The Roland MC-307 is a combination of

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, ...

music sequencer A music sequencer (or audio sequencer or simply sequencer) is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling Musical note, note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

drum machine A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...

and control surface produced by the

Roland Corporation is a Japanese multinational manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment, and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on 18 April 1972. In 2005, its headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefect ...

. This combination is commonly referred to by Roland 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 is a scaled-down version of 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 has the same tone generator, but a much smaller control surface. It does, however, have several features that make it an ideal clock source for musicians wanting to do

beatmatching Beatmatching or pitch cue is a DJ technique of pitch shifting or time stretching an upcoming track to match its tempo to that of the currently playing track, and to adjust them such that the beats (and, usually, the bars) are synchronized� ...

. These include a large, very granular tempo slider similar to the sliders found on a modern

phonograph A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

and 'push' and 'hold' buttons that permit temporarily slowing down or speeding up the beat clock. It can also transmit MIDI Machine Control and MIDI beat clock, and slave to external beat clock sources such as other

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 ...

grooveboxes. It can be used as a sequencer to drive external

units. It is the successor to the

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

and

, and the predecessor to the

Roland MC-909 The discontinued Roland MC-909 Sampling Groovebox combines the features of a synthesizer, sequencer, and sampler, with extensive hands-on control of both the sound engine and the sequencing flow. It was intended primarily for live performance ...

and the

Roland MC-808 The MC-808 is a groovebox introduced by Roland in 2006. It is the successor to the late Roland MC-303, Roland MC-307, Roland MC-505 and Roland MC-909. Background Roland first announced the MC-808 at the NAMM Show in January 2006. While less exp ...

Features

The key features of the MC-307 are: * Sound generator with 64-note

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 ...

* 8-track sequencer+Tempo/Mute Ctrl Track * 4 assignable CC MIDI knobs * 240 onboard dance music patterns *

Features

References

Further reading