WOW. After really messing about with it over the last couple of weeks, I have pure love in my heart for this beast. And yes, it is a beast. Sampling with it is the bomb. Easy to use, I have only 16mb, but I can easily sample at every octave for like 10 to 20 seconds no problem. This thing plays back what is put in, with a slight color that adds life and oooomph to the sound. I just can’t get enough. I seriously think this really adds more to the sound. It’s like my high end fx, my lexicon pcm 96 and ksp8, those fx units will add to the sounds and spit out something better than you put in. I am amazed. Seriously. I tried so hard to love software samplers, used halion, emu x, kontakt, and exs24. Nothing on those ever sounded like this. Nothing. I mean I would sample my analogs and they would sound digital. This thing still sounds analog even after its in the sampler. At first, I thought it ruined my drums, because when you first import sounds into this thing, it sets the attack on the TVA(amp env) to 1 instead of 0, so the first part of my kicks would get cut off. I figured out how to edit it. They kick the crap out of battery and kontakt for drums, everything is hot, loud and punches like it should, as compared to the limp more faint sound of these software samplers. But I did find a huge problem for drums, this is from another user on the gear sluts forums “Roland S-sampler: the envelopes regularly “mis-fire” — don’t know how else to explain it, but occasional hits will sound flabby, which is especially noticeable and problematic on drums… like let’s say you have set DCA Attack @ 0, and Release @ 3 for a really tight drum sound, it’s like occassionally it will hit where it sounds more like Attack @ 3, Release @ 50 …… myself and 2 of my friends all owned S-750s and it was the same on all of ours”. So I have to deduct some points here, this is not good for drums.

What do I really like about this most of all? Inputs are on the front, the converters on this are amazing, I think they are apogee from the late 80s, I read that on some forum some where, too lazy to open it up and check. They really capture the sounds just right. I had to get my head around the complex sound structure, sample then that becomes a partial(layer up to 4 sounds as the osc, 4 mono, or 2 stereo pairs) which contains the filter and amp envs and settings like that, then the patch section where you can assign the partials to the keyboard any way you want(if you have a lot of partials, and want to edit the filter or the tva on each, there is a way to hit command then edit partials, then select global, so you can edit all the partials under the patch at once, so the settings on the filter and amp envs etc will effect all the sounds in the patch, this took me a while to get my head around. Then the performance where you assign patches to midi channels. The file system is really good(it intelligently will use the same samples over and over in different sounds with out making you save them over and over, unless you do physical edits on the samples themselves, so if you have a drum kit and one kit uses the same kick as another, it will know this, and only save the one kick but load the same one for both kits, so space isn’t wasted saving the same files over and over.), even though there is a 540 mb limit to how big a hd can be :(. You can use a mouse and external screen to use this unit. But you don’t need it, my screen is super dim, so I had to get a long composite video cable to reach my TV, then, neato. Easy to see everything. I have no problem editing stuff with the arrows and the big wheel. I also think this sampler can sync the osc(samples) like osc sync on analogs. I haven’t tried that yet.

Sampling is easy, I learned some stuff from the manuals and from some cool people over on gear sluts about how to edit stuff easier. So in partial mode, hit the command button, then sample, and it will create a partial with the sample real easy, same can be done in patch mode to make patches easy. Sampling is cool, although, when making any patch, partial, or sample, you have to name them, but once you do it will remember the name you entered again so you can just add 2 3 4 etc to the end of it easy. I remember sampling with the asrx, asr10, and emu e6400, I seriously prefer the s770 over those in sound and editing, when I sample a sound in, it automatically find the right start and end points to truncate, so it is good at saving space, and i don’t have to manually truncate myself. There are no FX, good, cause i usually hate internal fx. 24 voice poly. 8 outputs! Flopy disk, and a built in 40mb, yes MB :( HD. Without the HD you would have to load the OS of floppy every time you booted it up. So I am thankful there is one in there even though it’s only 40mb.

So it sounds amazing with low aliasing, really musical. So lush. The filters are digital, but they sound analog, the resonance is really wet if you set it just right, and the band pass and high pass are spot on and can sound really organic and analog. Todd and I compared some crumar string machine akai samples to kontakt 3, loaded them in via chicken systems translator on a zip disk. Loaded it in, played both and A and B them over and over, and we noticed that the s770 sounded fuller, more musical, had more harmonics in the sound, louder, smoother, punchier, present, warm and fat. VS the software which was more distant, thin, cold, had horrid aliasing distortions, the filters were like sand paper compared to the smooth organic filters in the s770. It was a joke. To think people are selling these things to buy software that sounds 10 times worse is an outrage.

I never used my software samplers in my music much, because it never would fit. Never matched my real analogs. The s770 does match and fit my other gear. Sits nice in the mix. So much easier to mix actually. I really wanted to get my hands on the ultimate sampler, the emu e3, the depeche mode violator sampler, but i couldn’t find one that was affordable. I picked this thing up for 200 plus shipping and i had to buy a power chord. It was mission the top of one of the knobs, but it all works. Samplers are a lot of work, but well worth the effort when you get one of these great old ones. Not all samplers are great. This thing kicks the crap out of the emu e4 i had, the sound quality of this, the bass end especially is magical, warm and fat, so analog, more than any other sampler i had. The ensoniq samplers sound musty and dirty compared to this. This is lush, big warm and analog. So is the E3. 16 bit sound in the s770 as well. 20 bit internal processes. Todd bought the big huge e3 rack from Danny Elfman’s studio! yes, and it is amazing. Real analog filters. But mine are good usable and i have multi mode, so i am really happy. Don’t get me wrong, the e4, and old asr samplers are better than the new hardware samplers from akai, and the software. But seriously, the e3, the s770 are like the ultimate in sound character, they sound analog and not digital. This is the best piece of gear I have bought in a longtime. Rock solid midi timing too.

Ok, I made a patch for you to hear. This is me, making my sh2 sound like a jupiter 8. With 24 voice poly, and resonant multimode filter :) This is a pad sound, i love the resonance on the higher notes, so lush. And the sampler still makes it sound like real analog. Amazing. Click here To listen to it. I sampled my s770 through my mackie onyx mixer with no eq, into the rme fireface 800. I am sure it would sound better if i went directly into the fireface 800. I give this a 7 out of 10. Awsome sampler!!!!!!

Shot out battery 3 and kontakt 3 With RME Fireface converters against my Roland s770. I loaded the goldbaby drum kits into the s770 and loaded them into battery and compared. The bass has more mid lows and jumps out of the speakers a bit more on the s770. The snares had this brighter punchier sound on the s770, it cut in the mix better, punches more. The high hats sound more real and crisp and cutting on the s770. So battery 3 just got owned by my roland s770.

Now I converted some Akai strings. From xxlarge best services most wanted 2 string machines akai cd rom. Loaded them into kontakt 3, and into the roland s770. Kontakt 3 sounded thin, annoying, brittle and unmusical and machine like. The Roland s770 breathed this analog hue into the sounds, made it shimmer, the sounds had a lot more air in the top end, the pitching was way better with no aliasing. kontakt 3 aliased big time when playing it live even on the hq settings. The roland s770 really made my akai libraries come to life and sound more musical, more present, more hi fi and more cutting in the mix. Way more bass, mids and treble. It was smoother and musical.

I know why i have not used sampling libraries since i sold my emu e6400. They only sounds usable on a good hardware sampler. Sorry man. Soft synths are toys. The roland s770 sounds like a musical instrument. The filters are shimmery, wet and more analog sounding, the filters in kotakt3 were like sandpaper lofi make the sounds get thin and cold instantly. AWFUL! Software is AWFUL.

The difference is like a moped VS a Ferrari. Moped is the soft synth, s770 is the Ferrari. Holy crap, I can’t beleive I waited so long to come back to hardware. I thought sampling would be fine in the box. one cd drive, less hassle. The problem is, I would record all my analog synths in through my compressors, get them going in a mix, then run battery and kontakt and try and layer stuff and write drums, and even with the gold baby libs, they just didn’t fit good in the mix with battery and kontakt. Instantly, load the sounds into the s770, they come to life, and match the quality of my analog recordings, my analog instruments, the s770 plays nice with my analog hardware in the mix. NO SOFT SYNTHS DO. they never match the intensity of my modular, sh2, revolution or jupiter 8.

Now, thanks to chicken systems and a couple of zip drives! I am able to get great sounds into a great hardware sampler, that sounds loud, big, bassy and cutting and sit right in the mix with my huge analog modular stuff. This is no joke. This sampler is the shit. This is the best $200=s770, $150=chicken sys translator, $50 for 2 zip drives, one usb one scsi, and 15 for a mogaimi video cable that would reach my big tv from the s770. S770 is great, this is exactly what I needed, it plays drums back great, and does amazing strings, it has great filters, and is boundless. I havent even tried osc syncing samples yet, i bet that is cool, or this trick i read about from beer:

“Sound ON Sound – Synth Secrets has the a complete breakdown and re-construction of a lot of the classic sounds. My little trick that works best with a Roland S760 but should also work with hardware is to make use of Highpass Filters ! ( I know that sounds nuts but bare with me )- for the chesty sound you’re looking for you could try using a bit of Noise for a basic waveform then put it through the highpass filter – remembering that the resonance on a Highpass filter acts on the lower cutoff point you can sweep up from the bottom of the harmonic content and focus in on the range you need ( with a snappy EG modulating the VCA ) S760s Rule the roost for this trick – you can make HUGE bass drums with its filters

Just a thought.”

Fuck software for sound generation, synths, samplers. It all sucks compared to good hardware.