I have a thing for drum machines (last count I had 11) but the one that started it all and is still a firm favourite is my circuit bent Kawai R-100. Even without the modifications it is dirty, punchy and agressive and its built like a tank. The majority of bends are usable and some are mind blowing. The r-50 has the same sound plus a few effects, but you lose most of the jacks and controls. There were 3 different sound chips available for both machines, and some 3rd party manufacturers made rom switch PCBs to allow you have more than one chip in a machine.
.bin files are available for each of these chips, so you can burn them onto a suitable eprom. The eprom required is a little unsual - 27c400, which required a 16 bit adapter for my burner. After months of pulling my hair out trying to get them to burn, which turned out to be due to a faulty adapter I now have a chip for each of the original roms. As you can see above I have also made my own rom switch PCB, which have just been sent to seeedstudio. I will evenutally have these boards for sale, including roms. I am working on making custom roms. I have been making an 808/909 kit. There are set sample lengths as each sample needs to start at the same point within the rom. I loaded a test rom with some of the sample slots filled and pitched samples sound great, but noise based samples like hats and crashes dont sound as I expected right now. I hope to make some progress in the next few days, certainly will have something to show for it by the time the rom switch PCBs arrive.
Hey.
ReplyDeleteThat's good news!
I have the R-100 with no mods whatsoever. It's a killer machine but I'm definitely in need of more sounds.
I've been looking for the R-50e solely for its ROM - to get those more electronic, industrial sounds.
Have you making any progress and when can we expect to buy some ROMs from you?
Best,
Henri
the kawai drum machines are great for industrial, you can hear it all over early ministry albums. With this rom switch you would have no need to buy an r50e, just drill a hole in the case for the switch and you can have all the sounds. There will be a proper post about this soon, I have a few projects going at once but this is one of them. I hope to have something worth saying in a day or two
ReplyDeleteExactly - the sound on Ministry's Twitch is what I'm going for.
ReplyDeleteMan I would hate to drill holes in my R-100! But it probably is worth it. I still think I'd be perfectly fine with switching the ROMs manually as well.
It would be sweet to see and hear the custom ROMs in action. If I could have a Drumtraks and an 808/909 kit in mine, I think I could live without the real ones.
Keep us posted.
Henri
When you say drill holes, seeing as you only want to ROM switch it not circuit bend it you would be drilling 1 single hole. I can understand not wanting to damage your device, but I would say you are far more likely to damage it if you have to dismantle it every time you want to change the ROMs - even though I must have pulled out thousands of chips in the past few years I still manage to bend pins every now and then
ReplyDeleteDid you ever get these to market? I’d love to mod my R100 with the extra ROMS!
ReplyDelete