You'd forgotten all about this one right? Released in 1995 as part of Roland's new Sound Expansion Series for about £499 GBP. All 5 modules in the series were loaded with ROM samples taken from Roland's JV-80 sound expansion cards.
The M-DC1 Dance Module (to give it it's full title) features sounds from the Roland SR-JV80-06 card, & both the card & this module were soon taken off the market due to copyright issues with some of the samples which were all done by British sample company AMG.
The MDC-1 is 28 note polyphonic contains about 50 stereo drum loops. You also get lots of vocal snatches, buzzes, blips, pianos, synths, basses, organs, scratches & sound FX too, a good all round palette of 'Dance' audio stuff with around 255 patches in total. The M-DC1 included a reverb & chorus effect, and the FX can be added to the 8 possible parts separately if you are using a sequencer to play the unit in multi-mode.
You also get all your analog drum box samples as well, including all the favourites from Roland's classic machines like the 909 etc... there's also plenty of percussion stuff too. All in all you get enough drum samples here to use it as a dedicated drum box, so think of this as a cheap Dance 'Orbit' type module.
Editing is via Sysex, but if you can get into it there's 80 parameters per unit that can be tweaked, including Filter, Envelopes, Modulation etc, and these units have cool Roland res' filters.
Other units in the Sound Expansion Series were the Roland M-VS1 vintage synth, M-BD1 bass & drums, M-OC1 orchestral, M-SE1 string ensemble & M-GS64 GM/GS module.
The M-DC1 is a forgotten bargain gem nowadays which can be had for very little money on Ebay.
Old Dancetech listing text
I first saw these Roland modules unit at a trade show a couple of years back, around the time of the Korg Prophesy release & they were pumping out loads of 'dance-music' noises.
These units didn't last long, probably because they are simply expander units as the title says..... These are not synths that can be edited from the front panel or anything like that...editing of sounds is via Sysex only..... They are simply boxes loaded up with roms worth of dance sounds......however as a cheap S/h purchase, maybe they are worth checking if you make any kind of dance tunes......and as you'll see, you can also use them as a drum box with a sequencer, where they will function better than most drum machines in providing a full dance-drums pallette of sounds.
The sounds of these units are taken from the JV1080 cards.....and also I would bet that quite a few also found their way into the MC-303... I'll talk to Roland & comfirm this soon. Each unit has about 250 patches....You also get a basic reverb & chorus FX to add......The FX can be added to the 8 multi-parts seperately if you are using a sequencer to play the unit in multi-mode.
The M-DC1 Dance module
This unit contains about 50 stereo drum loops, all yer usual housey garagey & other stuff, but don't expect anything too radical, these units aint going to turn you into Tricky overnight.......You also get lots of vocal snatches, buzzes, blips, piano's, scratches, synths, organs, & sound FX etc etc.......a good all round pallette of "Dance" audio stuff.
You also get all your analog drumbox samples as well, including all the favourites from Roland's classic machines like the 909 etc....there's also plenty of percussion stuff too.....All -in -all, you get enuff drum samples here to use it as a dedicated drum box.
So all in all, think of this as a cheap Dance-Orbit type module, giving all yer drum sounds, plus ready to go loops, and all the other bitz you need... definately worth checking if a cheap S/H one appears in the paper.
8 part multitimbrel. 28 note poly. built in assignable reverb & chorus... Stereo outputs.. and also each unit includes stereo audio in sockets, so that you can bring another units outputs into these modules' inputs, and output the combined mix of the two from the Roland units' outputs. Basically, with these two it's like having a couple of JV-1080 expansion cards in a box, with editing facilities etc.... pretty cool huh?......If you see either one cheap in the small-ad's, definately check em out!
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