Roland has announced the winners of its MC-909 Drop-a-Beat Competition, in which more than 100 competitors composed their entries entirely using the MC-909 workstation; winning compositions can be found at www.mc909.com/dab_winners.html.
Winning first place and an Edirol PCR-50 USB/MIDI controller keyboard was Matthew Buri of Lockport, N.Y. “I have been into making electronic dance music now since 1992,” Buri said. “For the Roland Drop-a-Beat Competition, I wanted to create strictly a trance track. The MC-909 really shines with all kinds of great drums, bass and synth stacks for this creation.”
Taking second place and an SRX expansion board was San Francisco-based Tekrah Davide, aka DJ DROID. “I’ve been making techno, industrial and hard trance for the last seven years,” said Davide. “DJ DROID evolved from the MC-303 to the MC-909. Phat grooves meet 3D sounds.”
Third place and an MC-909 Groove Bag went to Ramon Grajales of MountFreedom, N.J. “I am a trance producer from New Jersey with seven years experience in making music,” he said. “Right now, I produce for a hobby and I hope to one day do it for a living. The track produced for this contest is based on progressive trance [Euro-style] and that is my specialty. You’ll notice a sample of the trance vocal that comes directly from the MC-909 and I combined that sample with some great effects and was able to capture that raw underground feel.”
