My first thought when seeing the 707 was “the damn screens too small!” Then I looked at my Elektrons and chuckled a bit.
However, the 707 looks like they packed a lot into that screen which makes it look cramped. I’ve never felt that way on my Elektron’s.
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thank the 8bit graphics style
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Continued thanks, guys, some really helpful viewpoints and advice.
The agony of choice!
One thing I have just realised from watching Cenk’s intro video is that the 8 tracks on the Digitakt are essentially voices, by which I mean, in my very non-expert terminology, that each drum voice (snare, hat etc) takes up one of those 8 tracks. I had perhaps naively expected that drums would take up, in their entirety, one track, and then each note would represent a different drum. Not sure if it’s like this on the 707. I’m coming from a Yamaha MODX (that answers the question about my current gear), which obviously has a keyboard, so this setup works. I had carried this into my expectations for grooveboxes!
Well the Digitakt can have a different sample on a per-step basis, so you CAN allocate a track to drums as long as the sounds don’t overlap. The Digitakt is much more and x-o-x-o style step sequencer. So like kick-hat-snare-hat on one track is possible. You just have to program it this way, not play it in this way.
The 707 on the other hand has 16 sounds per drum track, which can be one track itself. This is much closer to your MODX experience than the DT.
It looks like on the 707 you could have all your drums on one track. Also, and I am sure this has been mentioned, but the DT only samples in mono, and only plays samples in mono, while the 707 samples in stereo. So if you were sampling stereo things, like records, certain synths, an external instrument running through stereo fx, etc., and you would like to keep its sound stereo, then the 707 could do that. But if that is not so important, then you could use some of the DT internal fx to add some stereo depth to the samples.
my first reaction to this is “cool! lots of options” but with a little reflection I feel in terms of tone, the synth options don’t come close to the sound and tactility of my dedicated devices. The drums & sequencer look cool, but here again, if I limit the device to that functionality, I feel there are more direct (and cheaper) options out there (eg Digitakt).
I feel these all-in-one grooveboxes are a neat idea but don’t quite hold up in practice for me. If it’s between this and an MPC Live I’m not sure what I would pick. If it’s for performance related stuff, I’d DEFINITELY pick any of the Elektron devices over this.
I dunno if I’d describe the bit reducer as “great” tbh. Otherwise agreed. 
(although maybe I am just sore it’s not sample rate reduction which I would find a lot more useful… imagine being able to LFO the sample rate… )
I saw the 707 about 2 months ago when I was still frantically searching for a “center” gear.And since the MC307 was the first thing that allowed me to create and somewhat perform music about 15 years ago I was really into it.
The other contenders were the DT and the OP-Z(due to the fact I have an iPad and they pair perfectly).
707 seemed like a great box.Videos we’re showing true potential on this machine but somehow in my mind,things kinda seemed to follow a different route than the Digitakt.More like”fit the most you can in one machine”
Finally I was sold for the beloved yellow screen beast(with the OP-Z being really close).
I think it was about the depth for me.Beign able to adjust every single step of your music differently is an ultimate power when composing.And just that really.
Almost every feature that the DT may lack,it simply fills it up with this thing for me.Guess that’s the general case with Elektron but I was deeply sold into it the moment I realised that.
It’s just 3 weeks it’s with me,I might have spent a poor 14 hours with it(due to parenting,work,time in general),but 3 tracks are almost ready to be performed and every time I sit down with it,I really appreciate the music,composition and performance wise.
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Definitely, I sorely underused it for a long time. Now I often play around that idea. Super handy live!
after many grooveboxes and testing i ended up staying with the mc 707 in company with a KP3+ and a novation impulse 25 for live playing the synth. i maybe will go and add the 1010music blackbox for the lack of let me play loops that are longer then 60 seconds.
i mean there is a workaround while you just load loops in your drum track, but then you dont have time stretch. i will test the next days if that workes fine and or if i need the blackbox in addition.
but i realy hope that roland will add more controllers for midi cc so i can use my impulse to control more synth parameters at the same time.
this and the only 60s limit (for the whole project) is what me realy make sad.
and a few minor bugs and features that are missing (imo)
so far best groovebox ever made.
EDIT:
i had the digitakt also, but it gets obsolete in my opinion besides the mc 707, cause the 707 can do the same. when you break down you have 8 tracks on the digi and 8 tracks on the roland BUT you can only play 8 mono samples on the digi while you can play 16 samples (polyphon) on each of the 8 tracks on the 707. would mean you can (theoreticaly) play 16 x 8 = 128 samples at the same time.
Not that i need to play that much same time but you could.
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A fair analysis but I see the DT as a precision mono sampler sequencer (yet many people use as a sampling groovebox) and the 707 as a much broader sampling and synthesis groovebox.
Both are probably ‘best in class’ for their intended use but their differences are so many, let alone in workflow, that they are in different classes of instrument.
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I’m atm pairing the 707 with OT. It seems logical to me - I’m experimenting.
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of course that is right. the DT won’t be a complete groovebox but many use it as one.
sounds like a good combo to.
i thought about it too for a while, but too much money for me and to much “thinking” during performance.
well, ot is thinking while make a setup. if the setup is done you can use it like you want.
yes, but then you need extra midi controllers (at least i need) to control all channels levels and filters and stuff. the most thing i hate on the ot is that i always have to hop between tracks to make volume adjustments. but it’s a nice machine…
maybe they bring an mk3 version 2021
Mc101 and DT or BB is a very fun combo in a small amount of space.
For live use though you may prefer bigger handily controllable boxes, but nice as very compact composition tools.
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Well, you can use the 8 faders and three knobs per channel on the 707 while performing.
OT can midi arp, midi lfo (on 8 different midi cc) and up to 4 notes per trig.
atm I only use it to sequence the mc 707 because i don’t like the 707 sequencer.
Later i want to use the pedal i/o on the 707 with ot in a/b and cue out, and ot out into 707 ext in.
so i can record all at once into my daw and mangle sound with ot scenes (like the scatter fx…). on the 707 i use every clip just for sound settings. lets see.
Oh, and ot brings the arranger too.
the 707 has no pedal input? can you explan what you mean?
I didn’t know the correct term for it, now I took a look. I mean send/return input and output on the 707. I guess I can use these in conjunction with the octatrack and sample, mangle, etc. with it. I meant fx pedals, not control pedals.