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Kawai R-50 Drum Destruction Patchbay Mods: £65
80's drum machines, don't you just love them? Pure 12 bit filth for every sound. The Kawai R-50 could be seen as a direct competitor to the Roland TR-505 except it has more sounds, flange & short delay FX, is far more editable (pan, tune, gate and accent amount for each sound), an extra assignable output, vastly superior build quality and has a decent swing control. Basically it pisses all over the 505 so we don't quite understand why the 505 is so popular and few people have ever heard of the R-50. Could it be because it doesn't say Roland on it?
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The modifications for this machine are as follows:
20 way Drum Destruction patchbay: This is a minijack patchbay mounted on the front of the machine. When connections are made between the sockets using patch cables the sounds vomiting forth from the machine are transformed with ring modulation, chopping, distortion and all kinds of general weirdness. Each connection produces a different effect and multiple connections can be made at any one time for further percussion grinding options.
2X3 way patching multiples: Two sets of three sockets which are connected together internally. Basically each multiple allows you to connect one patchbay source to two destinations on the main patchbay further multiplying the sounds available.
2X Patchable Switches: these are two switches connected to two sockets each. They can be patched in line with any main patchbay connection to allow you to turn an effect on or off at the flick of a switch instead of having to repatch any cables.
Click on the demo's below to hear mp3's of what these mods can do.
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KORG DDD-5 Percussion Grinder Mods: £75
These mods turn a fairly average 80's drum machine into a savage beast of a percussion monster. The mods basically consist of a 24 way minijack patchbay housed in an external box bolted onto the right hand side of the machine. 2 Patchable switches are also included above the main patchbay. Each switch can be patched 'in line' with any main patchbay connection allowing you to turn a connection on and off at the flick of a switch instead of having to repatch cables.
2X3 way multiples below the main patchbay act the same as a patching multiple you would find on a modular synthesiser. Each group of three sockets is connected together internally. This means that any signal present at one socket is also available at the other two. This feature is useful for connecting one main patchbay socket to two other sockets or vice versa.
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Any connection made between any of the phono sockets on the main 24 way patchbay causes all manner of insane disruption effects to be applied to individual or multiple drum sounds. These are the kind of sounds that people like Nine Inch Nails and Aphex Twin spend weeks creating using a huge rack of effects and samplers. Anything from ring modulation and distortion to MIDI glitching and odd pitch shifting is possible.
There is nothing to stop you from using multiple patchbay connections to mangle the sounds thus expanding the machines creative potential from 26 sounds to thousands of different percussive hits and textures.
Click on the demo's below to hear mp3's of what these mods can do.
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Yamaha DD-6 Drum Machine Percussion Grinder Mods: £70
The Yamaha DD-6 is one of those unrecognized classics that virtually every electronic musician seems to have owned at some point but couldn't actually tell you where it went. At circuitbenders we must have owned about 20 of these machines between us in our lives and yet they all vanished without a trace. Weird!
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The DD-6 mods consist of:
3 Sound reverse switches: These switches cause different sounds in the preset loops to play in reverse. Each switch reverses different groups of sounds in isolation or in groups when multiple switches are used. The only drawback of this feature is that when you use the switches it tends to disable the drum pads until you restart the machine so we have provided:
Reset Button: Pressing this button briefly disconnects the power from the machine and restarts it. This is useful either when you have used the reverse switches and you want the pads to start working again or when things get a little too chaotic and you need a panic button.
20 way minijack patchbay: Connections made between the patchbay sockets with standard minijack leads cause all kinds of disruption, ring modulation, distortion and random noise to be applied to the onboard sounds. Each connection has a different effect and multiple connections can be made at any time. The effects are applied to both the preset loops and the drum pad sounds.
2 Patchable switches: These are two switches with two jack sockets each. Essentially this enables you to patch a switch in-line with any main patchbay connection so you can turn an effect on and off at a flick of a switch without having to repatch any cables.
Envelope LEDS: These are two LED's on the front panel that flash in time with the audio output with a brightness that depends on the audio volume.
Click on play for an mp3 demo.
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We're working on a new contact system, in the meantime if you want your machine modded, click the button on the left and fill in the form on the page that opens. |
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Alternatively sign up at the circuitbenders.co.uk forum for the latest information and circuitbending related nonsense. |
