Bonedo’s 2015 review and Amazona’s 2020 retrospective date the original MFB-501 to 1980. The latter article reviews a different instrument, the MFB-501 Pro; its programmable features must not be transferred to the original preset machine.
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The machine keeps turning up.
Equinoxious / Rogelio Serrano / El Desafío
Equinoxious lists an MFB 501 among the instruments used on the 2022 EP El Desafío.
Read Equinoxious, “El Desafío” ↗A switchbox for changing the rhythm
The MFB-501’s upper row has nine voice switches for ten sounds: the two cymbals share a switch. Muting changes the selected preset’s instrumentation; it does not write new hits. Below, six switches marked F–A select a rhythm through a binary code. Bonedo’s specimen review describes those two rows as separate operations.
Lasse Eilers and Michael Geisel, “MFB-501 Vintage Drum Machine” ↗ Dirk E., “Test: MFB-501 PRO, Drumcomputer” ↗
Period press
MFB-501 in Bonedo’s Vintage Drum Machine special
Exact front-panel photograph showing the MFB-501 name, its ten voice switches and binary rhythm-selector bank.
Sixty-four rhythms, then sixty-four ways out
Six binary selectors give 64 preset choices, each with a fill. Bonedo reports odd metres as well as familiar styles, including an 11/8 Jazz Rock pattern. The I/II/IV switch disables automatic fills or inserts them every second or fourth bar. Connecting a fill footswitch transfers that decision to the player’s foot. These are ways to vary preset performance, not a programmable pattern memory.
Lasse Eilers and Michael Geisel, “MFB-501 Vintage Drum Machine” ↗ Dirk E., “Test: MFB-501 PRO, Drumcomputer” ↗
A reported price, not a recovered price list
Amazona’s September 2020 history quotes 340 Deutsche Mark for the original 501 and reports more than a thousand sales within a few months. Its summary of advertising gives 64 rhythms, 64 fills and ten switchable instruments. Those are retrospective reports: the cited page does not supply the original dated advertisement needed to verify the price, territory and sales count independently. A low-cost reputation should not become an unsupported comparison with every contemporary rhythm box.
The connections and the missing mix controls
Bonedo’s tested unit has stereo audio, sync in/out and start/stop and fill footswitch sockets. Its review also identifies limits: no separate voice outputs and no master or per-voice level controls. A mixer therefore handles level outside the box. Sync is pulse-based, not MIDI; exact electrical compatibility still needs factory documentation.
Lasse Eilers and Michael Geisel, “MFB-501 Vintage Drum Machine” ↗
A modern credit under the 501 name
Equinoxious’s *El Desafío*, released on 1 April 2022, credits composition and mixing to Rogelio Serrano and lists ‘MFB 501’ alongside Korg KR55, Roland TR-606, Yamaha RX5, a modular system and step sequencers. That is a release-wide equipment credit, not an allocation of a beat or voice to one track. The wording does not independently establish the exact specimen or whether the original rather than the later Pro was used; no distinctive sound or role is inferred from the list.
Sources
The visual archive