MC-202

Back in 1983, this little box kicked off Roland's MicroComposer line by swapping the SH-101's keyboard for a pioneering digital step sequencer, letting you compose on the fly without needing extra gear.

At its heart is a monophonic analog synth engine with a single VCO delivering sawtooth, pulse, and square waves across 16', 8', 4', and 2' ranges, plus a sub-oscillator dropping square or pulse down one or two octaves. Mix in PWM via manual control, LFO triangle, or envelope modulation, then shape with a resonant 24dB low-pass filter (cutoff from 10Hz to 20kHz), ADSR envelope, and LFO for rate and delay tweaks. The sequencer holds about 2600 steps across four voice lines in volatile battery-backed memory (or cassette dump for backup), with DIN sync, CV/gate outs to drive external synths, and real-time controls like portamento, accent, tempo (40-300 bpm), and volume sliders clustered around a central LCD display. Housed in a super compact 343 x 55 x 204mm metal chassis weighing under 2kg with batteries, it runs on six C cells or 9-12V DC, with mono audio out and headphone jack.

Owners love its raw, punchy bass tones and TB-303-like acid lines when sequenced right, praising the portable build and hands-on sliders despite the quirky, non-intuitive step editing. A few note the lack of noise gen or arpeggiator as limits, but modders keep it alive with CV tweaks for modern rigs.