ja ja nothing extraordinary. I just removed 6 of 8 "black ears" that come on the sides, made the holes of the bolts a little bigger, and then, placed more resistant bolts, and put the units together hole with hole...
PK7 at the middle, XL7 at the left, MP7 at the right. It looks huge!
three yellow screens, so much knobs and track triggers blinking.
I left two ROMS per unit. They are not just great sequencers, but very capable machines when creating sounds, thanks
to its singular configration with MOD MATRIX, 1 chorus per voice (each patch can have up to 12 voices), 15 different LFOS
and 50 different filters.
Obviously the ROMS you have installed gives the personality of each machine.
The middle PK-7 is the dream of drums.... it has the standard rom (wich is the best of the 3 units) and the
beat garden.
Any kind of percussive sound can be achieved in the middle one. I decided to do NOT record MIDI tracks there, and use
only the internal engine to fill out the tracks. Since is the middle one of the three, it sends only
MIDI CLOCK through its A and B Midi Outputs, no notes information. So here is were we press PLAY to start all
the system.
At the left is the XL7 with
the World Expedition Drum. This ROM is the most expensive one, however, I got it on
$150 on auction.
The tracks 9-16 on this unit are dedicated to internal sounds. Pads with somem flutes, basses, aeros.
The tracks 1-6 control a ENSONIQ FIZMO.
There I achieved a great control over the weird bizarre sounds of the FIZMO. FIZMO's MIDI configurationo is pure
oddity. Each patch can have up to 8 transwaves. But each pair of transwaves inside the patches, can be controlled
through MIDI in an independant way of the other6 transwaves. So, the expressive possibilities over a single patch
are huge, if you can control different aspects of each patch with a high versatile sequencer like command station
track1 controls the 8 transwaves at the same time, track 2, transwaves 1-2, track 3, transwaves 3-4... and so...
Track 6, activates-deactivates the Fizmo's arppegiator.
Tracks 7 and 8, are sample triggers for a sampler Roland SP808.
THE MP7 is at the right, and it offers control to 3 synths. It contains MIDI note data to be sent to the Roland V-Synth,
the Yamaha EX5, and there's a thru cable that sends tempo to a Korg Electribe ESX1. This unit, has also a specialty on
bmp oscillating pads and effects, with the MP7 ROM and vintage keys, and most of all, CHORDED patches. Different transponse
for each wave inside patches. Lots of chorded guitars and mellow organs, with middle filter and resonance, to create those
lovely house chord hits.
Each command station has a different configuration and plays different purposes. The PK7 does not has 12 waves
patches, most of the patches don't have the link function active, since I need all the 512 user locations to have a
crowd of any kind of drums. Besides, 12 waves per patch eats polyphony
The XL7 has 12 waves per each patch. I use only 8 tracks of the internal engine, so I decided, to create really fat patches
there. Let's see what this baby can do, with these two ROMS and intense work of relating patches between them with the amazing
link function.
Same for the MP7, but here, sounds are more complex, and less fat. Let's say, 12 independant LFOS oscillating at different tempos, with
waves that are noises, effects, irregular pads.
I'm barely starting this project. I feel honored to have 3 of one of the most versatile and creative drum machines ever created. I truly
believe the command stations are one of a kind, and too underrated. Each unit costed me $300-$350....