Roland MC-505 Tutorial Part 2 - Writing drum kits and patches
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- čas přidán 21. 04. 2018
- In this video I'm trying to explain the patch structure and editing possibilities in the MC-505. Some of these things I still have to figure out myself but I hope this can answer some questions for all you MC-505 users out there. Thanks for watching! :)
- Hudba
It is so confusing to create and save custom patches on 505, thanks a lot for taking time and making this tutorial, much appreciated!
Best Mc 505 tutorial videos on CZcams, keep up the great work!!!
Jonny Retro Very nice of you, thanks a lot! :)
"lousy facelift" haha.. love it!
My MC-505 has pretty much been collecting dust for several years. I'll have a deep dive into it from now on.. Thank you for great inspiration! :-)
Good to hear that, yes well worth giving a try again! Yes this thing has been slept on in many pkaces, I bet it's the same for many and while I'm typing this I'm listening to the MC-303 I just got for myself... the 505 is more powerful than this but it's the same type of memory flasback situation for me with this thing... tons of fun also! Thanks for the comment!
I had to read the Manual twice over 15 years ago to gain the same insight offered in this video.
Love the MC505, your great content has focused me again.
Regards
ArcAudios Thank you for the nice comment and have lots of fun with the MC-505! 😊👍
You can hear me 15 years ago - pure MC505 no DAW or Computer used - ArcAudios on Soundcloud ;)
Regards
ArcAudios So now I needed another two years to finally check out your music but that's also because CZcams seems to hide a lot of comments from me for some reason. Awesome music man, highly recommended to anyone reading this! 😎👍
@@LousyFacelift Thanks for kind words, your Content is most valuable. Cheers & best wishes sent.
I just got a 505 and I'm super happy you're making this series!
bulletcurtain Thank you! It's a great machine, I'm sure you'll have lots of fun with it! :)
I will take my mc back to life tomorrow. Thanx for a good work!!
That's great, I hope you'll enjoy this machine as much as I do! If you have any more questions on the 505 let me know. Thanks for the nice words! :)
Wooow i just discovered so many things, thank you!!
piggeh pumped Thanks for watching and writing such a nice comment! 😊
Very interresting. It is a fascinating machine.Very nice tutorial. Enjoyed it, rhank you.
Thanks for the nice words, much appreciated!
Another great tutorial
Thanks for watching!
Amazing tutorials! The best 505 tutorials on CZcams. Super useful. BTW my pitch knob behaves exactly like yours so it’s not just your unit.
Ah man, that's good to know, I was waiting for someone to say that! :D Hahaha.... It may have something to do with the software version, I know I have the latest installed. Thanks for letting me know!
Thanks to you i have bought again the 505. This time i wont be selling it! Keep the videos coming please :)
Pete James Thanks a lot! I put out part 3 today. ;)
So cool, thanks LousyFacelift! My MC-303 is going to get a big Brother soon, I'm sure your Videos will come in handy.
Also, I'll probably have to bombard you with questions soon :)
And here I am four months later with an OP-Z. And I thought I wanted to stay old school... fck. (:
Thanks for this tutorial.
I want to ask you if it's possible to put effects like delay and reverb to each drums layer on channel R.
Unfortunately there are no pan settings for the delay and reverb, so no, this is not possible. You would have to use an external effects unit for this type of processing.
thx so much for you great tutorials. I have a question. If i made some new sounds in my MC505, can i save them on my mac or pc?
evadum Thank you! Haven't tried this myself yet but think this is possible through SysEx data transfer via MIDI.
Hello LousyFacelift. When you edit a patch and write/save it to the user bank, what information is saved inside to that patch? I edited cool sounding patch with filters, LFOs, some reverb and delay and the arpeggio and I saved it to the user patch section as instructed...later when I load that saved patch most of my editing is lost...all the filter and LFO settings are gone and there is no reverb and delay effects in the sound and also the arpeggiator is turned off? I can live with pushing the arpeggiator button again but what about all other settings? Is my 505 passing away...
C3018X Hi! Well, are you really sure you saved the patch before you made a recording with it? Because I know there's a mistake that could still happen to me - even though I know about it - when I'm not really focused on the workflow of the 505. When you edit and tweak a patch and directly want to record something with it. When you think it sounds cool and save the pattern without having saved the patch seperately before, you're listening back and possibly still going to hear the same sound but as soon as you switch to another pattern the sound you thought you'd saved (with the pattern) is lost and you're back to where you started before you made changes to that sound. So you have to remember two saves for each track, first the patch, then the pattern and you have to be aware of that all the time. I know it sounds really basic but it can happen so quickly to forget about that! FX types are stored in patterns, only send levels are stored in patches. Use the arpeggiator to play notes just like you would with the pads, so when the notes are recorded in a track you can turn the arpeggiator off and still get the same result only played back from the pattern sequencer. If you're really sure that's not the problem I honestly don't know what else it could be and possibly the thing really isn't working correctly. Hope that helps! Thanks for watching! :)
Hello,ive got this machine and finding it difficult to erase parts ,could you do a video on this?
For whole parts it's best to use the delete function and deactivate all the part knobs you wish to keep. Thanks for watching!
First off...awesome videos ! ...my question is that whenever i dive into menu where i can layer the tones of the initialized patch, the led digi menu starts bugging out on me and showing me parameters like lfo and pitch when all i want to do is choose wave...i can eventually get the wave menu to open after it chills out on me ...but its really frustrating...completely kills my flow...would this be a glitch on just my unit? If so is it repairable?
Just to make sure - the way you select waveforms for each of the tones is by pressing PATCH in the display section and the WAVE SELECT knob. Now the display should show you a letter and a three digit number for each of the waveforms or the full name of the waveform if only one of the four is selected in the tone select section. If you follow this like I described but the display of your unit is showing anything else I assume there must be something wrong with it and I have no idea what that could be and how to fix it.
Is it possible to compare sounds like on XP50 for example before writing a patch - it seems like you don't know what other patch/sound you are overwritting when saving, which is reaally the only down side ive found so far to this beautiful machine! Same goes for patterns it seems. Cheers.
Yes, you can press [UNDO / REDO] when you're in write mode before saving, this will show you the name of the current memory slot in the display. It's important to name your patches and patterns though because otherwise they will look exactly like the default memory files and you won't be able to tell them apart from the presets. When I'm lazy I just add an exclamation mark to the name of my patches just to indicate that I've already used them.
Hey Lousy I’ve watched all your videos regarding the 505. It truly helped me a lot getting started with this lovely piece of equipment that is just as old as I am 😋, so thank you!!! I do find myself having a problem with the 505 and I was hoping you could help me with it. When I try to change the volume of the individual drum sounds using the FUNC + cutoff function, I realize that after coming back to my pattern, that all of the volume adjustments that I have made with that function are being reset. I do re-write my patterns in order to save, just so you know. Is there perhaps any other way to adjust the volume level of individual drum sounds? This thing has outcompeted my digitakt by far, I do midi sync them together sometimes for extra fun! But this 505 has made my 2020....atleast enjoyable 😅. Best wishes for 2021!
Hey, thanks for the nice comment! Regarding your question - In a pattern realtime write situation the tone level changes can be recorded in a pattern, you select the rhythm part and then decide via tone select or rhythm mute whether the knob movements affect one particular part (tone select) or the whole kit (rhythm mute). If you wish to keep the sounds the way they are after adjusting them, you need to write in patch mode, not pattern mode though. Be aware that could also change the sound of a previous pattern if it uses the same rhythm patch, so if you are not sure it's best to save as a new patch, not overwriting the one that's selected.
@@LousyFacelift hey thanks for the quick response! I see now, I was having the same problem when adjusting the filter cutoff for bass-like patches. I understand it now!! luckily I got an original dutch and English manual to come back too when im bumping into problems, because I do notice some minor bugs (if its truly a bug or not) when doing my thing on the 505. like not being able to see the pitch adjustments at times, or for some reason my tone select for the Rhythm part will always be set to the HH automatically. it still amazes me how this thing outcompetes with today standards, anyway...thank you very much!
Yes, you will often find two ways or more to get to the same result. You have quick access to a bunch of parameters using shift and the corresponding edit knob but this is more of a live feature. If you get stuck on a drum part like you said this happens when you change a different type of parameter, like for example the amp envelope, which takes you directly to the more complex edit mode. You need to use the exit button to get out of there and switch to a different drum instrument part. You can see all the value numbers when you do the proper menu diving - press wave select, then the pad for the drum sound you wish to edit and use the value dial and controllers and flip through all the edit pages using the arrow keys. This way you have great control over each individual sound, not just the drum parts which can affect a number of sounds in some situations if you have multiple drum instruments recorded on the same part (category).
I just bought an MC-707 which sounds amazing, especially in the VA section but I wish it did some of the things like the MC-505, with more dedicated controls and a much faster workflow altogether. It's an interesting comparison and I've still got tons of stuff to learn on the 707 but I already know it cannot replace the 505. The 707 does a fantastic job at imitating other synths, for example you can get very close to a TB-303 which you just don't get from the 505 but it's a fiddeling process and you can get lost for hours in sound design without really making much music.I prefer the sequencer on the 505 and sound editing is more fun. Unlike the 707 it has a character to it, which is both - good and bad, more limited but also a lot faster to program.
@@LousyFacelift I still have to get used a little bit more to the proper menu diving, but it does make a lot more sense for me now that you've explained that since I was having the same problem with the AMP env section too hahahaha. the wave select button makes menu diving a lot easier for editing things!
Havent really looked at the mc-707 to be honest, I think I would rather go for the mc-101 or tr6s instead due to price. I know the 707 can do the same things as the 505 probably at a higher quality too but I really dislike the design of it for some reason. I could really imagine sound design on the 707 would be a pain in the ass compared to the 505 due to design, and I completely agree with you that sound design on the 505 is intuitive/relatively easy and fun!! im glad you're having fun with the 707 though!
Watching this again atm, can any of the 505 LFO rate be clocked to MIDI sync ?
Cheers
Yes, absolutely! Each of the tones can have its individual setting for the LFO, so you can even have synched and unsynched modulations in the same patch. There is a dedicated page in the menu for tempo sync. And when the MIDI clock of the 505 is in slave mode you have MIDI sync.
@@LousyFacelift thanks..that's excellent.
Hey thanks for these. I just bought my 505 and your videos are really helping. I am experienced a bit with Roland gear. I have this issue where the patches I load in to a pattern are not saved with the pattern. So when I reload the pattern all the note are playing but playing the wrong (default) sound patches'. Is there a step I'm missing?
T-Bone Tunes Recording Studio It can happen quite easily that you forget to save (write) a patch you've created before saving the pattern in which you want to use it and in this case all the changes you've made to that patch will be lost. It's a bit confusing that the user bank doesn't simply consist of init patches but duplicated versions of the preset sounds. I always save a new patch to the last location I haven't used and I rename my own patches and put an exclamation mark as the last letter in the name so I know I've already used it in a pattern when I go through the list.
I'm having the same problem and it doesn't have to do with saving a patch. Everytime I change the patch for one part on a user pattern it changes the part for all user patterns. Any other suggestions?
doctorjjj That's just what I tried to explain though. If you make changes to a user patch you need to write this altered patch to a new memory location (!) before you start writing a pattern with this new sound. If you use the same patch memory location these changes will affect all previously recorded patterns that make use of this patch as well.
@@LousyFacelift Yeah it’s not that though. Like even if I change say Part 1 to a preset patch (without making any changes to that patch) it changes all Part 1s for all User Patterns to that Preset Patch. I’m wondering if it’s a faulty memory problem. Unfortunately I don’t have a smart media card.
@@LousyFacelift do you know if there are any batteries I can change on this unit? Thanks again.
is it possible to perform these edits while the sequence is playing ?
Yes, the sequencer only needs to be stopped when copying or saving things.
I just restored a beaten up 505 I found for crazy cheap and thanks to your videos it's already making its way as the center of my workflow. these videos are great. one question though, is it normal behaviour for the mixer faders to be extremely delicate when adjusting the levels? I find it really annoying to mix parts with a higher level of detail
Yes, I even noticed sometimes adjusting one part seems to affect the value of a part next to it accidentally. To have better control while operating the faders, always use them with the screen in TEMPO/MIXER mode, that gives you visual feedback over the parameter values. When trying to reach a specific value use the faders to get close and make fine adjustments with the DEC and INC buttons. Depending on the situation you might want to use the knobs (in FUNC mode) instead of the faders for level, pan or key shift, which is the same as coarse tune btw. So the MC-505 offers different ways to get to the same result which can be extremely helpful. Thanks for the comment, it means a lot to me!
@@LousyFacelift once again, thank you so much for this light shedding! while we're at it, is there a quick way of clearing the volume automation for each part?
tomazbevilaqua No, but you can erase all control change messages of a part (which includes level automation) by changing the erase "all" command to erase "cc" data by simply turning the data wheel when on that page. Unfortunately this will also clear all other knob and slider movements as well. Maybe there is a different way to do it that I haven't figured out yet though.
@@LousyFacelift britlliant, thank you! thought microscope mode could maybe offer more detailed options but that really seems to be it, sadly
I want to erase all the factory presets start with empty project. What do i do? Thank you.
Just got one today broken screen but in excellent overall condition so i am gonna fix the screen today and start exploring it on the weekend but i dont want any presets on when i switch it on
Thank you
The preset memory for patches and patterns is fixed. You cannot overwrite presets but have dedicated user memory slots for your own patterns and patches.
@@LousyFacelift that sucks. How do i make an empy pattern then cause up until the pat 008 i goof around even without screen to see what the fuck i was doing hahaha yet they seem all patterns are loaded with ready sequences presets press play ready track. Hate it already haha
You have preset-, user- and card banks for all your patches and patterns. Preset banks are fixed, user banks are programmable, card banks are only accessible when you have a memory card installed (which you don't really need). [SHIFT] + [WRITE] initializes any pattern or patch so you can create your own. Get that screen fixed... 😉
@@LousyFacelift hahaha my man on it. Took it already in for fix. I live in a very limited from gearheads country so most of our gear is diy haha but im lucky ive found a dude who knows how to fix vintage gear and he told me is a very easy and cheap fix to make. So is already on the way courrier express to his lab . Interesting little groovebox i might say. I have many elektron gear from old to new but this little machine sounds 'dirtier' in a good way. I wonder how much better in matters of sound the mc909 is
@@raven-jz6cv The MC-909 sounds a lot cleaner, much more hifi but I actually prefer the sound of the 505. It sounds a bit warmer to me and has these insanely steep filter types. Sampling in the 909 is great and it has some other advantages but the layout of the user interface is a bit weird in places and the MC-505 is more immediate and fun to use imho.
MC work with external sequencer?!
Yes you can use its own sequencer or trigger the parts externally.
You got a video explaining step time drum programming? Ie Luke on the TR808 TR909?
Cheers LF.
Yes, I made a whole series of videos on the MC-505 and more recently also on the MC-303. I explained step sequencing for drums and instrument parts for both of these machines which could both be helpful. To get more info on all the functionality of these two boxes please click on my icon to get to my channel. Here are the links:
czcams.com/video/n-PsmQxuXH8/video.htmlsi=zXMWWDq2ctdlqqju
czcams.com/video/G7bWjQm5uJ8/video.htmlsi=Pxn7GIXn4R5VXfYM
Btw... I noticed you wrote another comment but I cannot fully see it. Maybe you've deleted it or my CZcams is playing tricks on me I don't know - just to let you know. Thanks for watching! 😊👍
@LousyFacelift sorry I found it...have been watching it all afternoon...it is excellent.
Only difficult thing with step time programming is once you have a few drum sounds looping in the one bar , selecting the "sound " you want to remove or edit in the step you have already programmed can be diificult, say you have programmed a BD , HH OPHH and a SD, in a 1 bar loop, trying to SELECT any of those "drums" in the 16 step sequence in that sequence is confusing, on a 808 or 909 it would be easy as there would be one option..ie xan you mute the other drums leaving the shift selected drum to edit that you only hear ? ( solo other drums? )
I will get it susses..
@andrewverran3498
You're right, it can get difficult to determine individual drum sounds in the mix because there are so many in a kit. Sometimes you need to listen carefully before selecting a sound in TR mode and you're not exactly sure you've got the right one. You can't mute and solo individual sounds, only drum categories that can sometimes have more than one sound in use. Then you watch if the written steps actually belong to the instrument you've selected but depending on the scale not all of these notes are contained in the currently selected scale. This takes time getting used to it but will get better the more time you spend with this machine.
Roland changed this in the MC-909 by making drum kits smaller with only 16 sounds per kit and making multiple drum tracks available.
solo la entienden los que la fabricaron...y la gente que se sumerge en su manual que es mas complicado maquina muy rara de usar demasido complicada pienso ...con lo facil e intuitiva que es la elektron machinedrum...
Hi,
no sound for the drum kit
You're not hearing any sound from your drum kit you mean? Check the output setting, maybe you've assigned the rhythm part to the direct outs 1 or 2 without connecting them to your mixer or amp. Press TEMPO/MIXER in the display section, then select EFX/OUT in the part mixer, hold down SHIFT and move the fader of the rhythm part to select D (DRY), E (EFX) or R (RHY). If you don't hold shift you can only switch settings from dry to efx. Watch my effects tutorial for further info.
LousyFacelift thank’s 🙏 but no way the solution was to initialize factory setting
Nad Bak Well, have you checked on the output settings before executing the factory reset?
There's something wrong with your pitch dial, cause mine seems to work
That's interesting, yes, sometimes I have to use the main dial instead of the dedicated ones and I can't really see why. Do they really work in every mode though? Always thought it was normal like that... Anyone else maybe?
@@LousyFacelift I'm still learning this. I had this way back in 98'. There was no CZcams and the manual was shit (just like most of them back then). I eventually just sold it and used a computer DAW. Now that I"m older and more interested in Hardware - I bought one for 175$ Canadian, which is a steal! This machine is fu*((*#ing amazing for drums! It's the main reason I bought it. I was watching a little documentary of Ian Pooley and he was stating that you just can't get that "swing" function on a DAW that sounds like hardware. I think he's right. So basically the main reason I have this device is for those two things - swing/shuffle and drums. It's fantastic for that. Next, i'll get either a tube compressor or mixer to rid the digital sound because the mc505 is apparently all digital.
Ya..I was watching you vids and I tried my pitch and it worked, so maybe yours has a glitch?
Mine works exactly as in the tutorial. Except mine is a bit loose. I’ll need to replace it.