Any Roland R8 MKII users out here??

[Triptonizer]

I'm considering buying one (found a good deal), and plan to use it as sequencer/trigger for external gear mainly, not so much as a drum computer; I heard it's quite capable for this, but can't find much info on the net.

[thetonewrecker]

try it hooked up to what you want to trigger first...

I have an R-70 which I do the same thing with for live gigs. It works great with some gear, horrible with others. It is because you can't assign a midi note hold/off and you can't adjust how long the midi "note on" command triggers.

Some units will be ok with this. My old Drumstation and Alesis DM-PRo would trigger drum sounds precisely. the Jomox Airbase I had would double hit notes, or not sound some at all. Very frustrating. If you are hooking it up to a sampler, you might end up having to manually adjust all the envelopes out to hear the whole sound

[Triptonizer]

Hum... I see what you mean.... thx Paul

[piscaries]

a friend of mine uses it mainly to sequence his proteus 2000. works well for him, but i have no first hand experience with it. they're really big though. large footprint in the studio.

[Triptonizer]

Originally posted by piscaries
they're really big though. large footprint in the studio.

I know :)

[mrhospital]

I used one for about a year triggering an emu e6400. Holding notes was an issue and so was playing chords. There are 5 banks of 16 midi notes, not alot really, and each note has to be set to trigger a specific midi note. There is a keyboard follow function however I never used this much.
The good bits are the roll button, nice but basic swing setting, velocity sensitive pads and a few nice sounds. It's just a bit of a pain to program at first however if you persist you can get some good results. I wouldn't pay more than £100. A second hand rm1x would be about the same price and would yield better results.

Andrew

[Triptonizer]

Actually I was more thinking of triggering/sequencing one shot samples rather than synth line or chords. Thx for the input, at least I have some more information now.