I remember buying Roland's old MIDI sequencer, the MSQ700 and very good it was, for the time. After a few months of use though, I got well fed up with the method of storing the songs. This involved saving the information onto tape (usually cassette) and I always seemed to lose the crucial tape at the wrong time. Then, floppy disc storage was the domain of computer buffs and Fairlights. Now, floppies are the accepted method of storage for everything from samplers to sequencers, the MC500 being no exception.

The new baby from Roland has cured all the stupid and frustrating aspects of their first note-rememberer; it allows incredibly complex editing of notes, songs and phrases and has the obligatory disc drive built in. Like the recent Roland synths, the MC500 uses the Alpha dial (a continuously rotating dial) to enter note and other values, and very good it is. A brief outline of the way it works may be helpful, although I think it's pointless to list parrot-fashion all the functions and editing facilities, unlike certain other reviews I've seen.

There are four tracks to record on, as well as a rhythm track (which is recorded on in step-time) and unlike the MSQ, the tracks are rather like a piece of tape. To record is simplicity itself. Stroll over to your connected synth, hit record on the sequencer and start playing after a two bar count in. When you have finished the song/run out of ideas, simply press stop. Very complex. The great thing about this method is that you can either play the whole song into the thing, start to finish, or you can enter say the first verse and chorus, and very easily copy the parts to make up the structure of the song. Sensibly and unlike many other sequencers, if you are attempting to play a song in from start to finish, you don't have to tell the machine how many bars the song is. Invaluable if you start to find new ideas right at the end. Perhaps an example would be in order.

I was recording a song and knew the structure, which was pretty simple, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight etc. so I played the bassline into the sequencer from start to end, making more than my fair share of mistakes and bum notes. Having the format of the song in the machine, I firstly quantized the timing, and then played the song back, noting where the mistakes occurred. Sensibly, the MC500 gives a bar readout as the song is playing, so you always know where you are. Mistakes noted, I simply erased any bars that had horrendous cock ups and copied into their place the bars that were played properly. For example, the first chorus was 'happening bad' and the second was dismal; I simply erased the second chorus and copied the first one into its place. The end result was a bassline that was tight, had variation and took about ten minutes to do. With another sequencer, I had tried to do the very same thing and gave up after about an hour, swearing loudly.

One very important thing with the MC500 is that the quantizing/autocorrect works in the same way as a drum machine in that it pulls notes into time rather than chopping the attack off. Now this might sound trivial, but on the old MSQ700, the quantizing was pretty savage, as it used to clip the attack of notes which was sometimes good for hickuppy funky basslines, but useless for anything that needed to be less aggressive. It should be noted that the four tracks can each hold sixteen channels of MIDI information, which by most standards is a lot of noise, should you want to play it all at once. It should also be noted that the editing facilities don't stop at simple copying and deleting, which most sequencers can cope with.

As you will have gathered, this note-rememberer can deal with copying and getting-rid-of when talking notes, but the gem in the laundry basket is a function that allows you to extract information that you cocked up. For example, I played in a series of chords, time-corrected them and bounced the chords onto another track. I then realised that I had quantized the chords to triplets by mistake. I extracted the chords with a minimum of aggro and dealt with them in the proper manner. I did it again, but properly. This points to a package that allows you artistic licence, but also allows you to deal with booboos in a sensible fashion. Very unusual and very helpful.

Another unusual feature is the Microscope function that allows you to alter individual notes, generally only found on computer-based sequencing packages. If, for example, you played in a magic solo, but found a bum note in the middle, using the microscope function it's relatively easy to correct. To do this involves stepping through the notes in the flawed solo (using the Alpha dial) until the cock-up is found. You then have the option of changing the timing, the actual note (from a C to a C sharp perhaps), adding or deleting pitch bend and just about anything that's involved in a phrase/note that can be sent over MIDI. Most helpful and a great time-saver, not to mention inspiration which is an elusive commodity at the best of times.

If transmogrifying cackhanded solo's into Thelonius Monk type phrases isn't enough, then the other editing possibilities should suffice. As I'm fond of examples, I'll give you another to ponder. The note rememberer was being used to record a snare drum part using a sampler of the MIDI variety. Unfortunately, the resident DX7 was at the doctors and so a Velocity sensitive synth was not at hand. I bashed away into the MC500 the snare part, using a cheap synth. On playback the sample seemed strangely lifeless. Looking at the velocity values of the snare part, I discovered that the synth being used only gave out velocity values of 64. No problem. Using one of the editing functions it was a piece-of-piss to increase the velocity of the snare drum part to maximum, 127 on the Richter Scale. This made the snare twice as loud and brought back the brightness. Very nice, and very surprising to be able to do with a minimum of bother.

You can save songs, load songs, verify your saving and catalogue exactly what you have saved on disc. There is an available memory display and what I'm trying to say is that if you can think of it, the MC500 will allow you to fiddle with it, generally in a couple of different ways. You can put a timecode onto one track of the tape machine and synchronise the MC500 to it, and very importantly, you can record into the MC whilst synching from tape. This is invaluable in the studio as it means that you can put the timecode on tape, put down a rough drum pattern as a guide, some chords and then a guide vocal. With this, it means that you can work out the different parts for the song around the vocal, which after all is the most important thing when talking songs.

Faults? Only a few, which should be cured by Roland by the time the MC500 appears in any quantity in the shops. Firstly, there is a cycle or loop mode that allows you to have eight bars (for example) to continually cycle round, like a tape loop, and play along working out ideas. Unfortunately, the MC doesn't put out MIDI clock start signals, so your connected drum box won't start when the sequencer does. Also, the thing won't loop when in record mode. Roland say that it's simply a software update that will come on a floppy disc, and will cure the current 'non-sync-with-Ringo-when-in-loop-mode' situation. They also say that they are looking into getting the MC to loop when recording. Small matters, but should they be rectified, it will mean that this is the first sequencer this reviewer has used, that can't be faulted.

Basically, the MC500 is the answer to most sequencing problems. It works, you don't need to be a genius to use it, the price is right, the size is small and I happen to like the colour. People will say that you can do more with computer based sequencers, which is sometimes true, but with a computer, don't forget that a monitor is needed. These are very easy to drop and expensive to replace, you have the physical bulk of the computer itself and attendant disc drives to cope with. Perhaps most importantly, computers aren't very Rock 'n' Roll, being designed to sit on desks in an office environment, which is a far cry from your average gig. Dedicated sequencers on the other hand are designed to do one job, and the MC500 does it well, and from (horrendous) past experience, I would feel much safer on stage with this particular sequencer than I would with any of the computer based sequencing packages currently available. Two tiny faults, outweighed by millions of advantages. I'm going to buy one. The boy Roland done Well.

ROLAND MC500: £799