Just wondering if anyone has paired these together or has any thoughts on how well suited they are as a combo. I’ve seen plenty of VS posts, far fewer about putting them together. I’m interested in the MC as a multi-timbral synth to hook nicely into the Digi’s MIDI tracks, though something like a Blofeld or Wavestate is also an option here.
Any thoughts welcome!
That would probably work. I have the setup in the other way around: MC707 mostly for drums + some synth tracks for background layers, and main thing played by Digitone and AnalogFour.
Not sure though what would be benefit for you to use Digitakt if on MC707 you can have drums under velocity sensitive pads, while on Digitakt not. MC707 has also more FX’es to choose to process a drum track. When it comes to synths and polyphony, MC707 will do the work, quite many presets to select, although editing them in MC707 is unfortunately a little bit like menu diving. You can ofcourse edit via Zenology, but that’s additionaly payed.
Thanks for the info. You’ve pretty much summed up why I’m a bit trepidatious about going down this path: fear of the MC convincing me to replace the Digi entirely. As you say, it has effects (grrr Elektron - big bugbear of mine), stereo sampling, polyphony, time stretch (?) etc. But I really don’t fancy menu-diving and love the character of the Digi. Perhaps it’s best I keep these two apart for my own benefit! 
I had the MC-707 and didn’t really enjoy it as a sound module, despite trying pretty hard to. Everything is pretty buried in menus. Personally I’d suggest the Blofeld instead, unless you are really planning on taking advantage of the other functionality of the 707. To me, the Digitakt is way, way more immediate and fun to use.
Thanks - yeah that’s pretty much what I love about the Digi, despite its shortcomings, and wouldn’t want to lose that. I could just about live with Roland’s taste for menu diving if they didn’t give you such ludicrously small/unsuitable screens (JD08, JX08, JDXI, JupXM … all of you take a bow.)
SH-4D would work better in that capacity, though I didn’t love it either in that role.
I’ve been looking towards MC707 as the next purchase. Right now I’m running with Hapax sequencing DT and ST. What I am really missing is polyphony (sold my DN a while back) and access to melodic sounds other than synths/samples.
MC707 would seem like a really solid choice for me, but could you elaborate on your experience? I would have thought that using it only as a sound module would lessen the menu diving annoyances.
Not having a DT but MC-707 and OT … well …
IMO the sampling features and workflow of the MC-707 are quite limited. I use it for one-shots only, which I have chopped and processed already having used other gear. Nice thing is that we can load a sample as a source for user PCM-Synth sounds.
If you work with samples on the DT and additionally want to have a plethora of polyphone synth voices, I would say, MC-707 and DT should pair very well.
I think it just depends how deep you want to go with sound design and live tweaking in terms of using it as a sound module. If you are mostly using it to recall some presets and just send it MIDI, it’s probably sufficient. But if you want to get under the hood, it is quite tedious and ergonomically, it just didn’t make much sense for me. Too many of the buttons are all the way on the left side, and its quite a big device, so jumping back and forth between the screen and the various buttons was just tiring for me. It made me appreciate Elektron’s UI decisions much more actually. I wrote a bit more about it here:
I have both. I run Digitakt into the 2 audio ins and use up an MC707 track when dawless. everything syncs nicely with clock and transport out to Digitakt, or vice versa. there are also 2 other returns that can be used for audio if desired on MC707, using up another track though., I run blofeld audio in controlled by Digitakt midi tracks so 8 midi tracks. Only slight downer is the Digitakt 64 step patterns, compared to the 128 step mc707 clips / patterns, but hey it’s fun. I really should buy either an MX-1 or a 1010bluebox.
IMO the menu diving for sound-design on the MC-707 is okay and all Zen-Core parameters are accessable. There is a Roland-Logic of the UI, which I had to get my head around first, but that’s history after some hours spent with the unit.
If you like the Roland sound, go for it, because the sound engine is very versatile. Four “partial voices” build one “tone” and each partial is like a subtractive synth of its own. There is plenty potential for sound-design 
If you want to use a better GUI check out the ZENOLOGY Pro Synth, which can exchange patches with the MC-707 and other Zen-Core instruments.
I think you make some good points about the 707 I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but I think you sum it up quite well on paper it is all you will ever need but to use it just feels off slightly and when i think about it, it is the ergonomics of it, it’s funny because I get so much out of the 101 and it is supposedly the lesser model and has a tiny screen but is so much easier to use and I think it is because it is right in front of you with all of the other controls under your hands and the 707 just never feels like that I always felt like I was looking for something when using it.
But on a good note for the 707 it has lots of I/o and can be used as a mixer which is cool and I do think it pairs well with other instruments, I guess as a thing on its own It can be frustrating as it is so close to being great, and you can get some good deals on them they look like they are dropping below 500 in the uk and at that price well worth a go.
Yes I got much more out of the 101 as well despite it being the lesser model. I never tried using the 707 as a mixer so can’t comment there but it’s a bit of a shame that it’s so close to being fun to use but it just…isn’t.
They work great together and complements each other very nicely, although if you’re looking for just a synth and don’t necessary need as many timbres, dedicated synth with a more hands on interface might be better option. But MC-707 is much more than just a synth and its engine is powerful and sounds good (and really quite easy to program, but obviously not as fun as tweaking dedicated knobs for parameters).
Interesting set up, and that does indeed sound fun. Sounds like you can hold off on a mixer due to the way you’ve got the audio routing going. Always pleasing when devices function as audio controllers.
Thanks. Yeah it’s specifically the timbres I’m after. I have a Digi, and want to add a single synth that is multi-tim, as I’ve no desire to buy lots and lots of gear and am trying to run a nice minimal setup. Honestly I’d get the 1010 Fireball if it weren’t £400 - monotimbral, but for its size I could definitely live with getting that and perhaps one more of its Nanobox siblings.
I had similar thoughts some time ago, when I had Octatrack and also other gear connected to it - I felt too distracted and I was spending too much time studying stuff instead of making music. Then I started to do a research towards some piece of gear, that will be the most versatile, e.g. have drums and synths and multitimbrality all at once, and not be too heavy with usage. I hate touchscreens so MPCs didn’t make it to the list already on the beginning :).
MC707 requires a little bit of a study, but doing that in parallel with Roland’s YT tutorial and later going through some vids related to software updates is imho enough to start having fun with music creation. Even if Roland’s approach has many drawbacks (e.g. you can’t save your own preset sound, you can only store it under clip or project and reuse it later, or no pattern queing in a Elektron style but pattern change on predefined number of bars regardless of the actual pattern size) it has some advantages which Elektron does not have (…and I’ll be banned on this forum for saying this 
), like track cueing to headphones - so when jamming you can work out a new sound and phrase on a track and pre-listening on headphones while not disturbing your main mix.
I was almost about selling my A4 and DN and stay only with MC707 to keep the setup as minimal as possible, but I realized many sounds (typically FM ones) are not achievable on MC707, and there is no p-locking which I got used to a lot (well, you can record knob movement as automation, but that is far from p-locking) and no trig conditioning, which is the second one I’m using very often. MC707 is best for recording on-the-fly (from MIDI keyboard for example) while Elektrons (even if live recording is one of the features) are best with programming - but just my opinion :).
This is already posted in the MC-707 thread but I think it’s appropriate here.
Ron Cavagnaro has just started a series about MC-707 on YT. He really shows the creative side of it and that the menu diving might be less than what some people expect from reading about it.
Highly recommended. This is part one of two and more to follow.
In this case it’s one of the best options IMO, unless you get something like a Virus. My current core setup is DT, 707 and Microfreak (+Keystep 37 for recording), it’s pretty minimal and performance oriented setup with wide sound palette. Thinking of adding SP404 MKII for end-of-chain compression/mastering, performance effects and stem playing, but TBH it’s not really necessary, because 707 already does lots of this.
MC-707 is really big ! MC-101 makes more sense to me with DT. I just received one, not fond of build feeling, headphones in the front, I’ll see sound wise, portable workflow with batteries…if I really like it I will solder headphones out elsewhere !
Recently got one for 290€, 2nd hand. Sounds good, but definitely lacks some basic features like…pan for each osc !
Not sure to keep it having an Hydrasynth and Micromonsta 2, which I recommend as very versatile/capable compact bi-timbral synth.
Possible with Octatrack. 