Roland DJ-707M Mobile Serato DJ Controller Review

April 3, 2022

I’m here to give you guys a review of the brand new Rowland DJ 707 M mobile DJ controller. This is a Serato DJ controller through and through it’s a four-channel DJ controller but it’s nice and compact.

Usually, when you see a four-channel DJ controller they’re a lot longer they’re a lot taller wider and they have a lot bigger components but this is nice and compact and it’s small enough so you can take it with you on the go.

It’s very heavy so it tells you that they definitely have metal reinforcements throughout on the back pain you can see metal throughout where the inputs and outputs are on the front it feels pretty solid.

Here on the front deck plate where you have your faders, they’re all removable so that way you can service all of the middle mixer portions of the controller very easily.

You can also change this crossfader for something like an innovator very easily as well straight from the top. It has really good construction all around built very well very sturdy.

It really reminds me of Denon BJ’s MC 6000 lineup it really really looks the same and kind of feels almost the same as well. I think the MC 6000 was just a little bit more robust in this a little bit better build quality because it was metal everywhere.

There is a little bit of plastic in the design here but it’s probably made that way in order to save down on some of the weight.

Because this is a Roland type machine you also have your Serato DJ included. Along with that you also get some drum patterns from the TR Roland series as well that are on board. That way you can mix those sounds with your different DJ inputs and you can also use it with Serato DJ mixing and matching those inputs on the fly.

SET-UP

First up, set up was very easy all you have to do is download the latest the Serato DJ software from the website and then you can go and grab the driver if you have a Windows machine. Then you just plug in one of your two USB ports you’re ready to go.

INPUTS/OUTPUTS

The inputs and outputs that we have here are the 2 microphone inputs all the way to the left then, you have your four RCA inputs, two of them can be used by line or phono the other ones are all line.

You have your master outputs which are RCA you also have XLR you have a booth and then you also have a zone RCA output. That also has its own dedicated volume knob with it as well.

Then you have a MIDI out then you have your 2 USB ports so you can easily switch between DJs or use two DJs to DJ at the same time using this device.

Also very cool for the outputs is that you can assign different channels to your zone output. You can also change the different parameters for that output you can make it mono stereo you can change the pan.

You can change all types of cut-offs and everything so that way you can have the perfect zone out the perfect booth out or the perfect master out that you need at any given time.

You also have presets for all of your microphone inputs as well. Whereas you can change the decibels of each one of your microphone inputs so that way it’s perfect for the volume for the microphone situation that you’re using it for.

Also on the front, you have the all the way to the left headphone section where you have your mixing knob. Then you have your headphones level knob along with two different headphone outputs.

You have a quarter-inch and you also have the mini. Then you have a split and stereo cue switch. Then you have the crossfader controls right on the front in front of where the crossfader is situated. There you can change the curve control right there with the hardware control. And you also have your channel 1 through 4 a/b and through switches so that way you can decide which side of the crossfader that the channel actually resides upon.

You also have all the way to the left more inputs. You have two left and right balanced inputs that can also be used as microphone inputs. And then you also have a stereo input that can be used for your mini or smaller jacks for your different devices or your smartphones.

Then you also have a volume knob for that you can change this between the mono stereo and microphone settings. You can also change the parameters of your microphone within the menu as well for these microphones on the front.

So in total, you can have up to four microphones working at one time with this unit.

That’s a lot of inputs and outputs perfect for mobile DJs when they have many different setups or they just have many different devices that they want to connect to a unit like this.

IN-DEPTH LOOK

The Roland DJ 707 M and the M definitely means mobile DJ because this is one of the best DJ controllers you can get to date for mobile DJ applications.

It has so many inputs so many outputs you can put four microphones on this thing it has full microphone controls. It has so many different fail-safes and so many different ways that you can connect other devices it’s just perfect for the person who needs to be in all different types of setups.

It has so many outputs your zone your booth and your master outputs. You can control them and adjust all of their different parameters you can put limiters and compressors on each one of them.

So everything comes out perfectly just the way you want it you can EQ them separately from the EQ, separately as well within the software or within the internal menu screen.

Right off the bat, you have your inputs on the back that are also Serato DVS ready if you get the upgrade. Once you get the DVS upgrade you can actually plug in turntables and your different timecode machines your vinyl or your CD decks. And you can actually use these on the outside while you’re using this device.

CROSSFADER

So right off the bat the crossfader. The crossfader is very very good it is fully replaceable as are the other faders and the other mechanisms you see here on the front. You can see that this is metal in the middle so that way you can easily service this area and replace anything that you may need to overtime.

Same goes for the crossfader you can definitely fit an innovator in there they have one available. All you have to do is unscrew these top slots and then you’ll be ready to drop in an innovator. But the crossfader is really really good as it is.

It has a really low cut in the distance and it just works really really nicely right out of the box. So very good crossfader very crisp feels good it is a little clicky and a little loud but it does feel like it’s definitely built to last.

LINE FADERS

The line faders themselves they have a little bit more resistance to them but they are a little looser than some of the other mixer or control interfaces that are out there.

CUE BUTTONS

Next up you have your cue buttons and you also have your vocal effects keys when you press shift. Then you have your sampler volume control in the middle zone. Volume control booth, volume control, and master volume controls. All in the middle. Again your headphone information was on the front for all of your headphone output needs on the front.

FILTER EFFECTS

Next up you have your filter effects knobs and you will be able to change the filter effects to the different effects that they have listed up here on the screen. We’ll go through those once we get to the screen portion. But you have the filters, you have echoes, you have reverbs. So really cool different intuitive things you can do right here on the fly by just using these filter effects knobs.

EQ

Next, you have your lows, mids and high EQs. They are full kill. You also have your trim gain knob at the top. And at the top, you also have your different selectors so that way you can be in PC mode or you can be the inline mode or you can be in TR mode.

When you’re in line number 3 or when you’re in line number 4 you can be an oscillator mode. So they have an oscillator in here built-in. And they also have built-in the TR drum sounds.

Once you go to deck number three and you go to your TR drum sounds you can now select the different patterns that you want to use. And they have Track patterns, House patterns, techno patterns EDM patterns.

You can easily mix these on the fly with the other decks that you have playing in Serato or the Jam playing live. You don’t need this connected to Serato in any way in order to use any one of those TR effects you can do that in standalone mode all day.

MICROPHONE’S

Next up all the way at the top, you have your microphone sections. This is where you can control your microphone 1 and microphone 2. Your microphone 3 and 4 controls are on the front.

Also within the screen will show you the different parameters you can adjust with those. But mic 1 and 2 you have your own and off you also have your duct so that way everything lowers.

That way you can talk through the microphone. You also have effects here so that way you can put effects on both of your microphones. You have your level of the volume control knob. You’re low mid and high is for each one and you have your vocal effects here too.

So that way you can do effects on your vocals that you would do also on your channels. Really cool to have that included right here so you can easily control them and they’ll be like them on the fly.

THE DECK

Next up is the deck itself. You can change between PCA and PCB that will change between your two different USBs that you have on the back. You have your different browsing functions.

You can push to select and load it’s a nice and encoder. it feels like it’s very very solid. And it also has a back button of your button and a prep.

And an open prep and then you also have your deck 1 and 3 here so that way you know exactly what deck you’re in at any given time within Serato DJ. The other side has your 2 and 4.

PITCH SLIDERS

Next, you have your pitch sliders. you have very high-resolution pitch sliders but they are on the shorter side. But they definitely do get the job done there definitely high-resolution. I can feel it in them when I’m using it and it just works very very well. And they also feel pretty solid as well but I just wish they might have been just a little bit longer.

JOG WHEELS

Next, you have your jog wheels. The jog wheels are metal on the top. very very nice jog wheels they’re actually very accurate but they’re also on the smaller side which is also one of my minor gripes with the unit. But they do work very very accurately.

PADS

Next, you have your usual suspects here for all of your pad modes within the Serato DJ. I’ll just go through them they’re the hot cue, the Q loop, the auto loop, the roll, the manual and save loop the slicer, the slicer loop sampler and pitch play.

You have your play/pause buttons and your cue buttons here on the side they look like their metal but I believe they’re just painted that way. But they’re nice and solid hard plastic and they have a nice illumination to them so you can see when you’re ready to play.

But the pads themselves they do not have a clique to them and they’re very very very responsive. You can easily draw them with these pads with two hands.

THE SCREEN

All the way in the upper right-hand corner you have a screen. It’s just a two-line screen. Whish, it would have been a little bit bigger. I mean there’s a little bit more space there.

It would have been nice to be a color screen. Maybe you can get more information in there at once. Because there is a lot going on in the screen. But we’ll show you everything that they have here.

All the way at the top you have seen edit and the scenes that you’re allowed to create. Are actually the scenes of your different outputs and inputs. You can create a scene to have your microphones at a certain level.

To have your zone at a certain compression have your booth at a certain limiter and so on and so forth. You can actually EQ everything from in there as well so you’ve got a scene edit you can go to your mixer settings your mic 1 settings mic 2 settings. We’re going with 20 or microphone settings so you can see you have gain in here you have your EQ.

You have your FX and you can change whatever FX you want it to be. Can be echo reverb and echo dub echo, pitch up, pitch down form it up, form it down, auto pitch robot, double harmony, above harmony below, megaphone radio, tempo delay. So you have a lot to here to choose from.

Also on the screen, you can adjust the different effects you have. Your filter effects knobs, this will correspond to that. You have the option to change all of your effects. All of the different knobs or your individual knobs can be whatever you want them to be.

So the different effects that you have here for your knobs are: filter dub, echo jet, noise reverb, delay, bit crush, phaser noise, noise one, side change slicer roll, roll filter, loop pitch, loop filter, vinyl sim. So it’s a lot to choose from there as well.

Also on the screen when you switch over to deck 3 you’ll be able to see your drum machine information. For your TR and you have your different patterns in here you have your tools 1, tools 2, tools 3, hip-hop 1, trap 1 house 1, house 2, techno so on and so forth.

CONCLUSIONS

So, in conclusion, the new Roland DJ 707 M is perfect for mobile DJ use because it has a compact size as a nice sturdy solid construction. Kind of like the MC 6000 MK2 back in the day.

It also has so many inputs and outputs. It has the four microphone inputs the four outputs it also has the four mixer inputs it has a stereo input jack on the front. And it just has a lot of different ways that you can connect different devices to DJ 707.

It also has the input and output scene-setting savings and also being able to recall those different settings if you’re using the same venue or the same type of show or gig over and over.

It also comes bundled with the full Serato DJ Pro Edition software. And it has internal preset TR drum patterns and internal effects that can be used as well on any of your external inputs or your cerrado inputs coming in.

DOWNSIDES

On the downside, the jog wheels are pretty small. As are the small style pitch sliders but they’re both very high resolution and they both work very very well.

And it also has Serato DJ effects controls that are a little bit different than what I’m used to.

I like having the three separate knobs so that way I can tweak two different effects at the same time without having them share a common knob right here in the middle.