-303 is the first of a series of musical instruments known as a

groovebox A groovebox is a self-contained electronic or digital musical instrument for the production of live, loop-based electronic music with a high degree of user control facilitating improvisation. The term "Groovebox" was originally used by Roland Co ...

. It combines a simple sound module with a sequencer to record and store notation, along with controls aimed at encouraging the musician to improvise the music while it is playing. Despite the number in its name and the attention it received at its launch, the MC-303 has more in common with other MC prefixed synthesizers (such as the Roland MC-202), which contain built-in sequencers, than it does with the famous

Roland TB-303 The Roland TB-303 Bass Line (also known as the 303) is a bass synthesizer released by Roland Corporation in 1981. Designed to simulate bass guitars, it was a commercial failure and was discontinued in 1984. However, cheap second-hand units we ...

. As the first Groovebox, the MC-303 was the first in a line of inexpensive products specifically targeted towards house DJs and amateur home musicians rather than professional producers. It was superseded by the

Roland MC-505 The Roland MC-505 is a groovebox conceived in 1998 as a combination of a MIDI controller, a music sequencer, a drum machine, and a desktop synthesizer with many synthesis features: arpeggiator, oscillators, and voltage-controlled filter, control ...

. It is the predecessor to the Roland JX-305, Roland D2, Roland MC-307, Roland EG-101, Roland MC-09, Roland MC-909, Roland MC-808, and most recently the Roland MC-707 in 2019, along with its more portable sibling, the Roland MC-101.

Features

The key features of the MC-303 are: * Sound generator with 28

note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound produ ...

polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chord ...

based on the structure model of

Roland Roland (; ; or ''Rotholandus''; or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. The historical Roland was mil ...

JV-80 synthesizer * 8-track sequencer containing multiple quantize functions: Grid, Shuffle, and Groove. (7 pitched instruments and 1 drum kit) * 16-part

multitimbral Monotimbral (from the root prefix ''mono'' meaning one, and ''timbre'' meaning a specific tone of a sound independent of its pitch) is usually used in reference to electronic synthesizers which can produce a single timbre at a given pitch when pre ...

* 448 preset sounds and 12 drum kits (includes the

Roland CR-78 The Roland CompuRhythm CR-78 is a drum machine manufactured by Roland Corporation that was released in 1978. Although primitive by later standards, the CR-78 represented an important advance in drum machine technology at the time, in particular b ...

, TR-808, TR-606 & TR-909, electro, techno, jungle, house, drum & bass, breakbeat), 40 synth basses (TB-303, etc.), 35 synth leads, 33 synth pads * Resonant filter, LFO, envelope control and built-in effects: delay, reverb, flanger and chorus * Realtime Phrase Sequencer (RPS) for instant recall of musical phrases * Low Boost Knob feature (Back panel, Only on the Roland MC-303): allowing you to dial in as much low-end as it takes to create powerful Kick or TR-808 Bass sounds so that anyone can 'feel' the groove. * 300 onboard dance music variation patterns such as drumbeats and basslines * Recording length of up to 32 bars per pattern * Instant storage of up to 50 user patterns, 300 pattern variations and 10 songs * Storage space for up to approximately 14,000 notes *

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

in and out connections (but no MIDI thru)

Synthesizer/Sound Module

The synthesizer built into the Roland MC-303 is a

rompler A rompler is an electronic musical instrument that plays pre-fabricated sounds based on audio samples. The term ''rompler'' is a blend of the terms ''ROM'' and ''sampler.'' In contrast to samplers, romplers do not record audio. Both may have a ...

which contains sounds largely drawn from classic Roland synths and drum machines such as the TB-303, TR-808 and TR-909 along with the Juno series and various other dance themed sounds such as pads, pianos, strings and vinyl scratches. The sounds can be manipulated with a

low-pass filter A low-pass filter is a filter that passes signals with a frequency lower than a selected cutoff frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The exact frequency response of the filter depends on the filt ...

, various modulation capabilities and some simple DSP effects. It doesn't have a sampler, although the instruction book contains instructions for getting it to control an external sampler.

Sequencer

The most important part of the MC-303 is its built-in pattern based 8 track sequencer. Each pattern can contain up to 32 bars. It can record and send

data via the MIDI jacks on the rear panel, enabling its internal sequencer to control other sound modules, or its internal sound module to be controlled by an external sequencer. Although communication with other devices is possible, the main advantage to the MC-303 with its small form factor and all-in-one design is the ability to use it as a self-contained studio, albeit an amateur one. Featuring a micro-keyboard that can also be used as a drum sequencer, the MC-303 imitates the handling as well as the look and feel of other famous Roland synthesizers and drum machines such as the MC-202, TB-303, TR-808 and TR-909.

Criticisms

One criticism made of the machine in various reviews, including the August 1996 issue of

Sound on Sound ''Sound on Sound'' is a monthly music technology magazine. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, and interviews with industry professionals. Due to its technical focus, it is predominantly ...

magazine, was that the sound module was essentially limited to only playing built-in preset sounds, discouraging innovation. From a more technical perspective, a major concern was that any knob tweaks made during real time recording were not transmitted via MIDI. The number of preset patterns (mostly aimed for Trance and Techno music) outweighed the number of programmable user patterns which also discouraged innovation. Roland responded in part to these criticisms in its later grooveboxes by solving the MIDI problem, increasing the synthesis capabilities and user pattern storage and adding a sampler section.

Features

Synthesizer/Sound Module

Sequencer

Criticisms

References

Further reading