Roland MKS-7 vs MKS-30 & 50. Main differences?

Differences in terms of sound for deep, and lush resonant sweeps. The MKS-7 is supposed to be a Juno 6 in a rackmount with the ability to have different synth parts, (bass, melody, chord sections) and the MKS 30 and 50 are supposed to be more Alpha Juno soundwise? Which out of the three has the best resonant sweeps?

MKS 30 is a JX3P engine, if memory serves.

MKS 50 is the Alpha Juno engine. I've never been sure about the MKS 7.

dB

Dave, thank you. I'm wondering if the MKs-7 has darker, more intense sweeps (very early sci fi ish) character as it was the first of the rackmounts. I'm hoping so, vs the more produced, polished sound of the Roland mid 80's stuff.

The MKS-7 is a Juno-106 in rack form.

If you want the 70s Roland sound, see if you can get a Jupiter 4 or one of the earlier SH-machines.

Thanks Yoozer. I am looking for a rackmount to pair with a Roland midi bass pedal unit for early 80's rising, sweeping synth bass and synth brass/string sounds. I wish some of those late 70's synths were released in rackmount, not counting the modulars and semi modulars.

Maybe look into the Akai VX-90?

the mks-30 has the EXACT same VCF/VCA modules as the 106, so the filter sweeps should sound roughly the same. Though you have 2 oscs on the MKS30 of course. I though the MKS7 had only one, but iirc the mks-7 is quirky in a lot of ways.

Yes - hard to program the MKS7 - the MKS30 is easier esp with the PG200 programmer.

I almost bought an MKS7 a while back, lovely sounding synth, just be aware that theres no patch memory! WTF??

also front panel programming is possible, but not for the faint-hearted, but can be done via sysex with a PC Juno editor or a knobbox that does sysex.

Would be fine if you were only planning on using/tweaking the presets (which sounded good btw), but prob not OK if you are planning on programming your own sounds...unless you real enjoy recreating patches each time

this is why I walked away from it

cheers

The lack of battery backed up memory for the patches is annoying, but much less in todays DAW world than when Roland released it. I find the MKS7 surprisingly good, I expected a watered down Juno106 but I find it to be a good provider of standard analog synth sounds, much more so than something like the P08. The sounds are alive and having a Juno106 with velocity control is a new experience. Even the patches that come with the MKS7 are decent, the bass patches a bit less so.

it's some sort of weird multitimbral mode too, right? The other MKSs don't have that.

The MKS7 can play up to 4 separate parts:

TR707 type drums (bd, sd, rim, clap, 3xtoms, 2xhihat, crash, ride)

Lead 2 voices

Pad/Chords 4 voices

Bass 2 voices

The lead and chord can be combined for a 6 voice part, but it can not play sounds using the noice source.

Each part has a separate output in addition to the stereo output used for all parts.

That didn't sound right to me ...

From Vintage Synth Explorer ...

"The sound and architecture of the Melody, Chord and Bass sections are the same as the Juno 106 synthesizer. The Rhythm section offers up a few basic electronic rock drum sounds borrowed from the TR-707."

I love my MKS-7. As stated previously, it's ridiculous to program from front panel and can't store user patches.

But its resonant filter is super squishy, which is how I likes it!!!!

Todzilla, how are the 20 monophonic synth bass presets on the MKS-7 and can is it easy to combine with other sections pads/leads on the same patch.

I have 4 MKSs: 7/30/50 & 70.

The MKS-7 is similar to a Juno 106 (I used to have one of those too,) but different. It doesn't have a dedicated sub-oscillator for each voice like the 106 - but still sounds great. There are 2 voices in the Melody section and 4 in the Chord, and both sections can be combined for 6 voice poly. The Bass uses its own oscillator and 80017 chip and is really powerful. All that plus a TR-707 Rhythm section make it one of my favorite synths.

The MKS-30 is more or less a JX-3P, but uses a dozen 80017 filter/amp chips instead of the dedicated circuitry of the JX3P. It doesn't do pads very well, but it can really churn out leads. I also use it for short attack bass sequences (which it does better than my Novation BassStation.)

The MKS-50 is identical to the Alpha Juno 1 & 2 except it doesn't have an arpeggiator and adds Chord Memory (one finger chords.) The big advantage of the MKS-50 is that is has the best midi implementation of the entire MKS series. You can use software to control everything.

Here are some songs and demos I made that use my MKSs:

All leads on this song are the MKS-30:

Funk Brother Kurtis (Bass and drums are Roland R-8M.)

Bass, chords, and lead on this are the MKS-7 (except the break at 2:05, which are loops. All rhythms are the R-8M with Ethnic card. Anjuna Transmission

MKS-30, bass sequence (lead: Akai AX-73 through phaser, percussion sounds: Yamaha TX-802.) Ananke

MKS-70 on chords, MKS-30 leads, MKS-7 drums (heavily processed.) Canis Major Rising

MKS-7 Drums, Bass, and Leads. MKS-50 other bass (starts at 0:16) and drippy sound in break. MKS-70 only used for the wind-up sounds. Phase Locked Loop

Two MKS-7 demos: Demo 1 Demo 2 Both are played in real time with all four parts going at once. On Demo 2, you can hear a bit of a lag on the lead caused by the 1985 CPU used in the midi circuit.

MKS-50 demo: MKS-50 Demo (except drums)

Great stuff bruto! Nice job. Thanks for posting those.