Roland MSQ-700, Bit 99 and TR-505 

I actually bought a lot of my vintage stuff back in the '80s and '90s via "old school", pre-Internet newspaper ads. It was much cheaper, back then (i.e. my TR-909 cost $250, PolySix $100, JP-8 cost $1,200 w/ MIDI etc.) These days, I buy and sell on eBay / craigslist like many other people do.

This is the most accurate reproduction of 1980's sound ever recorded on youtube. Very well done!

The Crumar bit series synths are instant Italo Disco in my opinion. Great demo!❤️🎹

Yagga97, good point about the technical "limitations" of the devices of the '80s - gear back then was much less complex and powerful, but that didn't prevent the users to make great music. Actually, you can replicate the feel of hardware sequencers with a PC by hard-quantizing (8th & 16ths are the common quantize resolutions used in the '80s) and keeping arrangements "simpler" and less busy than today's music. Very cool that you are 10 :) I have a son of your age.Thanks for watching the channel.

The 505 might be the most underrated drum machine ever. I love mine so much :-)

505 sounds good to me.

It it just me or is the MSQ-700 really pretty? I just love that Roland 80s look. 505 luv! :)

I just bought the MSQ-700. I'm excited to make some good old 80's music now. Thanks for all the inspirational videos. You do such a great job. Take care, Sam.

Thank you - not that I play Italo style only, but it's the music of my teen years in Italy so I remember it fondly

Thanks and yes, the MSQ-700 has input quantize - see that horizontal slider in the middle of the unit? You can set it to real-time, 1/32, 1/24, 1/16, 1/12, 1/8, 1/6, 1/4, 1/2 . Of course for this it was set at 1/16 so I could do the typical fast sequenced lines in the last part of the video.

I have always loved the sound of the BIT99. Those are very hard to find!

The Roland MSQ-700 was one of if not the first polyphonic multitrack hardware sequencers available. Quite useful given its equipped with Rolands DIN Sync and MIDI. At one point Greg Hawkes (keyboardist with "The Cars") used two MSQs to drive "The Cars" many sequence based songs. I moved onto the Roland MC-500 (later the MkII) which was/is an amazingly piece of hardware being powerful and rock-solid reliable. Ten years constant use performing and it never failed not once - amazing.

Thank you - they are different (arguably "colder"), they remind me more of the alpha-Juno / JX / MKS series - however they are more versatile with two oscillators, velocity, split etc.

love that bit 99 brass sound..... (mucho 80 ties !!)

Thanks - yep, it was much simpler back then - now we arguably have too many options in our DAWs! :-)

Hi, the sequencer played back what I had recorded in real time - I cut half of the video frames of the recording phase from the video because it would have taken too long to show at low speed, but then it plays back the complete jam at fast speed at the end. I'm only using one MSQ channel out of eight, I could have made it more complex by using the other channels but didn't have much time to record yesterday. I'll do another video soon

Super cool vintage sounds and vintage sequencing :)

mmmmm love that sound!!!! i grew up in this era and the synthesizer always my favoirte and it still is :-)

Very cool, looking forward to reading the interviews! thank you

Love it! And the sound that comes of the TR-505 makes me go wild. :D

Great demo, great tunes!

in 1986 I had the same instruments, but i used Yamaha MX computer as sequencer .... great !!!

those are some really nice tunes you made!

Mindbogglingly brilliant! Keep up the great videos! :@D

I'm back in the 80's love the 80's...thanks!

No TR-505 on the Roland Soundcoud.. awwww! Nice Jam, I was born in 1971 and I heard the 505 all the time on the radio. Now I know where some of those drum sounds came from. Keep up the good work! Very inspiring stuff on Synthmania.

Absolutely brilliant demo. Loved it. Italo disco ftw.

you got the groove ! great melodies

The Roland TR 505 in full glory,it sure packed a punch for its size.

Why am I not subscribed to you? This is the jam.

At last, a playback video of this rare sequencer! Very nice!

Thank you - I used just one channel ouf of eight due to time constraints - I plan to do another video using all eight channels and more synths / drum machines.

Very nice. Bit 99 sounds great! :)

thanks for posting these videos.

Could be a sound track to most 80's movies...nice work

Do you have the source of that info, like an article, book, interview etc? I'd love to read it

nice melodies by the way.. soo good like always

very fun session

The last part is definitely sounds like The Flirts - Passion. Love this.

awesome man! i still want a msq-700

Again... Excellent!

This is so great

what a great machines

So awesome

Very instructive and nice! Thanks! :-D

Awesome man!

I agree, the MC-500 series software was great and rock-solid

nice sound man

Yowza, thems some funky fresh beats yo!

You rule! This video is great.

SO SICK

Cheesy 80's synth pop is definitely the order of the day with these retro gear. Modern music seems to be drawing itself back to these analogue synth bass rhythm.

Thank god I'm not the only one slowing down the tempo so I could play it easily and not having to quantize anything haha GREAT TUNES!

I got up and danced lol

Nice....thanks for sharing.

amazing piece of kit :) I know howard jones used 2 of these the 500 version on tour

Brilliant!

Thank you

i had a white crumar bit99. i didn't keep it because it wasn't an oberheim but it did have some good sounds on it.

More MSQ videos please!

thank you!! great video!

i love the italo vibes of your vids !

Simple set-up, good sounds.

Nice Roland,thank you Dave Smith!;-).

nice tunes

This is great, very inspiring. Reminded me of the Kavinsky record. Must...resist...urge...to buy...everything!!

I haven't tried connecting more than two keyboards yet (no time until December...) but it should work - you might want to get a MIDI hub or patchbay so you don't have to constantly swap the MIDI cables

Thank you very much for the info :)

Yo this goes so hard bro srsly

very nice

Love it

yes, I used MIDI to sync the 505

Thanks

i think its more fun to record like how they did in the 80s than easy abelton or pro tools i believe

I used an MSQ-700 back in the early 80's, but quickly moved on to the C64 "SuperSequencer" (from "Sonus"), then a few years later found myself using the Kawai Q-80. I find it interesting that I went from hardware to software, then back to hardware. From the Q-80 I moved on to Emagic Logic on the Mac in the mid-1990s, which is, in my opinion, as close to perfection as a MIDI sequencer can get.

Bravo!!! 🙌🙌👏👏👏

excellente!

Bravo!

505 for life! So sick. That MSQ-700 is so sexy lol 😝

awesome

great italo sound!

Ha :-) I remember Falco very well. Which of the three parts in this demo reminds you of him?

Did that thing have input Quantizing? My first sequencer was the Alesis MMT-8.. My sophomore year in HS! Amazing machines! I STILL use hardware sequencers! My K2600 runs everything in my studio! Post is on the Puter! This is an excellent video into Midi sequencing history!

The later MC-80 is extremely advanced compared to the MSQ-700 however the aesthetics of the MSQ-700 are incredible, love hitting those chunky big buttons!

Wonderful!!! ^_^

Cool!

via MIDI clock

Would you say that the 'sound' of Italo changed when MIDI sequencers came out? I guess it was easier to create Italian Hi-NRG with MIDI in the mid to late 80s than it would have been with CV and gates at the beginning of the 80s.

Thank you midi;)

Grazie - ho comprato la maggior parte della mia attrezzatura negli anni '80 e '90, prima che scoppiasse il boom del vintage, comunque roba come per esempio l'MSQ si trova benissimo - e a poco - sul mercato dell'usato, perche' nessuno li usa piu'...

Actually there is quantization, the MSQ was set up at 16ths -

Very much reminding me of Scotch

omg!!!

complimenti...quanta nostalgia per questo sound e per l'hardware che utilizzi....Ho guardato molti dei tuoi video ....ma come fai a possedere ancora tutta questa attrezzatura?

That was my very first sequencer. I think I still have it somewhere.

Thanks, I love your videos! How is the bit 99 as aDCO synth when you compare it to juno60 or 106?

It's a perfect musuem...did you buy all devices?

Faved

Yes :)

i got a chance to grab one of these.. im kinda thinking i should just grab it.. the msq that is