i can relly assure you, this style of music is venerable "synth demo" i've seen it myself from 18 years of synth development. it takes a person and leaves nothing behind.
Producers in 1985: "I wish there was a f*cking machine that can just make a quick, cheesy, top 40 pop hit without having to hire all these damn musicians!" Roland: "Yes."
I considered acquiring one a few years ago but I wasn't sure whether I could work with its limitations. I'm pleased I waited and bought the Jupiter-X which is digital, I know. The Super Quartet is a stunning synth nonetheless.
Sweet review Alex! A cool and cheaper way of getting the higher priced 707 and 106 combined, albeit in a more cumbersome package perhaps, in terms of usage. Thanks for the hilarious demo song! :)
Me too. In fact, the limitations used to drive me mad, sometimes. Only 4 parts! (although that was incredible at the time). It was only later that I realised limitations are usually key to great creativity.
Loved the track Alex now be careful as youtube may place a strike against yourself as you own the copyright for the track you just played without your permission.
My songwriting partner of the time had one of these - the white version. We paired it with the MC-500 sequencer. They made for a good jam and songwriting tool. That was the start of my decades-long MIDI adventure.
I love seeing synth youtubers making appearances on other channels. It’s like this fun nerdy world of synth nerds. Also, good demo! I had no idea Roland made units combining other instruments like this. 🤔
I've got a feeling this was used a lot from '85 - 90s for radiojingles / commercials / tv-tunes still. Or I might just recognise the sounds of the TR707 etcetera that were put in it. Think about it, tv / radio often needs a tune in no time.
The bass sounds so 303ish. So with this box you get a Roland TR-707 (minus some samples), a TB-303 and a Juno 106, all in just one package. Not bad at all, considering how much the single instruments cost nowadays.
Similar osc and layout, different filter. Also, prices have always been high for this unit. Lots of people want a rack-mountable juno-106. Only for a few years was this a reletive secret, and available online.
Very cool, I had one of these in the early-mid '90s when I was younger and cheap. I got addicted to the Engineering Mode but was frustrated since I couldn't save my patches. I made my very first house song on the MKS-7 back in '95. Eventually I sold it and years later got a real Juno-106, which serves me to this day. I wish there was a way to get the MKS-7 Chord part presets in Sysex format for the 106; they were different than the Juno 106's factory banks and had some real cool pads in there. BTW, the tune at the end sounds like early-era Calvin Harris! BTW, I hope you're already aware of the 80017a chip failure issues that plague the 106 and MKS alike.
Golden. Loved it. It's funny as recently I've been trying to educate myself on what exactly the mks 7 does . You have single handedly answered everyone of my questions without me even asking. Top man 👍🏾👍🏾
Agreed, take a page from Espen. I love his long videos, like where first he has a new original song (perhaps with a "music video" in an abandoned railway station somewhere, or just watching him play in the studio), and then he breaks down the chords, and then he breaks down the sounds/equipment, and then he breaks down the mix, and THEN he does a review of a mini-cabinet Galaga machine.
A friend of mine has owned one of these for nigh on 30 years :) I remember being mightily impressed by his hand crafted Cubase mixer maps to control it via SYSEX back in the day.
OMG ! What an awesome module, why we never see one of those ? I love instruments in rack format, so handy for live performances ^^ Thank you so much Alex your channel is a goldmine ! And your passion is always inspiring
I have had the MKS-7 for ages. Its easy to edit the presets with very little SYSEX programming. Only problem is that it cant store the edits. So they have to be sent from the DAW each time when wanting to use own edits. But as said, its very simple to do those edits. Well watched it all, and now I need to get that StereoPing controller :-D
@@AlexBallMusic No I was half joking, but in all seriousness kevin has always used juno 60s and his latest records have been very drum machine oriented, mainly sequential circuits drumtraks and the occasional dx7 and sequential circuits pro one
Awesome funny copyright song👍mks-7sounds great for 80s. My first roland was an w-30, never heard of mks7, should have saved me many hours of disc loading time🤐on w-30
Ah, the weapon of choice for Liam Howlett at one point. Never seen one of those and I guess they're kind of pointless now, but pretty powerful for the price and the time?
Right, i think some early Prodigy tracks were produced with w-30 and his 12bit power samples. Maybe they could have done it with an mks7 with external midi control, as you showed in your last mks7 video section, which is awesome. I replaced my w-30 with s-760 later... Cheers😎
When that melody came in at 8:20 I was punching the ceiling with joy only to be disappointed when he track ends 9 seconds later. Alex you cant do this to us. I want to hear more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alex- "Hi Espen, I'm doing a video that reeks of the 80s, and naturally, well, y'know. Anyhoo, can you do me a cameo, with you doing some typical 80s video gaming, like, oh I dunno, Tempest kinda thing?" Espen- "I'm on it like an 80s kid on a bag of Frazzles!"
There's a guy on Ebay that sells a Logic-Environment-based Editor for the MKS-7 and it works great for only $25. You can edit EVERYTHING just like you had a real 106. It's still a bit fiddly since you cannot save changes on the MKS-7, and you can't really save patches in Logic's environment, but it opens up a whole new world of sounds, if you already own an MKS-7 and use Logic. I hadn't used mine in many years, and recently found it had a dead voice. I was able to buy a new voice chip replacement (from Syntaur) and got the dead voice working again!!
Hmmm. I’m pretty sure, that ESPEN KRAFT’s arcade cabinet says ‘Asteroids’ on it, but only… isn’t that the game titled ‘Tempest’?!? I seem to remember that very game being showcased in the Rush video for their song called ‘Subdivisions’. A really gnarly sounding Oberheim synth makes an appearance as well. THANKS AGAIN, Alex!! Always great and insightful demos and information!! You ought to have a trophy in the likeness of each and every synth that you’ve shared with us (or maybe just one big huge trophy in likeness of a studio wall with all those synths)!!
In 1995 after graduating college I got a Roland MT-32 and MKS-7 all for $150. Couple years later swapped the MT-32 at a pawn shop for a Casio CZ101. Fwd to 2020 I still have the MKS-7 & CZ-101. Best $150 spent.
I was always fascinated with the MKS-7 among those early MIDI modules that Roland ground out during the mid-80s. It’s great to know that it could be played in real time, but part of me wonders now whether the objective of Roland research and development was to respond to Bob Yannes and his designs of both the SID chip for the Commodore C64 and the chip incorporated into the Amiga. It’s almost as though this particular module was intended to be like an upgrade to those units and to be controlled less from a real-time keyboard player than from a computer. “Copyright Free” almost sounds like the perfect step into Weird Al Yankovic territory. One of his practices is to write style parodies, and this is like the perfect reflection upon both Rick Astley and Breathe. If he ever caught this video, I could just hear him saying .”Why didn’t I think of this?” It’s so cool that you included that clip of Espen Kraft (who is the 80s) at the game console. Was that an authorized collaboration?
I had an MKS-7 in the 90s, when people stopped listening to 80s music. I have to say that, despite it's limitations, I was the most prolific when I had it. I sold it a few years ago, just when people started making 80s music again. Tsk tsk...
80's New Wave and synth pop in a box it's surprisingly good, consider it's a rompler drum machine combine with early DCO analog synth and MIDI, there some hidden treasure like that for hobbyist, as long as the sequencer of my MC 303 works i keep it, can be usefull if my computer broke, i have a Nord keyboard and some analog synth that can be control with it, and a fancy used 4 tracks tape recorder.
Damn it. Another line in my essential gear list. Well, spending about £1500 is cheaper than getting both tr707 and juno106. Thanks for review despite it brings my budget down. No worry, I still have a kidney for sale.
To me, "Band in a Box" will always be that crappy software I used to cheat with when making arrangements for my friends...ahhh, the bass lines "I" came up with! I'm also going to steal your copyright free song. I wonder how it would sound with a lush symphonic arrangement...?
@@AlexBallMusic Actually, I used a stand-alone software literally called "Band in a Box". Forget who made it. But I've seen vsts that do similar things. Toward the end, I started just using it as a jumping off point and modifying (sometimes heavily) the MIDI it produced. At some point I realized it was more effort than just making crappy music myself...
You can create your own programmer with an organelle over sysex ans store presets in the organelle. Sysex code for the mks7 is relatively simple and available in the user manual. You then have a juno106 a simplified mc202 and a tr707 in a box! Aciiidd !
I am a TRUE 80s kid!! As cheesy as it sounds, I LOVE it. I'm thinking of Farris Bueller and 16 Candles. BTW what effects are you using? My 106 never sounded that fresh.
Oooohh my .... Now I got it: Some late 80s Italo Disco tracks were made with this and nothing else. So the answer to the ''why there is a pile of Italo songs out of nowhere'' is finally here.
I am thinking of getting one. What is the full name of the physical Stereoping controller you are using, and does it amount to having all the feature controls of the 106? Thanks.
5:54! A surprise cameo! I love the Karaoke moment 6:23, copyright free = copyleft! Oh i wonder where I can buy the goggles? Another fantastic episode, THNX Alex (and Espen)!
That's fantastic. Forget about that! It can't do what a juno 1 can though. The 106 is good but over rated. The juno 1 sounds better, and has a bad reputation because it looks nasty. You can do things on a juno 1 you can't do with any other juno. Env mod.
My first girlfriend in the 90s got one of these for next to nothing from a university radio station. I was quite jealous, but I didn't particularly like the interface
I wish you spend a little more time on modifying sounds, particularly on how the 106 and this unit compare for live situations or hands on action in a studio via a controller. That said: you raised the bar for review videos. 3 killer mini tracks, you know exactly what makes this unit great and damn, you're even funny.
But the 707 tambo is the best! Surely that is why this unit was not a hit. Need to jam on my TR-8 after watching this. All tambo all the time. It is the groovemaster.
Sometimes I wish I was just stuck with a unit like this and never allowed to use anything else, you'd be bound to make some good stuff when you're stuck with it!
This is one of my favourite bits of gear! Excellent for song writing quickly. Can be directly controlled with a Juno 106, and instantly shares patches. I’ve been hard panning the 707 drums with my midi’d Korg KR55, beefy! Excellent work as usual Alex!
Ooo, love a bit of drum stacking. The KR-55 is great, bet it's even better with midi! You're right, I forgot to mention you can pair it with a 106 for double Juno action. Jim's from EarMonkey sent me a video of him doing exactly that. Very cool.
CHORUS 2 for your song: "Never gonna' give this up ... and that's no jive I'm a gonna take it out... ... and use it live!" Ewwww wont give it up! Ewwww just turn it up! Ewwww wont give it up! Ew how I love ... my quartet!
What a cool video and what a weird, fascinating device! Never heard of it before. How did you process the drums? I guess it doesn’t have separate outputs for the drums, so did you just process them as one track? Sounds really good, while I can’t help feel a little underwhelmed when I use my own TR-707..
It has a total stereo out, mono out and then separate (mono) outs for the four sections. So I recorded separately and added various FX in the different demos, yep.
The trick with 707 is to drive it with an analogue mixer. Sounds amazing. instagram.com/p/B9RuOjAhn0Y/?igshid=114lq5bo0alax Or process with a non linear reverb for that classic gated sound.
What are the chances of getting a more in depth video describing using said hardware to adjust parameters on the mks as described at the end of this video?
