ROLAND EF-303 Groove Effects

Mar 1, 2001 12:00 PM, By James Rotondi

This DJ effects unit has got rhythm.

Housed in rugged steel and designed with a slanted front that provides easy access to knobs, buttons, and sliders, the EF-303 offers 16 onboard effects, including filters, delays, reverbs, compression, and a ring modulator, as well as a selection of DJ-friendly audio effects like lo-fi, phaser, and voice modulation. You can assign most effects easily to one or all of three frequency ranges — low, mid, and high — and modify them using the Rate, Cutoff, and Resolution knobs, which also serve as EQ faders.

The onboard bpm counter lets you sync the effects to match your source signal's tempo. You can also assign the effects note values — that is, applying effects so they synchronize with a 16th note, a dotted 16th, an eighth, a dotted eighth, a quarter note, and so on, all the way to a full four bars. In a sense, this is what separates the 303 (and its cousin, the Pioneer EFX-500) from other effectors, and it's why it truly deserves the “Groove Effects” name. Though we've applied a rhythmic delay to a track before, we've never had the ability to target rhythmic subdivisions across a wide range of effects the way we can with units like the EF-303 and EFX-500.

YO, ROLAND IN EFFECT

So what does this actually mean in practice? Here's an example: I set up the 303 with my humble DJ setup consisting of a Stanton STR8-60 turntable, a Vestax PMC-03 mixer, a Boss SP-202 Dr. Sample, and a portable CD player. Because the PMC-03 does not feature an effects send-return, I simply wired the EF-303 as the last stop in my DJ rig before the sound system, so all source sounds would run through it. I started an 88 bpm funk drum loop from my Dr. Sample and, using the EF-303's Select button, chose Filter from the 16 available effects patches. While it's easy enough to apply the EF-303's creamy-sounding filter to a loop in a random fashion and let it do its thing, the fun really started when I tapped the bpm tempo of my drum loop into it — you can do this manually, or the 303 can calculate the tempo for you — and then started the step modulator. After I pushed one of the Control Select buttons, the filter was triggered only on the 16th notes whose corresponding slider was pushed up on the step modulator's slider panel.

Depending on what kind of rhythm I'd like to hear, I can program the unit to make occasional filter stabs or to create a rolling, chewy filter effect throughout the entire loop, all in time with the correct bpm — and all the while I can tweak such filter parameters as cutoff frequency and resonance. If the effect's rhythm starts to stray from the source signal's, I can use the Push or Pull buttons to sync everything up quickly.

If I decide I only want to filter the mix's low end, I can use Freq Select to choose Low, and I'll get the equivalent of a High and Low “kill” switch, with a nice, murky low-end filter sound. Or I can select High and turn the Effect Balance knob all the way right to Effect so all I hear is the filter itself, hissing and sucking in and out in a cool rhythmic figure; then I can continue to modify with the step modulator as if I were making rhythmic changes on a drum machine. When I add some synth lines from an old electronic-music record, the filter mixes in those sounds, chopping them up rhythmically and creating a bubbling rhythm and melody perfect for a house mix or trance tune.

A STEP AHEAD

You can also use the step modulator to create bass lines, synth figures, and rhythm parts via the unit's Syn+Dly, Syn Bass (which provides great TB-303 emulation), and Syn Rhythm patches. Syn Rhythm offers four unique drum kits, programmable using the step-modulation sliders as note assignments. The arc of the slider breaks down into four distinct areas — place the slider in a particular position, and that 16th note will sound a kick, a snare, an open or closed hi-hat, or a mute. Again, you can change the frequency range of these sounds using the Freq Range button. Ditto for the Syn+Dly mode, which allows you to make killer rhythmic delay synth lines for house, drum ’n’ bass, ambient music, or whatever you like. MIDI implementation lets you sync any of these patterns to an external sequencer, or use signals from an external sequencer to drive the EF-303's DSP engine. In short, Tangerine Dream would have killed for one of these boxes.

A few other things make the EF-303 stand out: you can program the synth figures created with the step modulator in any of 21 scales, including whole tone, Ryukyu, and hexatonic blues, and you can tune the synth to match the pitch from records or samples. DJs will appreciate the inclusion of phono as well as mic and line inputs. For utmost accuracy in the DJ booth, you can even preview the synths and effects through headphones before launching them into your mix. This should give you a small idea of the unit's awesome power; you really need to hear it to appreciate it fully.

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