- In this video you're
going to learn about the
Roland DJ-707M.
And specifically whether it's for you.
I'm going to focus on the
features which are unusual
which are different and which are novel
about this controller.
It's a Serato controller
but it does so much more
than most Serato controllers do.
So if you're wondering
what's different about that?
It looks curious?
This is the review for you.
This is the one that's going
to tell you whether actually
this is the controller
you've been waiting for.
It's very different to a
lot of things on the market.
So if you enjoy this please
do subscribe to the channel
so that you'll be notified
when we make more videos
just like this one.
Okay so what we have here is a mid
to high-end controller for sure.
It comes in about 999 dollars US.
It's a mid to high-end controller
but it's built into a very,
very portable package.
It's smaller even than
the Traktor Kontrol S4
which is a small controller.
And all the better for it I would say.
But it's smaller and lighter
than that controller.
Let's cover off right
in the beginning though
the build quality is awesome.
It's got plastic where plastic's okay.
It's got metal where it matters
namely on the mixer plate.
It's got, the plates come off
so you can replace the faders
there's a lot of serviceable
parts in this unit.
It's been designed to last.
So it might be lightweight
and it might be small
but it's not built to a
budget, that's for certain.
So let's cover that off
right in the beginning.
Looking at the controller you might think
ah, I don't like the
look of those jog wheels.
They're small and it doesn't
seem to be much going on there.
Well yes, they are small jog wheels.
I think Roland's decided that
the people they're aiming
this at don't really care
about big flashy jog wheels
with displays and stuff
that spin around when you're
listening to music.
They'd rather have
something that's practical
and that's understated.
It's certainly practical
and understated as far as
the overall look and
feel goes it's certainly
as far as those jog wheels go.
The pitch faders, they're
short throw as you can see
you might think that means they're
going to be hard to DJ with.
They're actually not.
You got an easy 1.50th of
a BPM granularity there
which is plenty enough
for manual beat mixing.
And again they're high quality controllers
so there's nothing to worry about there.
They're just small because the whole thing
is deliberately a small controller.
So I want to talk you around
what we've got on here
but before I do, I just want
to point out this screen.
Cause we're going to
spend quite a lot of time
looking at this screen towards
the end of this review.
It's where a lot of the clever
stuff on this controller
is controlled from.
Or rather where you get
the feedback about a lot of
clever stuff on this controller.
So just keep an eye on that screen.
So now we're going to talk through
what's on the front and back.
We're going to talk through
the decks and the mixer before
moving on to having a look at
some of those novel features.
So around the front we have
our inputs for headphones.
Eighth inch and quarter inch.
There's a level for the headphones there.
There's a cue master but also
a split and stereo button
which is going to please a lot of DJs.
Useful for Djing when you don't have
a monitor speaker nearby.
The cross fader has got a curve
adjuster there and it's also
got the all four channel
matrix so you can decide
what the cross fader
does and doesn't control.
We've got an auxiliary in here
which goes straight to the
output via this level control.
And it's got more flexibility
flexibility than I've ever
seen on a auxiliary in before.
You have a left and a right
mono input which can be
switched to make two mono
inputs there so you could put
two extra microphones on
top of the main microphones
which we're going to get to in there.
It's also got a stereo
jack input so you can plug
an auxiliary source in there as well.
So
a nice auxiliary input there on the front
where you would want that to be.
So that if anything happens
and you need to quickly switch
over to something it's
right there for plugging
your phone in or your iPod Shuffle
or whatever it is you use.
There's also a nice feature
on that auxiliary input
which I'm going to come
onto when I talk about
how the zoning on this works.
Cause it's got lots of outputs as well
which is quite exciting.
Before we move on to
any of that stuff though
we've got to carry on with
our tour of the front and back
of unit so let's have a look
at the back of the unit.
So from left to right we
have our microphone ins.
Two XLRs for the main microphones
they're not on any jacks,
you don't get a choice of a
quarter inch jack or
XLR, they're just XLR.
Our inputs are here.
Four inputs, two of them
are line or phono and that's
actually software switchable.
And then you've also got your ground pin
for your phono there as well.
So over to the outputs
here's where it start to get interesting.
So our master output is
XLRs and also the RCAs
which is what I'm plugged into.
And then the booth output is
jacks, quarter inch jacks.
And then there's a zone output.
We'll cut back to the zone
output in just a second.
And then moving along it wouldn't
be Roland if there wasn't
a midi output so you can
plug in and sync Serato
and some other midi device up there.
And then there are two
inputs for computers
which is a useful addition
because you could have
a completely (mumbles) computer sat there
just in case your laptop crashes.
You can DJ back to back with someone else.
And you can also plug in an iOS device
which I'll talk to you
about in a little while.
Power, and your power
switch, and DC in are there
with your power cable
protector thing there
to wrap this around
so it doesn't get pulled out by accident.
So that's the technical term by the way.
Power cable wrappy thing.
Anyway let's look at the decks now.
So the decks are identically laid out
there's none of this old
fashioned mirror imaged stuff.
They're, you know, they're laid out
in exactly the same way.
All right so the deck,
at the bottom of the deck
you've got your Serato
controls for hot cues
cue loops, auto loop, loop
roll, manual and save loops
slicer, slice loop, and a
sampler, and pitch play.
You need to buy the pitch
play add-on to the supplied
Serato DJ Pro.
The pitch and play add-on
because it's not included.
And also the DVS add-on if
you want to use your external
inputs for digital vinyl
you need to buy that as well
so that's not in the box.
The box gives you the main
Serato software but it doesn't
have those two add-ons just
to let you know before I
I forget that fact.
Right let's carry on
touring around here then.
So the standard cue, play, pause controls.
Sync button, nothing unusual there.
Shift button for the modify controls.
Parameter buttons which is
just for cycling through things
on the pad when need be.
You got a pitch range and
you've also got a key lock here
which is with the shift button.
So when you get past the
short throw but very accurate
pitch fader and actually it's
a 1.50th of a BPM when you're
set to plus minus 8
percent which is plenty.
So no worries there.
Once you get past there you can
move on to the deck controls
and select between decks one and three
which are lit up in red and green.
The PC control so this lets
you choose which computer is
operating on either side.
You can have a computer per side.
So if you did have two
computers plugged in and you're
back to backing with someone,
one of you would have the
left hand deck and one would
have the right hand deck.
And these controls are
here, PC A and PC B.
This is a loading control
and then you've got your
your view button, you're open
preparation window button
and your add to preparation button here.
So very easy to quickly prepare a little set
and cycle around your
music from this section.
And this encoder here is
a nice little encoder.
They remind me of the encoders
on the old Novation Twitch.
Anyone remember that controller?
But yeah they're nice
little controllers there.
So let me talk to about the
effects section cause the
effects work a little differently
to the way Serato effects
are laid out on most controllers.
They're the same as Serato
effects on most controllers
where you have the four
knobs across the top.
But they just squashed it in a bit more.
It's kind of they depreciated it 
a bit because they've given
the space to other things which
we'll talk about in a minute.
So you have your standard
effects one, two, and three
which can be turned on and off.
Or if you're set to one effect in Serato
then this is going to be
controlling the various parts
of the single effect you're set to.
Most people nowadays tend to
have three effects set on here
in my experience.
So on this setup here I've got
a combi filter on number one.
I've got an echo on number two.
And I've got a reverb on number three.
So you turn them on and off like that.
If the music's playing
this is your wet, dry or
your on, off for the effects
so if I select the echo
that's bringing it in and our for me.
And the same with the others.
It's the reverb.
And of course you can gang them up on here
I have an echo and a reverb.
If I want to affect the
time, change the time
I hold down shift and
then I turn this here
which affects the time.
I'm now affecting every four beats.
So if I now turn on the echo
it'll be a four beat echo.
Quite a long echo.
Very different sounding to a low echo.
So you've got all the controls
that you get out of the
normal Serato effects but
as I've said it's kind of
shrunk down a little bit there as well.
You could also put the effects
over the auxiliary input
which is nice just by holding
down this button here.
So that's a cool effects
implementation, I liked it.
These big areas at the
top here are now freed up.
If this was a normal big effects area
you wouldn't have these big areas here.
And these are interesting, and
these are what we're going to
move on to when we cover the mixer.
So okay we've looked at the
front, we've looked at the back
we've looked at the decks,
let's have a look at this mixer.
So to start with we've
plastic around the edges
but here is metal.
Where it matters is a
metal and you can unscrew
replace the crossfader,
take this plate off
and service all the parts here.
So the quality is here, it's
the bit that's going to take
the battering which is nice.
It keeps the weight down but
also keeps the unit well built.
Lots of room around the crossfader
it's a buttery crossfader.
People are going to be very
happy with that who enjoy
scratching on controllers.
The upfaders, they've got
the usual little bit of
resistance to them and they
feel really cool as well.
So you've got your cue buttons here.
You also have your filter
knobs here but they can also
control effects which I'm
going to show you in a second.
Then you've got low, mid, and high EQs.
You got your four VU metres.
One for each of the channels.
And then you got your stereo
VU metre in the middle.
There is a booth output,
master output, and zone output
for that zone control on the back.
That zone output on the back here.
So you've got all those volumes there
so you can clearly see
where you've got those set.
And then at the top there's a matrix.
So you got line and PC
for the external inputs
or the computer that you
selected here or here
for all four channels.
And then you've also got the
phonos on channels one and two
if you've got the record decks selected.
And then on three and four
you got two extra Roland features.
You've got a Roland TR drum machine on two
which is controlled from this deck here.
It's on, it's on
here, sorry on deck three.
So on deck three here,
it's controlled here.
And over here on deck four
if you select the oscillator
you've got some pretty cheesy sounding
but I'll play them to you anyway.
You can make your own mind up about it.
Extra kind of sounds that
you can drop in here.
It wouldn't be a Roland
device without those right?
But this stuff is definitely
pushed to the back
it's just there if you need it.
I do like the drum machine though
we'll come and have another
look at that in a bit.
So that's the layout of the decks.
At the top here we're going to
start off with this area here
which is the microphone channels.
They are two of the best
featured mic channels
I've ever seen on a DJ controller.
So I've already shown you the sockets
around the back for them.
But here they've got
their on, off buttons.
You've got a duck which
is another way of saying
talk-over which is when you
talk into the microphone
the music ducks down in volume.
You can actually decide
how much really easily
by holding down the on button and turning
sorry, by holding down the duck button
and turning this knob here.
And you can see on the
display that it's turning
the microphone ducking from infinity
which is off as soon as you talk.
To very low, minus 24 Db
to 12, six, and everything in between.
And if you do hold the
on button and turn this
you get to change the microphone gain
the input gain for the microphone
before it hits the volume control.
Pretty, pretty impressive
stuff for microphones.
They're both completely independent.
They both got a 3 band EQ.
And they both microphone effects as well.
Again pretty damn cool.
So this is awesome if you
use a lot of microphones
you do a lot of speeches,
you work with singers
and you just think, you know,
no DJ controller's given me
the microphone use I want,
well this one certainly has got
more microphones than anyone
could shake a stick at.
Especially if you use
the two around the front
you'd have four microphones
plugged into this.
So over on this side is
where I want to spend
a little bit of time now
describing what's going on here.
Because this area here is
where a lot of the hidden power
of this controller is.
This controller's strong
point is all those inputs that
I've talked to you about.
You've got your four
line inputs or two phonos
and two lines on the back.
You got your two main microphone
inputs on the back here.
You got potentially two
microphone inputs and an auxiliary
input here all switchable up.
And then your outputs.
You've got your main output,
your booth output, you got your
zone output which is to a
completely different zone
somewhere else in another room.
And I'll tell you why that's
really important in a minute.
So the inputs and outputs
here combined with the way you
can route these and the in-build effects
are really quite powerful.
So I'm going to talk to
you about what goes on here
to control all that stuff.
But before we do I just want
to cover off those in-built
effects because this
is all Serato effects.
These areas here, they're
all Serato's effects
the one's I've shown you so far except
these ones here.
So back to this piece of music
that was playing away here.
In fact that's the drum machine.
I'll show you that in a second
but back to this piece of music.
So here
now that says filter on it
but it's not a filter is it?
That's actually some kind of echo.
So what's going on
there, well it's simple.
If I hold down the cue button
and turn this knob here
I can change the effect type
for the channel I'm currently on.
So a filter is the one I'm on now.
But I can move to the next one, dub echo.
Onto the next one, jet.
Noise.
Reverb.
It's subtle on that.
Then we've got delay.
Bit crush.
Phaser.
Noise, another noise.
More of a kind of 8-bit analogy noise
that one right?
Noise 2.
I think that was the
one we just listened to.
A slicer.
Kind of a bit of a trance effect that one.
A roll.
Could be good with some kinds
of music that one for sure.
A roll filter.
Loop pitch this is a nice one.
Nice kind of end of night to that one isn't it?
A loop filter safely
with the filter attached.
So the good thing about
these and a final thing
that I've shown, I really like this.
It just gives that vinyl crackle.
Listen to this.
Like the original Fleetwood
Mac record isn't it?
So I like that one, I think that's a lot.
Yeah that's a lot.
So quickly go back to filter.
So the nice thing about these is
you can set them differently
for each of the four channels.
So I could have filter on one.
Bit crusher on another.
That pitch kind of roll filter
thing on another one.
Whatever you want, so that's powerful.
They also work when your
computer's unplugged
so we were just DJing
with this unit as a mixer.
They're going to work there as well.
So they're powerful, it's
nice to have those on there.
They're a great implementation.
All right then so in
showing you those effects
I've begun to show you this screen.
Let's carry on looking
at this screen because
it's pretty awesome what you've got here.
So it's currently showing
you the BPMs for the decks
I've got something loaded on.
But if I hit the menu button
then it gets me into the
settings here which there are
a lot to talk to you about.
So we've got scenes, scene
edit, scene save, scene load
and I'll come back to scenes
they're a big part of this controller.
And I'll talk you through
the other stuff first though.
So system settings, version, factory reset
backup and restore are
pretty self explainatory.
Let's have a look through
the system settings.
So you've got two USBs on the back.
You can set the second one
to be either a Serato USB
for a second laptop or generic
which means you can use it
with say an iPad or something
to plug in there, use
the in-build sound card
but feed music in, say from
your iPad in order to give you
another input which is pretty cool.
We've got crossfader
management, we've got pad curve
for your pads, pad sensitivity via pads.
The jog wheel sensitivity
and also the backspin length
is a nice one so you can have backspin set
to how you want it to sound.
There's a demo mode.
LED brightness, the brightness
of the overall controller
you can tone it down a bit if
you're in a dark environment
and you don't need it so bright.
Or tone it up in sunshine.
Same for the LCD you got
contrast controls here.
An auto-off, how long it
takes before it switches off.
And a couple of other input
settings there as well.
You can even set the controller
surface to be a straight
midi controller as you can
use it to control anything
if you really want.
And you can set the mixer to
work either as a Serato mixer
controlling Serato's built-in mixer
or as a completely standalone mixer
with Serato treated as inputs.
So lots of stuff you could do
there which is pretty cool.
But the main thing I want to
talk to you about is scenes.
Because there's a lot of stuff
built into this that you just
wouldn't know from looking
at it like this until someone
like me reads the instruction
manual very carefully
and tells you.
And it's where the real
power in this thing is.
So bear with me now
this is geeky but it
really is worth hearing.
So we've already had a
little sniff of this.
When you plug something into
the auxiliary input here
you can have it coming out of
the zone output on the back.
And so that means that you
could just plug in any old music
here playing out from
there to another room
while you're DJing with all four channels.
But what you don't know
yet is you can also set it
so that whatever's going on
channel four is also going
out of the zone output.
And everything else, all the
other three channels and mics
and everything is all going
on in the room that you're in.
So again you could have
just like a pre-recorded mix
loaded onto deck four
playing somewhere else.
How do you control that stuff?
It's not on the surface.
That's what scenes are all about
and that's what I want to show you now.
So in the scene section you
can edit one of 10 scenes
that are built in.
So by going to scene load
I'll show you those 10 scenes
that are built in.
So in scene load we got
standard which is basically
normal it's what you'd
expect the controller to do.
Everything works how you think.
You got two-room this is
set up so that you've got
different stuff routed to room two.
So this setting has no
microphones going on in room two
but the microphones are
going on in room one.
So they can hear the music
but they're not hearing you
saying hey come and
dance, and all this stuff.
It's got a deck four to zone
that's the one I just spoke to you about.
So this will now send deck four
off and out to the different
zone output from the back.
And it's got microphones going to the zone
so you can have music going
here but you can talk to people
in another room using the mics.
And soundboost I really like.
Soundboost puts a compressor
over the whole output
so you can just level stuff
off if you're playing on a
pretty poor PA system quietly
in a bar or something.
You can just give it a bit more punch.
If you're mixing in stuff
off the drum machine
which I'll show you in a minute.
Again it will make it blend more tightly
with the music you're playing
if you add a little bit of
compression over the outputs there.
So this is pretty cool right?
But the really cool things
you've got six, seven, eight
nine, and ten all empty so you can
set them to anything you want.
So why would you want to do this?
Well there are two reasons,
reason number one which is what
it's made for, if you're
DJing various different venues
you can have your microphone
settings, your mixer settings
your output settings all programmed in
so that when you get to the
venue, you press a button
it's all there.
The way you have the zones,
where the microphones are routed
where your zone output
takes its music from.
Either the fourth channel or
the auxiliary or whatever.
The EQs so if a PA's a bit
dodgy you can have the EQs set
to try and make it sound
as good as possible.
All kind of things that are
going to be very useful to you
if you're constantly
playing in the same places
and when you get there you're
finding yourself having to do
all kinds of setup, well
you can programme it.
But even if you only
ever play in one place
like even your bedroom
you can programme things in
here which get the controller
exactly how you want it.
And the granularity of this you don't find
on a lot of controllers.
So even for you not
having to ever change this
once you've set it, there's
some really useful things here.
What I'm going to do
is go back to the scene
that we're currently in and
click edit which is just the
standard scene and I'll talk you
through some of those things.
Let's talk through the mixer.
One of the microphone channels
and one of the outputs
just to give you a
flavour of how this works.
So all right then, let's
go to the mixer settings.
And we can set on the mixer settings the
filters or effects.
I've already shown you a
shortcut for doing this.
So these don't have to all be filters
you can set them all
to something different
which is what we're on now/.
Or individually, channel one,
channel two, channel three
channel four, you choose what it is
you want to have on there.
Set it and you're done.
So that's pretty cool.
Let's get out of there so
also on the mixer settings
we've got the mixer mode
could be a Serato mixer
controlling the mixer in
Serato or you could have a
standalone mixer on there.
The choice is yours as to why
you might want to do that.
Various other bits and pieces
here, the DVS you want to use
CDJs you want to use turntables.
You can set your preference on there.
Let's look at one of the microphones.
So we've got gain on the microphone.
You can alter the gain before
it hits the level just like
you can alter the gain here
before it hits your line faders.
There is the equaliser type
so you can have an equaliser
or an isolator for your
low, mid, and highs.
There is a effect, so for the
vocal effects you can set here
there's some nice effects,
nice Roland effects here
which are worth playing with.
Especially if you work with a singer.
You've also got low cuts you
could decide how much low cut
goes on in there which is
pretty cool because quite often
you got a lot of rumble in a
venue and you can just pull
that rumble out with the mix
so you're going to mess around
with using the low EQs to do that.
There is a noise gate as
well which turns the mic off
automatically below a certain volume.
Again a nice thing to have.
A mic left, right pan.
The duck level we've
shown you that already.
And other bits and pieces
there to do with ducking.
So that's the microphone
let's now move away from the
multiple microphone settings
to one of the output settings.
We've got master, booth, and zone output.
Let's look at the master output.
So in the master output settings
you have the ability to EQ
the whole output.
So in other words once
everything's left your mixer
and it's just about leave, you can say
I want the EQ to be a bit different.
So you've got a low EQ there.
You got a low to mid EQ
with a frequency cut over.
You've got high to mid EQ
frequency cut over as well.
And you've got high EQ there.
So you got a four band EQ with
with cut off so you can set
you can fine tune the outputs
to where it goes next.
A lot of DJs will take a little
mixer and have it next to
their controller to do that.
We don't need to anymore,
it's built in there.
It's just saved you
carrying around an extra box
that on its own is a game changer.
I really, really like that,
that's an awesome addition.
So you got that EQ, you've
also got a compressor
so you can compress the whole output.
You've got a limiter so
you can turn on limiter.
So if there's something past
here that could get damaged
by someone getting a bit over,
overexcited on here and turn
everything up too loud, you
don't want it to damage your
speakers that are next then
you can put a limiter on there
to stop that happening.
You've got pan, you can
turn it onto mono or stereo
from there as well.
And other bits and pieces too.
So there's a lot of stuff you
can programme which is cool
anyway but the fact that you
can then save it into ten
scenes and load them again.
You can even take them out of
here and put them onto other
DJ-707Ms so say you run a
multi-op DJ company and you've got
lots of these things you can
send the right settings out
with your DJs and have
some quality control
over what they're doing.
I think that's really awesome.
So that is one of the
big things about this and
one of the reasons why the
decks are a little bit smaller
because it's one of these units
they've tucked into the top
here especially for mobile DJs
who are going to really like that stuff.
Now I want to move on and
show you just a little bit
of how this drum machine
works cause I think this
implementation is really
good for DJs specifically
because of the ability
to have easy re-drums.
So if you don't know what a re-drum is
you've got an old song that's
just a bit weedy, a bit tinny.
And someone's asked for it,
and you've been playing modern
music with modern full
beats and stuff with it
you don't want to just mix in
this 80s record or something
because you know it's going
to kill the dance floor.
You can very quickly put
some drums in which are
in the style of your set
and drop the other track in
and it can be very subtle
but it just gives it that
modern lift and it keeps the
energy on your dancefloor.
The best mobile DJs are
doing this stuff a lot.
You can actually get re-drums
from DJcity and BPM Supreme
and download pools
but you can do them
yourself really easily.
And the way that Roland's implemented the
the TR drum machine in this is nice.
So I'm want to show you now an
example of how you might use
that to give you some ideas.
So let's have al look at
how the drum machine works.
I can choose drum machine
by selecting deck three
and setting TR at the top here.
Now my drum machine is down here.
Now I can choose a drum kit
to play on here by turning
this knob here once I've done that.
So we have all these patterns here.
Some tools and then a complete
hip hop kit, trap, house one
house two, techno one, EDM one,
freestyle one, reggaeton one
Latin one, there's one of a lot of these.
Disco, rock, gospel, a couple of gospel.
So there's a few drum kits,
let's just select a house kit.
There we go, house one.
And I will hit play on one
of these eight variations
and you'll see what I mean.
And there's a classic Roland house kick.
There are variations on all of these.
And I can hit another one of
these to jump immediately to a
variation or if I want to wait
till the end of the current
bar I can hold down shift and do that
which is the best way of doing it.
So
that's the next variation
with a bit of hi hat in there.
Let's now move on the next variation.
So our beat is building up nicely here.
And back to the beginning.
So that's pretty good
but it's the ease of use
that makes this fun.
Okay so let's get that
Fleetwood Mac track playing
somewhere near the end.
And I'm going to drop in the drum beat
from the drum machine.
So I'm getting there.
Getting ready to hit play.
I've now got that drum
beat going underneath
that house kick, there it is.
At the moment I don't really
need it but I'm goin in a bit
because the Fleetwood Mac track's
going to end and I want to mix
in this Cameo track and leave that playing
so it sounds a lot fuller and nicer.
I might want to just start
building this beat up by moving up
to a slightly more involved beat.
I can start to take out the
Fleetwood Mac track now because
I've got my beat playing there.
Got my Cameo track lined here ready to go.
Drop it in this time around.
So now we've got the beat playing here
and we've got the new track playing here.
The Fleetwood Mac track is gone.
Now it just sounds normal right?
But it's actually a big
hybrid of two things
a beat and the original track.
And you'd hear that if
I turned off the beat.
Tinny, right?
That's better.
So using this drum machine is
as easy as just syncing it out
like I did there with
what you're playing anyway
and dropping over the top of anything.
It allows you get away with
playing stuff you wouldn't
always be up to play.
And also just put an outro on track
so it makes it easier to mix anyway.
And now we're on here.
I can switch around with different beats
and have some fun with it.
And so on, so that's re-drums
they're done really nicely on here.
I think it's good the way
they've stripped it back.
You don't get the ability, you
can kind of programme it a little
bit but really it's just there
for you to select the kit
you want, get it synced
up, get the BPMs right
drop em in and you're off in mixing.
Now one final thing I want to
show you is the oscillator here.
It's the equivalent on the other deck.
So this deck you've got the TR there.
This deck you've got the
oscillator so I can set it to there
switch it to deck four and
you just get a few sounds that
you can drop in over the top.
Some people love this
stuff, for me, nah whatever.
So let's have a listen to them.
I mean to be fair
you're meant to play it over music right?
I can kind of see it.
And so on.
You've got those there, they're good fun
you might want to play with them.
On top of Serato sampling
and stuff as well
this is built in, this is hardware.
You could use that even with
that pulled out of the back.
These are still going to work.
So drum machine,
oscillator, built in effects
full standalone mixer, loads, and scenes
so that you can programme
it exactly how you want it
and recall it.
Insane ways of plugging things
in and then sending them out
in different places, really insane.
Four microphones all routable.
You can plug in an iOS device
and have it going through its
own volume control down here.
It actually nicks the
sampler volume if you do.
Or you can have two
laptops playing through it.
And it's a fully fledged sampler
fully fledged Serato controller as well.
It's very, very powerful and
I hope I've just been able to
show you at least some of
the things that just aren't
obvious when you look at
this unit on the front.
It's the Roland DJ-707M.
I think that for the connoisseur DJ
I think for the mobile DJ
the event DJ, the wedding DJ
who's been doing this quite a
long time and knows exactly what they want
this could be a really good purchase.
For the DJ who's prepared
to look past flashy lights
and status big pieces of equipment
and actually see the practicalities
of something like this
I think it could be perfect.
There were a few things
I didn't like about it.
Some people will just never get to grips
with these small jog wheels.
They just won't.
Or the small pitch fader.
For me, no problem at all.
Some people will not
get to grips with that.
What I missed was a slip button.
So the slip function I find a
lot of fun for putting little
baby scratches in the stuff
and not having to worry about
losing the phrasing of the tracks.
It's not here.
Roland say it's because
their focus group said
they didn't want it.
I don't care, I want
it and it's not there.
You can programme it on a
button that you're not using
using midi mapping in the software.
So there is a way around that.
I'd like to have seen that in here.
Apart from that though I
think they've done pretty much
everything right here.
Some people will look at the
price and say it should be
a little bit cheaper than that.
Maybe one day it will be, right
now I think it's reasonable
value for all the extra
stuff you get here.
Remember its got a decent
sound card in its worth.
It's got a 24 bit, 48
kilohertz sound card.
And it is made for professionals.
Just because it doesn't
look it because it's small
and lightweight doesn't
mean that it isn't.
It's made for professionals
with a lot of thoughtful
pro features on it.
So I'd love to know what
you think about this.
There's a full written review
as well if you want to go and
read a bit more about it.
But meanwhile in the comments underneath
please tell us, what'd you
like, what don't you like?
Is this the controller
you've been waiting for?
Or is it just another DJ
controller and you can't see
what all the fuss is about?
We'd love to know what you think.
Meanwhile, get good.
Get out there.
And make the moments.
And I'll see you again soon.
(dance music plays)
