Expansion boards for the Mc-909?

K

keith 909

Guest
What would be the best srx expansion board for the 909.I can't decide between the vintage keys,dance supreme,or the ultimate drums.I wouldn't mine having all three,but you can only use one at a time in the 909.Is it possible to store presets from the boards into the user memory and then remove the board and put in another board and do the same.I read were the srx boards have 64 megs of memory each twice as much as the 32 in the 909.The pianos and acoustics sounds in the 909 are much weaker than the ones on the srx boards.The drums in the 909 are great,but they are mostly electric and only have 16 sounds in each kit.The dance supreme board mirror the same sounds as the 909,but it suppose to have special waveforms that can only adressed in the 909.
 
Well, if this helps you:

The Dynamic Drums card doesn't support any presets. So in other words, if you installed this SRX card, you'd have to build all drum kits by hand.

Educational, maybe, but pretty counterproductive.

Ultimate Keys is a great expansion, with nice Clavs, as well as organs, Wurlis and Rhodes...es.

Supreme Dance seems to me to be very electronic-music-production oriented, and had extra patches that can only be found by putting this card into an MC909.

I bought the Dynamic Drums card used for super-cheap, but making my own drumkits is turning out to be a major hassle (and I'm a sound-design nerd.).

If I had to choose a card for my MC909, it'd be Ultimate Keys or World, then Supreme Dance, or maybe Platinum Trax.

What kind of music do you make, and what kinds of sounds are missing from your 909?

-Hoax
 
Thanks for the reply.I play mostly hip-hop beats.The electric pianos,pianos,and clavs are weak on the 909.The demos of the vintage keys on the roland website are great .The information you gave me about the drum card will make my decision easier.Since you had the drum kits card how many different sounds could you have in one kit ,is it limited to 16 like the internal kits in the 909 or do you have 64 like most other roland gear.I never got around to transfering my MC-505 patterns to the 909 in the way that you suggested.The 505 is just collecting dust.Maybe in ten years when everybody will be using computers for music the 505,909,and other hardware sequencers will remerge underground.
 
If you have the 909 and also the 505, what are you waiting to sell the 505?

I had once all the groovebox series, the 307, d2, 505, and 909. I kept only the 909.

Better sell the 505, and add the money you have fvor the expansion board, and get a synth witth a better sound, like a Roland JD8080.

Is around $500, and it has an incredible, amazing sound. Is a good choice to increse your sound spectrum. I suppose is what you wantt, isn't it?

Or for hip hop, get the EMU MP 7 command station. The sounds are great, lots, lots of drum kits and drum constructions for hip hop, wah guitars, funky sounds, misterious pads, great subbasses. I don't produce hip hop, bbut I have it, and the sounds are really versatile for another styles of music.
 
I'm was planning on trading the 505 for a va like the 8080 or the Ion in the near future.Right now I have about 100 patterns that I want to transfer from the 505 to the 909.Hoax showed me a complex way of doing it a few weeks ago,but I'm too busy making new patterns on the 909 right now.
 
The electric pianos,pianos,and clavs are weak on the 909.
Click to expand...
The Ultimate Keys board pretty much slays the 909's internal pianos and clavs.

Since you had the drum kits card how many different sounds could you have in one kit ,is it limited to 16 like the internal kits in the 909 or do you have 64 like most other roland gear.
Click to expand...
You have 16 pads, or "slots" within each drum kit. You can, of course, stack 2 sounds for each of the 4 tones per key (for 8 drum sounds, or 4 stereo pairs on each pad) and switch between them based on velocity, or randomly. But, same as an MPC, your "pad bank" or "rhythm kit" only has 16 slots.

-Hoax
 
Thanks for the reply.I will be getting the vintage key expansion board in the near future.
 
keith 909 said:
I'm was planning on trading the 505 for a va like the 8080 or the Ion in the near future.Right now I have about 100 patterns that I want to transfer from the 505 to the 909.Hoax showed me a complex way of doing it a few weeks ago,but I'm too busy making new patterns on the 909 right now.
Click to expand...

Is difficult because there is no option to make a complete back up of all user patterns, you have to save them one by one.

You don't strictly need to send them to the MC 909, you can save them on

a any MIDI sequencer and then to a diskette, match the Device Number on both machines, and play record on the sequencer, and then, use the option on the 505 for sending the System Exclusive messages
You can use any MIDI sequencer, match the Device Number on both machines, and play record on the sequencer, and then, use the option on the 505 for sending the System Exclusive messages
 
Thanks for the information.The more I use the 909, the patterns I made with 505 don't sound as good.Even though the waveforms are better in the 909 it's the compressor that makes it sound so much better than the 505.
 
This might be a little late for you but i thought i would put my 2cents in.
I have the 909,the MP7,RM1X,RY30,EM-1,
HR-16a,HR-16b,and a damn MPC3000! Not
to show off, just to say that the only pieces i use for hip-hop are the 3000 and the mp-7!
Check this;
The mp-7 has nice allaround "street" sounds and you can "tweek" the funk out of it with F/X. The 3000 has a nice sampler but i think the "feel" or "groove" that you get is where it shines. The 909 can give you the best of both worlds(like r. kelly and jigga)
Invest in some sample CDs and sample that 505 also before you let it go. Use the "lo-fi" stuff in the 909 and you will be suprised at what you can come up with and if you reeely need a sound card for the 909......."World Sounds" are what's hot right now. Not a lot of pianos and synths just beat material like hand claps and ethnic sounds (AFRICA,ASIA,INDIA) stuff. listen to your radio son.
peace.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top