Roland MC-101 What’s new Version 1.6!

[@primitiveknot3480]

Just bought an MC-101 and finding your videos massively helpful - thanks and please keep them coming!

[@teabreakbeats]

You beat me to it! Super detailed walkthrough and very natural flow! Keep them coming - we can all learn from each other!

[@skullhqx]

Thanks for the MC-101 videos. I myself use a hybrid setup with Ableton Live as a sequencer and FX, running external synthesizers. This little box replaced my Yamaha MODX for those layered sounds. Reminds me of Omnisphere a bit as well. I’m glad Roland is still building new firmwares for this. One wishes they would go back to the design table and redo some of the user interface with the knowledge and ideas they gained since. I’m almost eying the MC-707 as a stand-alone solution. That one could be improved as well. Great video, I’ll be sure to check out more of your tutorials. I would also be interested in what Roland’s Zenology (Pro?) can do in relation to the MC-101. Seems like it enables you to edit Zen Core hardware patches directly, making this little box even greater. Would be great to see some review/tutorial stuff about that new aspect of the MC-101 as well! :)

[@GeorgeL909]

The random tone generator is a game changer for me, especially with how much I love weird and unusual sounds. Ambient horror soundscapes here I come! The usb compliance was great too because ios has such amazing synths you can team this thing up with, like Drambo and miRack.

[@BenCoeMusic]

Agreed! I think this was a great update all around, enjoy your weird sounds!!

[@theFXNshow]

I'm watching this video late at night, I should go to bed for work tomorrow but now I just wanna get my 101 out and Jam. As always super helpful and easy to understand video. Thank you for making it for us

[@Tapioca7S0]

Lol you know you can carry it anywhere with you 😆

[@lucgensler]

Very informative video! I’m very excited to update!

[@SR-ih1be]

Yes! They added the ARP! I've had the MC-101 now for several months, which I got to replace my MC-505. The lack of the built-in arpeggiator was perlexing to say the least. Nice to see Roland are paying attention! Also, Random Tone Generator is SUPER SMART FEATURE on a groovebox. Honestly, who needs sound design when you can just press a button and have randomly generated sounds? You can literally just do that all day!

[@BenCoeMusic]

Agreed! I’ve been doing it for days! Excellent addition

[@GFDubsteps]

wow man i went all the way through expecting you to be a big youtuber, really awesome video, you deserve way more recognition. First day with the 101, this helped me so friken much. definitely going through all your tutorials tomorrow. your enthusiasm is practically screaming through the screen. really great work, thanks a ton.

[@keanukason5185]

You probably dont care at all but does someone know a method to get back into an instagram account?? I was stupid forgot my password. I would appreciate any assistance you can offer me!

[@tristenmagnus9534]

@Keanu Kason Instablaster =)

[@keanukason5185]

@Tristen Magnus thanks for your reply. I found the site through google and im trying it out now. Seems to take a while so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.

[@keanukason5185]

@Tristen Magnus It did the trick and I actually got access to my account again. Im so happy:D Thanks so much, you really help me out!

[@tristenmagnus9534]

@Keanu Kason Happy to help =)

[@hayleybarr1380]

I got my mc 101 last week total newbie to making beats thanks for the videos they are really helpful 👍

[@BenCoeMusic]

Thank you I’m glad they’re helpful! Enjoy your new adventure!

[@TheShotgunal]

Thank you ,Ben Your teaching this old dog new tricks, make me wish I had done music at a early age! Thanks for the Inspiration and the tutorials!

[@marcelocg]

Man, you promised lots of videos for the future! Got a lot of work to do, what are you waiting for? Keep up the excellent work you've been doing! Thanks!

[@NeoLudditevisons]

Random tone gen makes this a total monster.

[@mikamulperi]

Thank you for demoing all these things! USB generic driver is very important to me since I am using iphone to record my jams 🚀

[@mkultra7578]

Very informative videos, been looking at the 101 to pair with the op-1& iPad with Drambo.707 looks more comprehensive but complicated.Thank you for time and energy towards these vids.

[@ruffark]

Thanks for this video. Your video is the one that made me make my final decision. I ordered one too :)

[@stevengain9488]

Thanks for putting this together, very helpful.

[@BenCoeMusic]

Thanks, I’m happy to! Glad it’s useful!

[@gregbobjr2490]

Seriously, how does this guy only have 600 subs. Honestly Great vids.

[@keith819]

Easily my favorite piece of audio great, thank you for explaining this

[@DJAndreasB]

Thank you for all Videos.....this was a great help for me. Best Regards from Germany

[@kaydoubleyou6203]

Great video, looking forward to the next one! :)

[@mojodrum3215]

Thanks for this l just picked up the Mc 101 because of this update and l'm very impressed.

[@ALTARBEATZ]

Thanx again. Clear explaination. 👍

[@saluddiaz]

makes me want to buy one, nice video

[@djxxl7348]

Hey Ben, XXL here. 🤩 I do have some points of critic. I mis the random placed gates and tones if I play with the arpeggio. It stays regularly, if I say that wright. You know what I mean, on my oldschool MC-505's it makes nice irregular little random melody loops. I mis that also on my Korg Kaossilator KO3pro+. If today doesn't matter!!@ Weard. And also have some minpoints about the random tone synth's. You must spend a lot of time to find something that you're surching for. And their defenition of random tones includes also all random effects on all the tones it makes. That makes it a little bit messy and often unusefull. Sorry Ben, that I'm not so flabbergasted as you are. But the reason is maybe that I mix with 2 mc-101's and therefore I not make a whole song, but just some different melodie and basslined and chords so that I can mix it many diff. ways. But still love you Ben. Deeply RESPECT for what you are doing and are capable of. 👍🎼🎹 XXL.

[@kvfive]

14:45 the drum trk tie, handy for longer samples etc, does this apply to patterns at say 64 steps long ? Would you keep the ‘exit’ button down and move to the next measure ?

[@RaidersOfTheLostHeart]

very good tutorial 🤗👍👏👏

[@AleksSHAGI]

What a lesson! Thank you, Ben!

[@BiteTheBoxer]

Ben, thanks so much for your easy to understand videos on the MC-101, I also like your presenting style. I just got the MC-101 as my first sequencer/groovebox and did a little synthwave-esque jam video. Check it out if you have a spare few mins.

[@NeoLudditevisons]

Ah man, these videos are making me GAS.

[@BenCoeMusic]

Haha I do the deep dives into gear I already own to cure my own GAS.

[@80iesDude45]

I sold my «Deluge» to get the MC-101 and I don't regret it at all ;-)

[@BenCoeMusic]

Glad you’re happy with your decision! I definitely think the deluge is a great product, but for me, the MC-101 is just a better fit

[@80iesDude45]

@@BenCoeMusic The «Deluge» was fun to play, an «All-In-one» studio, something between «Tenori-On» and «Ableton Live». I didn't like the internal sounds, I prefer the Roland ZEN engine, which is great.

[@navegarenaltea9434]

Hi Ben, congratulations on your videos and your channel. It is satisfying to listen and learn from someone who knows as much as you do. I want to ask you a question. I would like to know if I can enter a 6 minute .wav in 101? as a player, and if so, how many wav in sequence can I put in a row? Thank you!!

[@JohnMcGFrance]

Hi Ben . Great video. Cant wait for mine to arrive. When you use the vendor driver with a DAW do you get the 4 audio tracks AND the indi data recorded? Thanks.

[@pianokeyjoe]

Ok, I am very excited about the retrigger, scatter,roll,flam,stutter, and other like repeating sound features on this groovebox. The large sample capacity feature and mix of new and old connectivity for us old skool musicians.. BUT, I need to know, have you been able to test if the MC101 can TRIGGER external Midi gear with those roll/stutter/scatter/SUB note triggering effects? In other words, I have a Korg PA 600 Oriental midi workstation that I want to use the MC 101 to trigger the built in Middle Eastern drum sounds in that fast note repeats,stuttering effects and so on.. The Korg does not have a simple "ROLL" function which I do know Roland Fantom X keyboard DO have(on the pads only but still). So my quest is to buy a Drum machine that can trigger an external midi module/keyboard with those fast machine gun sound effects, and not just the drum machine's internal synth source.. Can this unit do that?? I know my Boss DR770 CAN. But it is of course more limited...

[@redbirdsaraceno]

Can it receive audio via usb from an ipad ? If it can sampling that way would be cool. Maybe it only sends audio to usb , I'm not finding any info or vids about that.

[@enelaoszafetas9300]

Hello there!Hope everything is fine! I have a question if you may. I tried to record something with looper track. Number 4 track was my looper track and i managed to add 8 of them, then it says 'Continuous memory is full' . Can i change for the remaining clips my Looper track to Tone??I think i saw it somewhere but i cant seem to find it now. Thank you veeery much keep up the good work!!!:))

[@cresshead]

usb generic will give the 1 stereo pair audio tracks Left and Right vendor - installing a roland driver will give you 4 stereo tracks 1 for each track..plus a mater left and right i believe and a pc track

[@KompleteTutorials]

Hey man nice video! I might get this MC 101 ! Looks cool for on the side or on the road to play with! One question. Can you import user loops in clips? All I can find is import them in the looper on a track. Same for samples, can they be imported in clips? Actually that were 2 questions sorry haha :)

[@BenCoeMusic]

Thank you! Do you mean like drum loops and that sort of thing? You can put them on the SD card and import them in 3 different ways. You can put them on a drum track, where it will occupy 1 pad and you can hit the pad and it will play the loop. This is great for 1 shots/drum hits, etc, but it works alright for loops as well. You don’t get to stretch the audio here though. You can pitch it up or down (with steps or fine tuning) which will change the speed, but you can’t change it faster or slower without changing the pitch in a drum rack. You can change the start and end points though, and reverse it if you want. You can also import on a tone track, which will basically give you the keyboard to play the sample higher and lower. This is more geared towards playing as an instrument, though it doesn’t support multisamples. It is polyphonic though so you could probably load up some loops and get weird stuff lol. Finally you can import a loop into a looper track, like you’ve seen. This is where you get time stretching sorts of functionality. You can put a loop here and stretch it to fit your track without changing the pitch (it works alright for most things, there are a few algorithms for different sounds. I haven’t used it much but my impression is it’s serviceable, but if you want to change the speed to be a lot slower you’re probably better off with a DAW, especially for melodic loops. Each track type has clips, so if your sample is in a drum rack, you could put the sample on step one by itself in a clip then when you triggered that clip the loop would play. Basically you can step-sequence it in wherever you want. With the step length and envelope controls you can set it to play all the way through or only when you hit the button. Hopefully that answers your questions, if not let me know if I can give further clarity.

[@KompleteTutorials]

@@BenCoeMusic thank you! I understand now. Very detailed answer, much respect! Keep up the good work you make good and helpful videos! Greetings

[@matsuda150]

I have the COMP switch on, but don't see the meter when playing a sequence. Anything I'm doing wrong? Really learning a lot about the MC-101 from your videos - thanks!

[@BenCoeMusic]

Glad they’re helping! Have you set the compressor settings other than turning it on? By default the threshold is 0 dB and the ratio is 1:1 so it won’t do anything. If you try setting the threshold to like -30 dB and ratio to 1:16, you should hear the compressor lowering the volume and then see the meter moving. The meter only shows the actual compression that is happening, it’s sort of opposite to a regular level meter, so it’s not exactly intuitive, I probably could have explained it better. Glad you like the videos! Thanks for checking them out!

[@matsuda150]

@@BenCoeMusic That explains it - I see the meter now. Thanks Ben!

[@sinewaymusic]

Can Scatter effects be automated in something like a song mode? Does song mode even exist?

[@KitCatStudio]

“I made a sequence”. (Uncontrolled dance) Nothing special.”

[@Totozme]

I love when you dance, so funny

[@saltlampgaming115]

Hey dude, will updating and reverting to factory wipe all my projects? Do I need to back them up as MIDI files then load them back in?

[@BenCoeMusic]

Nope, update and factory reset will mess with your settings but shouldn’t touch the projects on your SD card. If you want to back up the sd card to a computer just in case, you should be able to just copy the contents of the SD card to your computer, (I make a backup copy every time just in case, but I’ve never needed it).

[@saltlampgaming115]

@@BenCoeMusic thank you so much man!

[@DM43685]

Nice video, but there is a fundamental flaw with the ARP, the flaw is is with beats and snares, even selecting 1x32 speed, to say add a fast snare section, won’t record the sound at the speed it plays at, it’s a flaw. That Roland should of tested..

[@elsantoproductora]

Do you get 4 tracks with the generic drivers or just the stereo mix? Thanks for the video!

[@BenCoeMusic]

Thanks for checking them out! Only the master stereo out with the generic drivers, still need the computer driver for the 4 track.

[@elsantoproductora]

@@BenCoeMusic thanks!!

[@DJTUBE-cq8gf]

Hey there, can I use this hardware to use it as an effects unit connected to my deejay hardware, and manipulate my deejay mix with scatter like a Korg kaoss pad or whatever external effect processor ?

[@BenCoeMusic]

Sadly you can’t really do that. There’s no audio input available on the MC-101 (other than over USB), so you can’t manipulate live audio. If you wanted to, you could chop songs ahead of time, load the samples to the MC-101 ahead of time, and then use it as like a drum machine/remix machine during your set, but that’s probably not what you had in mind. You could check out the “big brother:” the MC-707. That has audio inputs that might be closer to what you want. I’m not sure the extent of the effects you can apply to incoming audio, but it’s definitely closer to what you want I think, good luck!

[@MegaDieseldriver]

What’s the best way to connect this thing to my set up? I use a pc (FL studio) , a Scarlett interface and a set of monitors . Will I be using it via usb , or into the audio interface ? I basically want to use it as channel in my fl studio mixer with other vsts , and outputting on my monitors . Anyone’s help is greatly appreciated

[@BenCoeMusic]

I also use FL on PC with a Scarlett 2i2 interface and there’s a couple ways to do it, depending on what you want. If you have the Mc-101 driver downloaded you should be able to plug the MC-101 in, and in FL at the top of any mixer insert you can select any of the MC-101 tracks (or the MC-101 master mix) as the input. Then on the output of the master track of the mixer you can select the MC-101 and it should send the master output to the MC-101 output which can go to your monitors. The problem is that the MC-101 will also send it’s output to the monitors and it will be slightly ahead of the FL audio. The other way to do it (which I normally use) is just run the output of the MC-101 into the input of the Scarlett. Then use the Scarlett as the audio interface in FL, and just take the inputs (which will be the master of the MC-101) into your mixer the same way you would with a microphone or instrument. You could pan your tracks hard left and hard right to fake your way to two assignable outputs this way, but you’ll give up stereo. Usually if I want to record tracks individually, I’ll just turn the volume down on everything but what I want to record, record that into Edison, then do that for each track and then I can apply effects however I want. There’s a third way to do it that’s basically the best of both worlds but sometimes just doesn’t work as well (in my experience, could work well for others). That’s using the asio4all drivers which I think come with FL now, if asio4all isn’t an option as your audio driver just google it and you should be able to find it (it’s free). The point of asio4all is that you can use multiple interfaces at once, ie. You can use all the individual tracks on Mc-101 over usb as ins to different mixer tracks, and still use the Scarlett as the output to your monitors. This also frees up the inputs on your Scarlett. The downside to this (other than occasional bugs like for me the inputs are all there but never have the right labels) is that it’s a bit more taxing on your computer (as far as I can tell). So you might have to increase your buffer size a little bit. I’d say give them all a try and see what feels right to you. Hope that is useful, if I need to clarify anything let me know, good luck!

[@MegaDieseldriver]

@@BenCoeMusic dude , I really appreciate the detailed and helpful answer!. That’s exactly what I needed to know . I watched all your tutorial videos on the 101 last night thank you so much.

[@MegaDieseldriver]

@@BenCoeMusic I got my 101 today , it’s awesome! But man I’m having some trouble with the set up still. The first way I tried and the setup I want to do , is using the usb to power the unit , and then running mono out into the input of the Scarlett (using a mixer channel inside FL studio ) but with the usb plugged in Im getting noise. If I use the 101 as an audio interface the noise goes away but I really don’t want to do that . I want to use my Scarlett as an interface and the 101 as just an instrument. I think I might need isolated power to make the noise go away but wanted to see if you had any more advice before spending more money. I tried using a standard guitar cable and a trs cable and still had noise with usb plugged in.

[@DespairQuietlyPlease]

Can you apply the arp to a drum set?

[@BenCoeMusic]

You can, it plays the drum sounds successively (ie plays kick, hat, snare,etc) with each pulse. It’s kind of interesting.

[@RamiTuppa]

Hi can anyone please tell me how to transmit audio and midi from mc 101 to mx1 using USB cable only like I can with the tb-3 thanks

[@Tapioca7S0]

Dude cover zencore pro with the MC101

[@BenCoeMusic]

Would love to! I’ll see when I get the money together lol

[@FOREVERLY]

Is anyone else having a problem with updating their MC-101? I'm not sure if its because I'm using Windows 10?? I really don't want to return this!

[@BenCoeMusic]

Hi! I do this on windows 10 and it hasn’t given me a problem so far. Did you check out the tutorial I mentioned? Which part is giving you problems?

[@FOREVERLY]

@@BenCoeMusic Thank you for your quick response! I checked out the tutorial, thank you, I saved it for future reference! After downloading the file, and transferring it to the MC. I hit shift and power on, says "No Update File". I bought it as open box, dang it. I shouldn't have. I'm going to return it, and buy a brand new one.

[@laurentb.2064]

@@FOREVERLY Try to format the SD card with your MC-101. Then copy the "MC101_UPA_up.bin" file in the "root" folder of the SD card.

[@FOREVERLY]

​@@laurentb.2064 Thank you! I'm just going to return it. I should've known not to buy an open box and just wait for it to be delivered. I wouldn't be here having trouble.

[@Finnsnor]

@@FOREVERLY it is fixed by renaming the file and name it back to original name. The problem is that is somehow doesn't replace the old file when you transfer the update to the mic 101.

[@NeoLudditevisons]

Hearing rumours on gearslutz there is a new super update coming for 101 and 707 very soon....

[@BenCoeMusic]

Yeah I heard in the MC Facebook group from an admin that apparently works with Roland that they’re bringing something soon. Looking forward to whatever new stuff we get!

[@NeoLudditevisons]

@@BenCoeMusic yeah totally!! Roland have gotta up their game after arturia stealing the lime light with their updates on released gear! So much can be done with 101 and 707