Roland EF-303 Groove Effects

So easy a caveman can use it. Just read the manual and your on your way.

This is the big question. Since I got this use for about $175, it's well worth the sound. It's not Studio quality, but fun and good enough for live use. Easy to control. I mostly use the filter and delay, and they're both pretty good. Filter does a good job. The "303" type sound drums are nifty, but not very realistic, but it has slide and accent which is always fun. Two type of 303 sound, lead and base, so basicaly Square wave and Saw Tooth. It's fine though, you can pick one of these up cheap and have a blast. I also use KP3 with it, they work well together. The step sequencer is nifty, but the Total control of KP3 is more fun. There are MUCH better sounding effects out there, by Lexicon, TC, Moog, countless others, it's the real time minipulation that kicks. For live use, it sounds just as good as any synth effect or mangler. The reverb isn't that great, but I use VSTs for Studio use, live use stuff is great and rare. LIVE USE... not pro-studio. Orignal price of $560 was a bit high a few years ago, but used for under $200, it's a bargain and it lasts for ever. Run Ableton live through it for some extra sound minipulation. oh yeah, running it with your drum machine is great. I run my very expensive Xbase 999 throug to shadow the beats and it's adds a nice bit of flavor. By shadowing I mean, I run the original sound clean along side the processed sound.

Roland/Boss stuff lasts for ever. My Boss guitar effects from Jr. High still work great. Digital delay, EQ, SE-70, Metal Zone (lol), etc.

Never used it.

People who don't like it A) aren't using it right, you can easily smooth out the stepping by using the "smoooth" function, B) Are trying to use it for Studio work. It's a ideal tool for a DJ. I mean it really kick's for that type of work. I run my synths and drum machine through via effects loop on my Mixer, and had to buy 1/4 to RCA cables, that's all. It's not a Lexicon Reverb, or MoogerFrooger Delay or a Sherman Filter... it's just a little fun little effect seqeuncer. If you want those types of effects, well you'll need to spend a lot more $$. I just prefere to use VST effects for Studio work and since I'm not cutting any Platinum Records, who cares anway. 99% of us are just doing this for fun or live use. Which are two areas the product excels.

7 - Easy to use once you get the hang of it.
BUT there is only a 3 digit 7 SEG LED display and you really just have to remember how to navigate to things like midi sync etc. because each menu item has to be shrunk to fit on the led display.
However, it all works pretty logically, and most of the time things make sense. Also, you have to remember that for (say) the lo-fi effect the rate/low knob corresponds to drive, the cuttoff/mid knob changes the sample rate, and the RESO/HIGH knob changes the bit resolution, again the byproduct of a very small screen.

I rate the sound quality quite high, despite the pretty poor noise floor of the device.
I am using the thing in a live sort of way, and mostly for effecting the output from a drum machine. I have found it quite useful. Filter, Flange, LO-FI, phaser all are good for this, especially when using the step sequencer. I sync that up through midi, and it works very well. I have also used the SynRhythm patch to make drum patterns on the fly using the step modulator. Great fun.
Also the vocoder (VO MOD) effect is fun to muck around with especially when using in the L-R mode, where you use left for the synth, and right for the voice works very well, but i don't think that it would be that easy to setup for a live situation, as the levels for each side have to be quite carefully set to make a nice vocodery sound to come out.
Reverb is pretty average though, and there are better slice effects in other live effect boxes (I prefer the efx-500's slicer).
One dumb thing about the filter is that the freq range simply isolates a single range - I would have MUCH preffered that this change the filter between LP/BP/HP instead.

I have found the thing to be pretty reliable, however I have also found that if you leave it on for a long time (say 4 hours or more) without touching it, when you get back to it, it will not respond to any inputs until you press the MANUAL button. (i.e. the realtime controller reading code has crashed.) I therefore normally reboot before I start a playing session, and it is annoying when I forget, as I have to normally reboot.

Never dealt with em. Must say though that Roland gear is pretty solid, and I havent really had much trouble with it.

Overall, this box does things that other boxes can't do - I think that the step sequencer can make some wonderful effects that are really amazing.
I guess that there is also a bit of a shame that they didn't add a bit more. A multitap delay would have been awesome, A slicer that cycled through the whole 16 sliders in 1 beat would have been great, a filter that did BP HP and Notch would have been even better.
A straight up distortion would have been good also, and let's be honest here the SYN-Bass and SYn-DLY effects are totally useless compared to a real sequencing synth (The mc-303 does a much better job, even).
All in all, though, this sort of box is something that fits in very well with my kit, and adds a dimension to certain sounds that are not very easy to achieve with other devices, and the realtime control of most of the most important parts is right there in front of you. I think that this machine is best suited to electronic performance based people, not really for the studio. mabye some djs would find it useful as well.

Pretty darned easy, once you get the jist. RTFM. I love how tactile it is, that's the primary reason I got it, it's such a visual and pleasing thing to experiment with. It only gets confusing when you're doing things like holding shift and the function keys for working with the step sequencer, midi settings, and other things. Once you do this a few times though, you get to where you understand the alphanumeric readout. The manual is pretty decent, but I haven't had to consult it too much, it's so easy to use and delve into. Once thing I don't like is that the dry signal and grab/effect are often different in level, and the grab also sometimes clicks...this can be very annoying and embarrassing when attempting to use this machine in a live capacity. Really tricky. Some sort of normalization circuit in there would've been nice. This is my biggest gripe with the EF303 probably.

It's a mixed bag. It's not near the quality of studio grade effects processors like my Ensoniq DP/2 or Boss VF1, but that's not what it was really made for. You have to tweak certain effects to get the best sound, and certain effects are better than others. There is a certain lofi element to this, which is fine for the harsh type of cyberpunk music I make. The filter is pretty good...I don't understand why some complained of stepping, maybe lower cutoff settings are more noticeable...my theory is they either had a bum unit or were using it wrong IE: they must've had the bpm sync on while twisting the cutoff. Every digital filter I've used steps, this one's no different, but it's no worse than you'd expect. It does step noticably when you try to tweak the filter while the synth is running...this is most likely due to Roland skimping on the DSP power, the processor chip just can't cope. Manufacturers need to start using better DSP, in this day and age, there's no excuse for that kind of cost cutting. If Alesis can do it with the ION, anybody should be able to.

Anyways, throwing the filter into sequence mode is where it gets really fun, instant drum damage....you can even select SMOOTHING so that your sequence steps aren't so "steppy". Certain effects work better with the step sequencing than others...for some reason, I can't get the reverb to do anything with the stepper, but it's a pretty decent sounding reverb. Isolator does what it's supposed to, but this one I also can't get to do much with the seq. Flanger is okay, better when sequenced, the Phaser is better. Delay/Pan and Pitch/Delay are excellent, the delays are one of the best things about it. Slicer/Pan is good for those rhythmic gating effects without having to go to the trouble of setting up a gate with a sidechain. Compression is pretty good, I've gotten strangely dynamic, pumping phrases by using the seq with it. Flanger is kinda weak, better when sequenced. Phaser is decent. Lofi is good in small amounts, a very digital sounding bitcrusher/distortion. Ring Mod is so-so, keep the wetness down. Voice is really good, not the VT1, but as close as you can get without buying one. Vocoder I haven't explored fully, but using the internal synth, it's good for drum destruction. Syn+Delay is ho-hum, a little too FruityLoops Synth sounding for me. Syn Bass is much better, as the dsp has less to do...it's as good as most software emulators like Rebirth, BETTER because you have the real 303 interface, no mouse clicking. Syn Rhythym is fun, but more of a bonus. Sounds like a cross between a TR606 and CR76 or something...won't replace a drum machine, but it's fun and somewhat useful.

You can select eq ranges to effect, which is very cool especially with delay settings, but unfortunately you can't isolate 2 bands at once, it's either hi, mid, lo, or all.

According to the manual, you can use the EF303 as a CC Box to control external gear, but I haven't tried this yet, it's easier to use my midi controller.

I'd depend on it. It's really solid, sturdy sliders/knobs, steel chassis. I've had it about 3 years so far, bought it used.

Like most megaconglomerates, Roland sucks. Customer who? At least recently they've started putting up manuals for their products. Seeing as how with this product, I've never needed them, I'll leave this one blank.

There's a few flaws with the EF303...the aforementioned grab switch quirk, the RCA ins/outs instead of 1/4 TRS, Tap Tempo is kinda sketchy and slow (don't believe the hype, Roland still can't get this one right on their current gear like the 909...the cheapo Zoom ST224 did tap tempo way better). There is no SPDIF no digital in/out...perhaps the biggest "GOTCHA" is that the 303 sequencer doesn't transmit midi...that's right, you can't use the sequencer on your external synths, no glides, no accents, nada....obviously Roland wanted you to go out and buy the real thing, I don't know. There's no way I would've paid what these things cost new, but at the use prices now, it's hard to complain about it. If I lost mine, I would definitely try to find another one, or something similar, like the Adrenalinn.

If you're sick of clicking around on a computer screen or paging around rack effects, pick one of these units up for $150 or less. If it doesn't make your music-making process fun again, I'll buy it from you. Then I can have step effects into more step effects! Moihahaha! I wish they had digital connections, so I could have several of them in a big circle, Max Rebo style. Tell me that wouldn't own. In my opinion, the EF303 was a brilliant concept that wasn't as sucessful as it should've been...much like the Alesis MODFX line, another brilliant product that should've been a hit. For people who work like I do, these are great hardware units to have around.

Well it's very hard at first but if you get to know the 303 EF its not that hard.
Its a little bit noisy like the other said but nice for live performes.
The edithing patches are very handy and it gifs you the possibillity to change your set when ever you like to spice things up in your set.
The manual is a little bit hard to understand if your from the dutch but practise is the key to succes like everything.
No I don't have a upgrade.
I think that the machine is good at it self
no use for a upgrade.

I use the 303 EF for Live performes and Mixing sets.
It's very easy to hook up and you always have good sound for the money you got it.
Its very noisy at first you think that it will blow up your speakers but its the same as the manual practise is the key.
The noisyest setting is the flanger/phase
The sound are not always great and thats because you have to get the settings right and that take's time.
I'm using a Rodec mx 180 mk111 mixer and it works great.
My speakers are active and that means that i don't need a Amp.
The amp is Build into the subwoofer.
My favorite artist who use the 303 roland EF are The Wyghnomy brothers from jena germany the use the echo and the flanger the most.
Yes i can get the sounds right now the timing and pricision i need to work on.
Yes there 8 programs with 8 different effects which you can use with the program you installed.
Like the chorus ore distortion.
But no that you have to try it first before you jump into a live performes a specially with this great machine.

Yes you can depend on your machine it never fails.
I use it on almost every set i play and it never broke.
But like all machine's there's a limited.
Yes i would trust my machine and thats not what i can see from others machine's.
Its very easy to hook up and it has never failed me yet.

I play Minimal techno and Elektro and its a great match.
Specially the patches.
I play dance music for four years now.
My gear is:

Hardware

1 Technics 1200sl
1 Technics 1210sl
1 Roland 303 Groove-Effect with tab sampler
1 Rodec MX 180 MK 111 mixer
1 Skytec 1200 cd player (pitch +8 & -8)
1 Vobis laptop (pentium 4/3,2 ghz)
1 Interface Recording (usb)
1 Sound mate 1 (1 Subwoofer 300 rms actief & 2 Tops 150 rms actief)
2 Jamo D 1225 / 120 watt
2 Magnat 120 rms (zuilen)
1 Sennheiser/Beyer microfoon E865
1 Technics dj 1200 koptelefoon (closed headphone)
1 Midi compossor (Quick Shot, Midi-keyboard)

Software

1 Protools 6.7
1 Cubase SX
1 Reason 3.0
1 Cool Edit pro 2
1 Wavelab 5 Steinberg
1 Fruitty loops studio xxl v 5.2
1 Ableton Live 5

Ableton 5 & Reason 3 are hooked to Cubase sx for a complete homestudio

Very easy to get tweaky sounds out of immediately. Editing patches is fairly easy and intuitive thanx to the 16 sliders. The changing functions of the main knobs can be confusing, but after using it for a while u get used to what parameter each changes for each effect. Manual is fairly good, with quick setup ideas and more comprehensive stuff up the back. Would have been good if we could have had a few facts and figures on signal to noise ratio, frequency cutoffs etc. WOuld be cool if the sliders could be automated, but I think I am dreaming.

Am running guitars, drum machines, cds, vocals and all sorts of things through it. I also use the synth. Overall, comparing the sound quality to professional units is unfair. That is not what this unit is about. Sure, one wants high quality effects, but u pays for what u get. This is a step modulated effects unit, not an effects unit. If you want a dedicated effects unit, get something else. If you want a fun, inspiring, hands on, dynamically changing live effects box, this is for u.
Is a little bit noisey. There is noticable stepping on some effects. But use these to your advantage and creativity!
FILTER: Rocks, tweaks, hurts your ears.
FLANGER: I do not use.
DELAY: Great when used through the hi/mid/low cut filter.
PITCH SHIFT: Trippy
COMPRESSOR: Alright. Can get some cool pumping effects out of it. Too noisey for studio use though.
LOFI: Unweilding, crazy and a bit to hairy.
VOCODER: Great on drums and rhythms.
PHASER: Nice and swirly. Could go a little deeper.
SYNTH: FAT. Very fat. Don't try and get TB303 sounds out of it, couse it has it's own unique sound. FOr a huge sound, turn Distortion all the way up. And then the next two knobs at 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock.
SYNTH+DELAY: Not as fat, but still much fun.
DRUMS: Bit boomy, don't use a lot, but not too bad.

Super reliable. Only stuffs up if u pull out the MIDI cable. Fairly rock solid design. One of my note tempo buttons is now a bit dodgey, but overall pretty good.

No idea. Never tried.

Ever since using the Pattern Controlled Filter in Rebirth, this is the machine I was looking for. I love it. My sound quality and ease of use scores do not convey this but, it is a lot of fun. Most people do not 'get it'. The box was aimed at the DJ market (as if they could get their head around it) and failed dismally. Cool I say. Great for live electronic music. Great fat bass synth, even if it is a one trick pony. FIlter is my favorite effect, cause you can program your onw pattern filters. Great for guitars. Great for synced delays and anything else synced up to a sequencer.

An alternative effects unit of a similar nature would be the AdrenaLin. Cannot wait to buy one as I think the effect quality may be a lot better than the EF303. But it does not have all the knobs and sliders of the EF303.
They seem to be selling quite cheap 2nd hand, so I cannot wait to buy another one and have them synced together with alternate instruments running through them.

pretty straightforward. Manual is nice, short and to the point. Editing is simple.

For the money it doesn't get much better, I actually use this effect on everything BUT turntables (mostly my bass guitar). The step sequencer is kind of a joke but I think they just put that in there "on the fly", this is a great effects unit for vocals as well.

haven't had a problem yet. I dropped it and popped out a button but that was the worst of it. Roland seems to make pretty sturdy machines

n/a

This is good for somebody willing to 'expand' their horizons so to speak or somebody who doesn't know which effect to use. If you're bent set on buying a phaser or a delay then go for one of the dedicated units. If you're a real spontaneous composer/musician then this is for you. You can get so much out of this unit!

The knob setup is intuitive, I'll give it that. But why the preset banks when there's only 16 effects anyway? Seems like Roland is trying to make up for lack of functionality. I picked one up used as a midi controller, I figured 4 knobs + 16 sliders at 200 bucks, can't go wrong. Guess again, the 16 sliders only transmit midi in step mode, sequencer style. Useless useless useless.

Worst purchase ever. Other than every effect being useless other than maybe the phaser and the flanger, the machine is so poorly shielded that I couldn't keep it near my other gear without picking up dc hum.

It's built fairly well, 1/4" ins/outs would have been nice in addition to RCAs.

Roland sells products, it doesn't support them. Their website is a joke.

If you're looking for a multieffects box, look elsewhere.
If you're looking for a midi controller, there are better ones out there.

If U don't understand this, you probably don't know how to make a sound on a grand piano.
No, the interface is really intuitive

I bought the machine for live use. I'm a saxophone player. I put a preamplified mic-signal through a boss loopstation and then in the ef303. The quality of the majority of the effects is great. It sounds the same as the boss 'stompbox'pedals to me.

However the filter really sucks. Unless U R 1 of the guys that actually like a digital sounding filter, it's crap and in extreme settings, it clicks (U BET!).
Another bad thing for live use is the LO FI. It is almost impossible 2 tweak it live. U'll hear nothing but clicks... Once tweaked, it does what it's supposed to do.
The drumkits? forget about it. It's an effect unit, not a beatbox. Though I must admit that the hats are Phat.
The synth is NOT a TB303, but it sounds good and is very usable.
Another thing I dont like is the little click U hear when changing from effect.

So that are the things I don't like on the thing. The rest is really cool. But thats just what 2 expect from a 500? Roland piece of gear.

I have only 2 days

never used

For live use:
Versatile box. Many possibilities! A keeper for sure. Whats a bit of a bummer is the fact that you cant hear 2 or more effects simultaniously and the stupid littke cracks while switching from effect.
Easy to use.

Studio use:
Forget the effects. Maybe 4 a PA it's good, but I dont want to waste my handcrafted 96/32bit beatz thru a 'groove-oriented' roland device :)

If you haven't got a midi-controller, this is heaven! 16faders and 3 knobs. Not a bad extra I think.

Very easy to use. I got mine with no manual, and after one night plus-a-little, I've got it figured out, except for the cryptic "Common" functions, which seem to be useless with the functions for which I'm using this little beast anyway. Anybody got a manual or tips to share? Hook a brotha up!

The sound quality overall is pretty decent. Some of the algorithms DO stair-step, noticeably the Synth+Delay (I just turn the Resonance to max and let the filter pick out stepped sets of harmonics rather than trying to get wa-wa sweeps) and the LoFi (which is _supposed_ to sound bad, right?)
The much-vaunted ability to effect hi, mid, or lo, is kinda misunderstood. You can bandpass hi, mid, or lo frequencies, and then effect the narrower signal. You can't really effect, say, just the mids (though you could bandpass the mids and mix the effected signal with the original, but it's not the same thing.)
The Filter sounds good to me. Not quite as cozy-uppy as the one in my Yamsha CS-15, but good-sounding. The Flanger is quite usable. The Phaser is ear-twistingly great in headphones. Lo-fi is pretty useless to me, though it does get nice and ugly. The reverb is a throwaway: karaoke 'verb gone bad. The compressor is completely unusable: Not only is it a crappy-sounding compressor, but it's got that slight DSP delay on it, making one of my favorite compressor tricks impossible (send a mono submix of the drums to the comp, squish the shiz out of it, then blend with original for punch and focus.) without comb-filtering. Crap. The Voice Transformer emu is as picky (if not more) than the original orange-and-blue box, though I must admit that I've only used line in sources with it. The vocoder sounds surprisingly good, though you'll need to set up a custom mix to feed it with Carrier and Modulator hard-panned left and right. Not so great for live use. The drum machines are utter crap. Cheesy in a bad way. And this is coming from a guy who's used Casio SK-1 drums, UP Ultimate Percussion triggered disco-drums, and Sears-bought Yamaha cheese profitably. The hats are okay, and the kick in one kit is pretty happenin', but you're not going to make a beat with this.
The Synth (ah, the controversial Synth)... Well, it's not a 303. Good deal. The 303 is _tired_, people. It's Played Out. My buddy who worked at a used-gear store had a 303 for a while, but sold it, 'cos that lump o' circuitry was bo-o-oring. Good riddance. That said, the synf in the EF303 squelches like a good TB should, and actually sounds really really good. Eminently usable, but programming it via sliders is weird. It's pretty hard to differentiate between half-step increments on those little bitty sliding controls. Satisfying results, though. Much better than a Predictable-Piece-O'-Crap keyboard controller. Too bad no D-Beam for more sonic lysol, rubber punching bag weirdness and fuzzy control.
Negatives: just a global "Smooth on-off" control, rather than a choice of transition times. This'll make the steps sound late when you're sync'ed to external MIDI clock. No accent/envelope controls for the synth, and you can't use slide and rest simultaneously to do note fade-ins or -outs.
The FX that are good are quite good. The bad ones aren't even bad in a likable lofi kinda way. The coolness of the good 'uns outweighs the suck factor of the lamers, though.

Seems solid enough. I've got heavy hands (no DJ fingaz here), and it seems to be able to take it. I'd use it on a gig with no backup, though its usefulness for me is fully realized when looping and relooping nightmare glitch-mod sequences and resample-fests.

Basically, this is an effects box with 3 parameter knobs per effects program, any of which can be (one at a time) controlled by the step-sequencer.
The cool thing about it for me, though, is the fact that all of those 16 sliders transmit MIDI, making it a kick-ass controller for Ableton Live, my main composing environment.
The sounds are cool for weirdo glitchy progfreak stuff. I'm not so sure it'd be good with 4-on-the-boring-floor house music, though.

Just writing to follow up on my previous review, where I said the filter did not step. NO I do not work for Roland. The filter steps when you use the synth function, the machine must be spliting it's available DSP to synth and filter functions. However, when playing an external source through the machine, I hear no stepping, unless I want to using the step sequencer. And just to let you know I had the 303 plugged into a Mackie SR24-4 mixer, and monitored through Event 20/20 BAS monitors, no the most pristine setup, but perfectly adequate for most bedroom producers. I still think the ef-303 is a fun device although now that I look back on the review I realize I sounded a lot like a cheerleader. But basically I was just excited about my new toy.