Circuitbenders Forum
Circuitbenders Forum => Circuitbending discussion => Synths & Samplers => Topic started by: the_zombiest on August 15, 2006, 07:53:12 PM
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Just got one. I'm a shade dissapointed with it, but i'm aiming to wrecktifiy that.
Does anyone know of any good bends for this machine? I haven't had chance to probe it much, and I came up with nothing aside from triggering the keys, but i did only spend 30 minutes messing with it.
any advice is always appreciated.
Cheers
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it's an 'sk' so will have those lovely bendy chips in there somehwere....
it's a chip pin to chip pin bending paradise. ;) enough there for a patch bay and washing machine...
is the sk-60 the bigger one with the longer sampling time? by longer i mean more than 1.4seconds.
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it's the wider one with no line in or line out.... not which that's a problem.
(http://www.tonymason.com/casio/images/sk60.jpg)
it's got some really nice features, but it's not an SK-1 which is what I really want.
There's a feature on this in Ghazala's book, so i'm going to do those bends and then some more if i can find em.
it has bugger all space inside the case. kinda like the SA-1 where you mount the controls on the overhang.
I'll see what I can do and I'll post pics and samples when it's finished :)
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Try checking out the Yahoo groups Casio SK forum, although its for the SK5 and SK8, there's lots of bends that will be applicable to the SK60:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/CasioSK/
From the specs I have read on the SK60, it seems more related circuit-wise to the SK5 and SK8 than the SK1, like 4 samples, samples are retained by batteries, long sample time:
http://www.tonymason.com/casio/sk60.cfm
Cheers, Graham
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picked up a sk-60 this morning from a car booty.
any updates on how you bent this thing mr zombie? is it easy to add in/out jacks? there's not much on the web about bending this little sampling wonder.
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Adding in and out is as easy as you'd expect.
The only bends I found affected the sampling side of things.
They were fairly decent but tempermental.
When I was probing most other points crashed it with a lovely pop and occasionally some sparks.
I got really frustrated with this keyboard and sold it on.
I hope you have more luck with yours.
It might be worth exchanging the ceramic res. with an oscillator to get the pitch drop...
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thanks for the reply.
shame you found the sk60 so frustrating. it is right annoying when you keep getting crashes during bending experiments....
anyone else have any experience with it? it's a fine sounding little sampler in its virgin state so it would be great to get it mangling and mashing...
i'll post up any results (if i find any) here once i get some time to poke around in it.
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Andy,
Try doing a line in mod on it, so you can get better quality sampling with it than the inbuilt mic. The sampling specs for the SK60 are significantly better than any of the other sk's - 13KHz sampling as opposed to 9.3kHz. It would almost be a useful real sampler with that. You can also bypass the anti-aliasing filter on the output for even better quality. The yamaha vss30 is only a little better than that at 16k, but it doesn't keep the samples when you power off, unlike the sk60.
I've been keeping my eye on SK60's lately, and I think that although there are less features than the other sk's, most of the sk bends should work on it. I plan to get one and do a memeory expansion on it, like my sk8.
Cheers, Graham
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doing some searching around the net resulted in very little info on bending the sk-60. reed 'that's $3500 to you mate' ghazala has a chapter in his book about it but i've never felt like buying that.
i did find a thread about it on the yahoo benders group, started by our very own crustypaul. unfortunately, he seemed to have the same sort of experience as zombie had- eg, no bendy joy.... i think it uses very different tech to the earlier sk's and just isn't as bend friendly.
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Hi andy - I have Gazhala's book, though I don't have a scanner so I see what I can do. I will have a look tonight and post later :)
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Andy if you can scan or photograph the board and post it here I can mark on the points that are in the book (I know I should really buy myself a scanner)!
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nice one! i'll get a photo of the board posted in a bit....
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here you go:
(http://www.andywheels.f2s.com/sk60_board.jpg)
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If I remember rightly, this is the area that affects the samples.... but I could be wrong. I have gazhalas' book somewhere... if I find it, i'll let you know for sure.
You'll need a small pot n' resistor (maybe) in line.
This is a crash monster but the samples are damn fine and variable to a degree.
Hope my vagueness helps...
(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b125/lukefeelstheforce/sk60_board.jpg)
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(http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p231/iqoruvuc/sk60_board.jpg)
Each of the ten points from the IC make connection with the pot. The actual point on the board to solder the connection for the pot seems missing on the board scan! There are three points in a vertical row in the book close together and the point you need is the one in the middle, though it is not there :D.
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thanks for the help guys.
so all ten points of the ic go to just one pot?? weird... how did he ever work that one out?
i read somewhere that reed also mentions you can fry the machine somehow using his bends. is this true?
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I think that's with his reset button.
He warns against holding it down to reset but just lightly tapping it instead.
Out of those 10 points, half of them are identical to the other half ::)
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Andy,
While you've got your sk60 open, could you tell me what the writing on the RAM chip is? If I can find out what the RAM is, I may be able to see if it's possible to do a sample memory expansion on it, like the sk8.
The RAM chip should be a 28 pin chip, perhaps with the number 256 amongst the numbers.
Cheers, Graham
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Hey Mr. Wheels...
Have you found anything spectacular in the Sk60 yet?
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I recently got a SK-60, I hear I am lucky, since they are rare in the USA!
The sound quality is wonderful, but as others have said here, the only reliable bends seem to deal with
the sampling functions only, but power supply mess should do something!
Luckily, it uses an external ram; 1 pin is clearly R/W select, all the others are data lines!!
If you slow the clock speed down, you can get longer sampling times than 6 seconds, but it sounds crap, in a good way
I was able to get at least 20 seconds out of it this way, and the lower clock makes the KB sound cooler!!
Will post sounds when I have time...
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Hi bendboy,
So what did you use to slow the clock down?
If you open your sk60 up again sometime soon, can you write down what's on the RAM chip and let me know? I'm itching to do a sample memory expansion on one of these.
Cheers, Graham
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I've just got information about the SK60 RAM chip, it's a Hitachi HM62256BLSP-8 256k (32x8kbit) SRAM. This means that you can do the same sample memory expansion on this thing just like on the SK5/SK8, sweet ;D
The way to do this is to download the SK5/8 sample memory expansion instructions from the Yahoo SK groups site, in a folder labelled "32x memory expansion":
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/CasioSK/files/
But you'll need to join the group in order to access and download from the files section (may as well, there are lots of other goodies there for the SK's)
You can basically follow the assembly instructions word for word to suit the SK60, except for mounting the RAM socket. Here, the SK60 SRAM (the HM62256BLSP-8) is a narrower chip than the larger and wider Texas Instruments BQ4016y 8MBit NVRAM chip for the 32x expansion. You'll need to solder wires to the legs of the socket for the new BQ4016y chip, then bend inward and solder the wires into the circuit board holes where the original chip used to be. Now, you can plug the new chip into the socket on the board. From then on, it's straightforward as per the instructions.
Cheers, Graham
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Andy,
While you've got your sk60 open, could you tell me what the writing on the RAM chip is? If I can find out what the RAM is, I may be able to see if it's possible to do a sample memory expansion on it, like the sk8.
The RAM chip should be a 28 pin chip, perhaps with the number 256 amongst the numbers.
Cheers, Graham
sorry to have been so useless at getting back to you about the ram chip... i've been busy and then went on holiday for a couple of weeks. glad to see you found out the info you needed without my help.
i've yet to start poking around in my sk60. maybe this week...
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If i recall correctly what you want to do on the SK60 is to sample a sound and them make some shorts between the RAM chip pins. If you sample a new sound over the top and then disconnect the shorts then the first sound and the new sound will be spliced into each other in all kinds of wierd ways. You can do this oever and over again reversing and effecting the old sound for some fantastic sequenced loops.
Kind of like circuitbent wavesequencing. ;)
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(http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p231/iqoruvuc/sk60_board.jpg)
Each of the ten points from the IC make connection with the pot. The actual point on the board to solder the connection for the pot seems missing on the board scan! There are three points in a vertical row in the book close together and the point you need is the one in the middle, though it is not there :D.
the marked points arn't the pins of the ic. they are just a line of r's. am i right?
but if i bend my sk-60 i have take the ram-pins? all pins on one pot??
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Luckily, it uses an external ram; 1 pin is clearly R/W select, all the others are data lines!!
If you slow the clock speed down, you can get longer sampling times than 6 seconds, but it sounds crap, in a good way
I was able to get at least 20 seconds out of it this way, and the lower clock makes the KB sound cooler!!
Will post sounds when I have time...
please, tell me, how can i reduce the sampleclock.
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does anyone know some additional bendings to the ones of ghazala. these mods i already made. line in and line out i also installed.
matthias
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clockspeed = prob something to do with replacing the crystal ?
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but where is the crystal.
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Be sure to try messing with the ram pins WHILE recording, the effects are even stranger....
The clock is a metal can on the TOP of the board, look at the picture posted here, it is at the top, just left and up from the big ic chio. The board has to be flipped over. I think it is a 22 or 28MHZ, VERY fast! put in a 14 or 7 or 3.58 color crystal-this keyboard can really sound evil and menacing...clocked down.
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could anybody give me some working bending points on the ram chip. it's very hard to find them, because the circuit does not work if it's not in the keyboard.
thanks a lot,
matthias
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Just bridge the on/off switch with a bit of wire and it'll stay on all the time even with the front off.
You should probably also wire in a push to break reset button in line with the power supply so you can actually turn it off and restart it if it does crash.
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has anybody an idea how to make a trigger-input in sk-60? all the ram bends are ready! what a crazy loop machine...
thanks a lot,
matthias