Roland MC-909 Manual de usuario

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July 29, 2003

MC-909

Getting Started Guide

What’s the Getting

Started Guide?

Roland’s MC-909 Sampling Groovebox is a hot new dance music workstation packed with exciting

features. If you’re new to grooveboxes, the MC-909’s many features may be a lot to take in at first,

what with all of the unfamiliar words and concepts you’ve got to learn.

Don’t worry—we’ve created this Getting Started Guide just for you. We’ll explain what you need to

know to start having fun with this monster box.

We’ll begin with some important words and concepts you may have heard about, but don’t yet

fully understand. Next, we’ll show you how to create your own music on the MC-909. We’ll teach

you how to sample. Finally, we’ll talk about how to move stuff back and forth from the MC-909 to

a computer, something that lots of people like to do.

That said, let’s get this party started.

®ÂØÒÅˆÎ MC-909 Getting Started Guide

Big

Ideas

In this section, we’ll explain some terms and concepts you really need to understand to get the

most from your MC-909.

Audio vs.MIDI

One of the things that groovebox beginners often find confusing is the difference between audio

and MIDI. Let’s get this straight before we go on.They’re two completely different things, and you’ll

find them both in the MC-909.

Audio is sound.

When you hear something, you’re hearing audio. What comes out of

your mouth when you sing is audio. What comes out of a tambourine

is audio. What comes out of the jack labeled “OUTPUT” on the back of

a synthesizer or the MC-909, or out of a 1/4” jack on an electric bass, is

audio.

MIDI is a computer-to-computer music language.

MIDI—short for “Musical Instrument Digital Interface”—is a language that computers use to talk

to each other about music. Every MIDI device, whether it’s a synth, a drum machine or whatever, is

actually a computer designed to do something musical.MIDI is all about instructions sent from one

MIDI device to another that allows the first device to tell the second one how to do something.

MIDI

Device

MIDI

Device

Do this.

And this.

OK.

Gotcha.

®ÂØÒÅˆÎ MC-909 Getting Started Guide

Inside the Box

A good example of this kind of conversation takes place right within your MC-909. The

MC-909’s case actually holds several separate MIDI devices that are always yapping to each other.

Sound

generator

VELOCITY PADS

D Beams Sampler

Sequencer

Let’s eavesdrop on one of these conversations, between the MC-909’s VELOCITY PADS and its

sound generator. Here’s what these two MIDI devices do:

• The VELOCITY PADS are the things you bang on with your fingers at the bottom edge of the

MC-909. They don’t make any sounds all by themselves, they just produce MIDI messages.

• The sound generator is the part of the MC-909 that actually produces the notes you hear—in

fact, it produces audio.

Each time you strike a pad on the MC-909, the pad sends a MIDI message to the sound generator. If

you hit a pad that plays Middle C, for example, the pad sends the sound generator a MIDI message

that means,“Hey you, play a Middle C!” The sound generator plays a Middle C. When you let go of

the pad, the pad says, in MIDI talk,“That’s enough. Stop playing Middle C,”and the sound generator

stops playing Middle C.

MIDI is actually a very detailed language that allows all sorts of performance information to be

passed from one MIDI device to another. To you, it just feels like a simple thing: you hit a pad, you

hear a sound. But under the hood, it’s really a team effort between multiple MIDI devices chatting

in MIDI talk, faithfully converting your playing into sound.

Sequencing

It’s possible to capture and record these MIDI messages, and to play them back. That’s what the

MC-909’s “sequencer” does.The sequencer records MIDI messages you play into it—remembering

the order you played them in, as well as your timing—and plays them back at your command,

causing the sound generator to recreate your original performance.

The pads send

MIDI messages into

the sequencer.

You play the pads. The sound generator

produces the notes.

...and plays them

into the sound

generator.

This note.

That note.

Play this note.

Play that note.

Stop playing this note.

Stop playing that note.

Play this note.

Play that note.

Stop playing this note.

Stop playing that note.

The sequencer

captures

the messages...

Play this note.

Play that note.

Stop playing that note.

Stop playing this note.

®ÂØÒÅˆÎ MC-909 Getting Started Guide

This all feels a lot like recording audio, since you hit the REC

(for“RECORD”) button,play something,and when you hit PLAY,

the MC-909 plays back your performance. But what you’re

really recording is MIDI messages, not the notes themselves.

What you’re doing is called “sequencing,” and what you’re

recording is called a “sequence.” Each sequence lives inside

one of the MC-909’s “patterns,” as you’ll see in a few pages.

Sequencing lets you do some things that you can’t do so easily with audio recordings:

• You can change the speed, or tempo, of a performance even after it’s been sequenced .

• You can change the sound the performance plays. For example, you can easily change a piano

performance into a string performance without re-performing it.

• You can do all sorts of stuff to sequenced MIDI data.You can change its pitch, change its timing,

add or remove notes and lots of other things.

Oh, and one more thing. On the MC-909, you can record separate performances for up to 16

different instruments in a single sequence. Each of these performances is called a “part.”

1. Bass

2. Synth 1

3. Guitarish

4. Main Keys

5. Organ

6. Clavinet

7. Tambourine

8. Claps

9. Lead Vocal Patch

10. Main Drum Kit

11. Background Vocal Patch 1

12. Background Vocal Patch 2

13. Lead Vocal Patch 2

14. Hits

15. Percussion

16. Bells

A Sequence

Since all of the parts play back together, they sound like they were all recorded at the same time,

even though you may have actually built your arrangement one instrument at a time.

Outside the Box

MIDI also allows completely separate MIDI instruments to communicate. You might, for example,

connect a MIDI keyboard to the MC-909 so you can play its sounds from the keyboard instead of

from the MC-909’s own pads. You can even sequence on the MC-909 by performing the desired

parts on an external MIDI device.

When you connect two MIDI instruments, you

do so using MIDI cables. You connect one end

of a MIDI cable to the MIDI OUT jack of the first

instrument and the other end to the MIDI IN jack

of the second instrument. For a two-way MIDI

conversation—something you need in certain

situations—another MIDI cable connects the

second instrument’s MIDI OUT to the first one’s

MIDI IN. These cables carry MIDI messages, not

audio, of course—all they care about is the

instructions from one box to another.

The MC-909's rear-panel

MIDI jacks

MIDI plug from the side and straight-on

®ÂØÒÅˆÎ MC-909 Getting Started Guide

And so...?

The important thing to remember is that audio is something you can hear, while MIDI is merely

messages passed between two MIDI devices in a language only MIDI devices can understand.

While these messages result in sound, they’re not the sound itself.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s introduce some other important ideas.

Whatza Sample?

In many ways on the MC-909, it all starts with the sample. A sample is simply a digital recording of

a sound. It can be a mono recording, or a pair of recordings that make up the left and right sides

of a stereo audio image.

A sample may be a recording of:

• something off of a CD.

• something sung or played into a microphone.

• an electric instrument such as an electric guitar or

bass.

• the audio output of an electronic instrument such

as a synthesizer, a beat box or another sampler.

When you capture a sound as a sample, you’re sampling. A sampler—such as the

MC-909—is a device that can record and play these digital recordings.

On the

MC-909's screen,

here's what

a mono sample

looks like.

On the

MC-909's screen,

here's what

a stereo sample

looks like.

WAV and AIFF Samples

A sample can also be audio that someone else has recorded and stored as a file on a computer, or

on some other sampler. These files are stored in various audio file data formats.The most popular

are WAV-format and AIFF-format files. The MC-909 can load and play either type of sample file. It

can also create WAV and AIFF samples of its own.

The Bottom Line

In the MC-909, when we talk about a sample, we’re referring to audio you’ve recorded yourself, or

to a WAV or AIFF file you’ve imported into the MC-909.

®ÂØÒÅˆÎ MC-909 Getting Started Guide

Whatza PCM Waveform?

There’s another type of audio that the MC-909 plays: PCM waveforms.A PCM waveform is a sample

that Roland has created for you, and that’s built into the MC-909’s ROM (“Read-Only Memory”).The

MC-909 contains 693 of these PCM waveforms. They’re recordings of all sorts of things, including

drum and percussion instruments, keyboards, guitars, basses, strings, oddball noises and on and

on. They form the basis of the MC-909’s factory sounds, or “patches.”

PCM waveforms, like samples, can be stereo or mono.

Whatza Patch?

When you play a sample or PCM waveform on the MC-909, you play it in something called a

“patch.” The MC-909 comes from the Roland factory with 800 ready-to-play patches, and you can

create your own, too.

A patch is a group of samples and/or PCM waveforms,

and a bunch of settings, or “parameters,” that determine

how each sample or PCM waveform plays.When you play

a note, all of the samples and/or PCM waveforms in the

patch play together, making one big, interesting sound.

Toning Up

A patch’s samples and/or PCM waveforms are organized

into four “tones.” Each tone plays a stereo sample or

PCM waveform, or it can play two mono samples or

PCM waveforms. Each tone has its own set of about

90 parameters that determine how its samples or PCM

waveforms play. Tones can be set to play together in a

different ways, resulting in a bunch of different sounds.

Patch Parameters

The number of patch parameters is huge—each patch has over 300 different parameters. Some

control the sounds of individual tones, and others set the sound of the entire patch. They can

control things like:

• how bright or muffled each sample or PCM waveform will sound.

• the tuning of the sample or PCM waveform.

• how the volume of the sample or PCM waveform changes as a note sounds.

• how the patch behaves as you play it.

• much, much more.

When you twiddle many of the knobs and buttons on the MC-909—or use the D Beams—you’re

actually adjusting these parameters.

Tone

Patch

In this patch, Tones 1 and 4 each play a

single stereo sample or PCM waveform.

Tones 2 and 3 each play two mono

samples or PCM waveforms.

®ÂØÒÅˆÎ MC-909 Getting Started Guide

Rhythm Sets

A normal patch plays its samples or PCM

waveforms over a range of pads, or keys on a

connected MIDI keyboard.There’s a special kind of

drum or percussion patch called a “rhythm set” in

which every pad or key plays a different drum or

percussion sound.

Whatzan Effect?

A big factor in making the MC-909’s patches sound as great as they do is the MC-909’s “effects.”

An effect—technically speaking—is an audio process that changes the sound of a sample, PCM

waveform or an entire patch in some way. Non-technically speaking,an effect adds interesting new

personality traits to the basic sound of a patch.

Some of the more popular effects include:

• reverb—Reverb makes a patch sound like it exists in a real-world space, such as a concert hall,

or a room of some kind.

• compression—Compression takes control of volume changes to make a sound more punchy

and tight.

• step filter—A step filter makes the brightness of a sound change along with the beat as your

music plays.

Step Filter settings

The MC-909 contains a full-time reverb effect and a compressor, and also offers two all-purpose

“multi-effect”—or “MFX”—processors that can produce dozens and dozens of effects.

®ÂØÒÅˆÎ MC-909 Getting Started Guide

Whatza Pattern?

One of the things you’ll do most often on the MC-909 is select and play patterns. You can play

one pattern over and over, play one after the other on-the-fly, or chain them together in songs.

Obviously, it’s a good idea to know just what a pattern is.

The Pattern Play Screen

To put it simply, in the MC-909, a pattern is a chunk of music. More specifically, a pattern contains:

• a sequence—A pattern’s sequence can be anywhere from

one bar to 998 bars long.

• an effect setup—Each pattern has its own settings for the

MC-909’s reverb, compressor and two MFX processors.

• a part setup—A pattern contains settings for each of its

sequence’s 16 parts. Each part has a whole bunch of its own

settings, including the patch it plays, its volume, its stereo

positioning (called “panning”), its tuning, the effects it uses

and more.

This is the patch setup for

the first factory pattern. The

screen is called the “Patch

Play” screen.

The result of all this is that each pattern contains not only its own sequenced performance,but also

its own overall sound, since it uses its own set of patches and its own effects setup.

To learn how to select patterns in Pattern mode, see Pages 24 and 25 in the MC-909 Owner’s

Manual.

Sequence

Effects setup

Pattern

Part setup

®ÂØÒÅˆÎ MC-909 Getting Started Guide

Whatza Song?

A song is simply a group of patterns you’ve strung together, end-to -end.You may have a pattern

for an introduction followed by a pattern for a verse, a bridge and then a chorus, and so on. In the

MC-909, a song may be as big as 50 patterns long. When you play a song, the string of patterns

plays in the correct order.

In this song list,

the first five song

steps play Patterns

1-5, one after another.

...and so on...

A Note About Saving Your Work in the MC-909

When you’ve been creating samples,creating or tweaking patches,or recording pattern sequences,

you’ll want to be able to permanently store your stuff somewhere.You can store samples, patches

and patterns in the MC-909’s built-in user memory.You can also purchase and install SmartMedia

cards for lots of additional storage space.

Housekeeping Made EZ

It’s often the case that samples, patches and patterns rely on each other. A patch may require a

particular sample you’ve captured, a pattern may require that patch, and so on.

When you’ve got a bunch of stuff—samples, patches, patterns—that all belongs together, it’s a

good idea to store them all in the same place. Save them all in the onboard user memory, or save

them all on the same SmartMedia card.That way, you can be confident that you’ve got all the bits

and pieces you need at any given time, without having to keep detailed track of what’s where.

School’s Out!

Now that we’ve made our way through the MC-909’s basic concepts, we’re ready for some fun.

This guide is based on the MC-909’s Version 1.10 operating system software. If your MC-909

doesn’t behave as described in these pages, please visit www.RolandUS.com or call Roland

Product Support at 323-890-3700 to learn about obtaining the latest MC-909 software.

®ÂØÒÅˆÎ MC-909 Getting Started Guide

How to

Sequence

Select an Unused Pattern

Since each sequence in the MC-909 lives within one of its patterns, the first step in recording a

sequence is to select an unused pattern. The MC-909 contains 200 patterns into which you can

record—these are called the “user” patterns.

We’ll record our sequence in User Pattern U:001 (the “U” stands for “User”).

1. Press PATTERN to display the Pattern Play screen.

2. Press F1 (List) beneath the display.

The F1-F6 buttons under the display are called “soft” buttons because their jobs change,

depending on what you’re currently doing. An F button’s current job is shown directly above

the button on the display. When we refer to an F button, we add its current job to its name.

In Step 2 above, we called F1 “F1 (List)” because “List” appears above it on the display at the

moment.

The pattern list appears. By default, the MC-909 shows you the factory patterns, the preset

patterns pre-programmed by Roland.

3. Press F2 (User)—the user patterns appear.

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