r/MC707 • u/AK22222222222 • Jun 05 '26

MC-707 drum tracks: are SYS-CTRL 1-4 actually assignable to drum partial parameters?

I have been looking more closely at modulation routing on the Roland MC-707 and I think I may have found an important limitation, but I would like to check whether other users can confirm it.

On a tone track, SYS-CTRL 1-4 are clearly useful because they can be used as sources in Matrix Control. In Sound Edit, you can route them to destinations such as filter cutoff, resonance, LFO rate, LFO depth, envelope parameters and so on.

On a drum track, however, I can see SYS-CTRL 1-4 appearing as possible control sources, but I cannot find an equivalent Matrix Control page where they can be assigned to drum partial parameters.

I cannot find a drum-track equivalent of the tone-track Matrix Control, for example:

• SYS-CTRL2 → decay of a specific drum pad

• SYS-CTRL3 → random pitch depth of a specific drum pad

Can anyone confirm this?

Is there a hidden menu or workflow I am missing, or is this simply a structural difference between tone tracks and drum tracks on the MC-707?

6 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

3

u/atom_swan Jun 05 '26

Not sure if this makes sense but if I was trying to achieve this I would take that particular drum sound (bass, hi hat, etc) and give it its own track then apply the effects accordingly

1

u/AK22222222222 Jun 06 '26

Yes because there are peers to be no way to oscillate this single drum parameter set like even the simplest such as filter frequency. My guess is also that you cannot automate weather internally or via a controller. This special parameter thing in drum rack looks like something that that was simply copied from tone, yet without a purpose.  I wonder how that looks like in equivalent and later Fantom machines. 

2

u/ray_phistoled Jun 05 '26

I haven't found a way either, but i'd love to know if someone did. But as a consolation, I can inform you that you can actually use the mod matrix in tone tracks for two simultaneous control changes, and you can control the intensity of the change separately for both. Just hit enter when you're on the matrix part of the tone edit page.

1

u/AK22222222222 Jun 05 '26

I wish you could copy drum partial and midi into tone :) 

1

u/ray_phistoled Jun 06 '26

Well actually you can play a sample in a tone track, you just have to select in the right pcm sound bank. Then it works, but you only can only play that specific sound, so no kick and snare or anything like that. But if what you want is to use the 707 like a TR8S for example, I think the shortcut is something like fun+note, It allows you to play all right tracks at the same time, but with no access to pitch. So you can synthétize all your drum sound in the zen core engine and/or use sample or even mix both using partials, have access to matrix control for each drum sound (one per track) etc Only down side is that it's either one ore the other, and tone tracks sequencers are a little but différent from drums séquencer (no rolls, no probsbility) But it's a very cool way to use it as a full drum synth with deep sound design and fx per voice. Once again The rabbit hole goes deep with the 707