All user reviews for the Roland MC-303

Has a 16 note keyboard- limited but with the octave range button will provide every sound that would be wanted from any of the instruments. I maily use the arpeggio which has a number of settings, and I like the real time modifiers- cutoff and resonance. It would be great if it had sampling capacity. Another dissapointment is the MIDI only has basic output with the realtime modifiers not able to be outputed.

Price paid

$350 in 1998 second hand

UTILIZATION

Fairly easy, but you need the manuals to work off initially. MIDI is a bit tricky the outputs have to be set.

I got it second hand and it has had no problems so far. I noticed there is a little play in one of the outputs, but it still works fine and its most likely over 10 years old

SOUNDS

The quality is great, but of course limited to its presets (although it has many and these can all be messed up with its cutoff and resonance knobs) There is a bass boost at the rear for beefing up drums/bass. The percussion sounds are a little limited for certain styles of music- you couldnt get an amen break directly. Good for other styles- house, trance and hiphop I guess.

OVERALL OPINION

My knowledge of other equipment is very limited so its rated compared to nothing else! I got it with out knowing what I was in for and I have no regrets, although it would be so much better with a small sampling application. I wouldnt sell it!

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: Unknown (January 0-, 2004)

The features are quite jam packed,unfortunately I still after having this for 2 years have not fully put this to use.

Price paid

$250 USD

UTILIZATION

When I first got this I stared at it blankly.Getting through this groove box was like exploring a pyramid.I should try using this more often to learn it quite a bit better.

I would say this is built fairly well,although when I got this secondhand a corner of the frame was slightly bent and the boost knob on the back is still broken.

SOUNDS

For something held to such acclaim by my friends I wasn't overly won by this.I do like Rolands sounds,but to sculpt them on this wasn't very simple for me.Perhaps I was browsing and tweaking in the wrong areas of this groove box.Browsing through the first few banks of sounds was like listening to the same synth tone slightly changed slowly as you dialed up through the numbers.It wasn't until further into the banks where I became happy.Mostly with their brass and pad sounds.

OVERALL OPINION

I'm not completely excited about this piece of hardware.Overall I think I would farm it for some of its brass sounds and a few synth sounds.

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: TheOracle ( 6-, 2005)

There sure are alot of features... some of which work better than others. The sequencer is easy to work with for short patterns, complete with midi out and flexible quantize. My roommate has had some good luck stringing patterns together with the song sequencer. The arpeggiator is *amazing*, and makes it really easy to get really funky drums happening really fast (really!). Easy to use filters for playing with sounds. The onboard effects never worked that well or sounded that good. I don't use them. RPS sets never worked well for me either. Features i would like the most: 1) Multiple, assignable outputs would instantly upgrade this machine from "cool toy" to "cool instrument". So sad. 2)Midi in without having to revert to 'sound module' mode where everything sounds utterly cheesy.

UTILIZATION

Wow. For a six digit display, this thing is pretty easy to work with. This was the electronic machine that i learned to make music on. I guess i'm partial to the interface beacause of it.

The reliability of my unit has always been truly questionable at best. It has often bumped it's head on the ceiling of available memory when only *approaching* 80%, rendering the entire contents of memory as mostly useless. (ie hours of work, down the tubes). I guess i ought to back it up via a memory dump every once i a while, but instead i just use it for short, simpler patterns, and don't get too attached. It really does tend to flake out if it tries to do too much at once. I've had to repair a few pots on it, which didn't cost me much.

SOUNDS

Alot of really cheesy sounds, but they are easy to tweak, you can get many of them to sound really neat (and even really nice!) by playing around with the octave ranges and filters. There are are a LOT of sounds in there, and i've spent many hours having fun mining out new ones, and playing around with them.

OVERALL OPINION

What can i say? This was my first music machine and i love it to bits. I still use it today for the arpeggiator, the simplicity of the sequencer, and even for nice sounds which i can get to quickly. For the price you can pick them up at these days, i think it would be well worth it even if only as a flexible drum machine and arpeggiator with external triggering.(umm... that is to say "flexible" minus having multiple assignable outs, mind you!)

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: jl. ( 4-, 2006)

It's definitely a fun groovebox, once you get past the 2 digit display, it's really a "fun" box to use. Sequencer is a bit blah, but surprisingly the arpegiator is a blast to use, tons of presets not just your basic up down up/down you see on other synths. And hell, got a tap tempo button which is great to sync with a live band. Midi is great, I sync'ed the MC as a slave to Electribes and had no issues at at all.

$120

UTILIZATION

Once you get past the 2 digit display, it's a decent machine under $125, hell it's a GREAT machine under $125. You can pretty much decipher the display without reading too much of the manual, but again, always helps to have the manual handy.

This thing is built rock solid. Casing is like metal and the knobs are big and bulkier (than say those of korgs) which is a good thing when tweaking those knobs in live situation. 1996, and still going strong!!!

SOUNDS

Well this groovebox is a rompler and was built in mid 90s. Straight up, I find the patches thin, but some workable presets, with some tweaks and effects not too bad at all, definitely usable. Filters are smooth, but again, not the greatest but do open up the patches somewhat.

OVERALL OPINION

MC-303 is a love and hate relationship. It has it's own personality and definitely a fun box to "#*!" around with! I wouldn't use it by itself that's for sure, definetely belongs in a team

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: lanlan (January 1-, 2006)