About 3-4h with basic rechargeable AA. I switch battery sets all the time and save often !
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I bought some USB chargeable AAs and did a soak test with the 101, I got over 6 hours with the sequencer running continuously.
I was really impressed
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Is that something different to just ‘rechargeable AAs’ ?
These ones, have micro USB port on each battery so can be charged without a charger
— Amazon Link —
EBL 1.5V AAA Rechargeable Lithium Batteries 900mWh with Micro USB Cable, 4 Counts in One Storage Case https://amzn.eu/d/165LpQj
EDIT: Whoops these are AAA, I can’t seem to find the AA ones anymore on Amazon
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It’s hard because I guess few people clock themselves while running on batteries. I tend to have the rechargeables inside of it while plugging in a powerbank or computer whenever I’m nearby them. And then I do 30 minute sessions here and there. I find that they last for weeks this way.
But in theory, given the power draw and how capable 3000 mAh batteries are today, you should get around 5 hours on a full charge. Most people seem to use 2400 mAh and below and maybe they’re more reliable? But the 3000 mAh are amazing in my experience.
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I use IKEA Lada’s 2450 mah and I get around 4 hours use out of them.
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How do people plan their tracks on the MC-101 and keep track of clips and scenes?
Do you all have photographic memories or do you have a specific way of building your tracks?
I’m just trying a little track planner to see if this helps me keep on top of things to assist in completing whole tracks but, is there an easier way of doing this?
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I do the same and keep the same track configuration (one track for drums/hits, the rest for melodic content, chords and atmospheres) and go in chronological fashion through clips and scenes. It isn’t hard to do since the 16 clips limit.
I hope we will eventually be able to set colours per clip (like with the scatter pads). This would helps organising stuff when building a set.
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I don’t do anything brilliant - just use spreadsheets and text files to keep track of ideas.
MC-707 lets you name individual clips - one nice thing over it’s little sibling.
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MC-101 lets you name the file that you export clips to/import clips from … but it looks like you’re talking about something else ?
yeah in the MC-707 grid display, you can highlight a clip and see its name
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Roland never followed up with me after their initial emails. My 707 is still dead.
I should probably just bring it into a local LA Synth repair shop at this point.
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Got my hands on a second hand MC-101 for a fair price and I don’t know what to think of it yet.
It’s pretty powerful yet somehow clunky.
- It’s a nice sketchpad but it’s already a tiny bit heavy to bring everywhere.
- It’s a nice sound module, with up to 4 poly synths with classic sounds, but really hard to do sound design on.
- The sequencer is pretty powerful, even more so than Elektron’s in some aspects, with different play modes, recording of automations on 4 assignable tracks with parameters such as octave, etc. but clunkier.
- The machine has no “character”. It’s all of Roland’s classic sounds but it’s hard to get something out of it that I wouldn’t get out of an app (as opposed to, say, an A4)
Sooo:
- as a travel device, a smartphone is probably better, unless you’re really allergic to it (which I am a bit, but the more I think about it the more I feel it’s unreasonable)
- as a sound module, it can give bread and butter sounds and is not too heavy, but could be smaller (if you remove the sequencer). I may use it that way. 4 poly synths for that price is nothing to be frowned upon.
- I wouldn’t use it in the studio
All in one despite the negative tone it’s a pretty impressive device. It might just not be for me (and I guess the 707 wouldn’t be too, somehow)
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I certainly agree on that one … the power is there, but it’s fiddly
Also agree … I really like the clip/scene paradigm, and 128 steps. Though I haven’t exploited it yet, the scaling makes 3-based time signatures (6/8, 3/4) much easier to handle than elektron.
That said, I’m veering away from it at the moment and making more of my M:C and M:S.
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Yeah really Ableton-y!
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Compared to my 707, I enjoy editing sounds more on the 101. For me it’s simply faster and more direct, without fiddling with cursor keys. Plus four knobs per parameter group and a self-explanatory interface. I like it the way it is, even if I am alone in my opinion 
The sequencer is ok, but nothing more. Here, the 707 has the clear advantage that we can edit multiple notes/values per step simultaneously. If Roland adds this shortcut to the 101, the 101 would be nearly perfect for me. I wouldn’t expect more from a device in this size and price range.
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I’m surprised more isn’t made of the way the 101 & 707 handle sequencing, it’s so powerful & flexible. Going back to a device where all sequences for all tracks are locked together within patterns (i.e. Elektron and many others) feels so clumsy
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Absolutely.
EDIT: That feature, combined with the extra features in the 1.8 firmware, combined to trigger my purchase of the 101.
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Really sick of these companies and their lack of customer support. Elektron customer service is miles ahead of some of the bigger players. And the three year warranty shows they stand behind their products.
I’ve been having a bit of a 707 renaissance over the last week, because I was feeling a bit of Force fatigue. I was enjoyng getting back into it, but it’s just come crashing down around me because the implementation of sampling is just so frustrating. I can easily live with the sample time limit, that’s fine. But it’s slow - it feels artificially slow, as even copying small samples around in RAM (or normalising them) invovles a progress bar - and just half-baked in so many ways. I learned to live without truncate, as you kind of naturally truncate when you assign a sample (although truncate would seem like an important option with limited RAM). But the chopping is an exercise in trial and error, and if you don’t save everything to the card immediately, you’re always one button push away from having to start over, and so on and so forth.
It’s frustrating because there’s a ton of potential there. I’d like to be able to easily sample and feed it through the excellent FX etc. The four inputs are really nice to have. But it feels like literally every other sampler I own is looking on and shaking its head, and if I bring the MPC or Force back in for sampling, they’re going to take over sequencing duties too, and then I might as well use Hype for pads, and the 707 ends up redundant by degrees.
And on an unrelated note, I wish Roland would sit down and decide which numeric range they want to use. Filter resonance can be 0-100, 0-127, or 0-1023 and I can live with any of those, but not all three on the same device. I won’t run over my sample and hold complaints again so soon after airing them in the SH-4d thread, but they still apply and it still hurts.
Anyway, I feel better now. This is the standard 707 experience for me, I get it out of the box and have a great time with it until I’m reminded why it was in the box. I’d sell it if I could be arsed, and if I didn’t expect an udpate to appear the next day fixing all my complaints. And also, I want to believe.
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