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[Neil_M]

Hi,

I've just got hold of an Akai S01, paid less than a 20th of what it cost me back in the day! I remember taking the time to study the manual and learn every feature inside out...it took well over six minutes to thoroughly master the beast 

Anyway, this site has convinced me that bending this machine is certainly worthwhile - unfortunately my carefree disposable income days are over otherwise I would have gladly paid for Mr CircuitBender to sort it for me.

There's obviously some great tips on this site plus a very helpful blog post by Morgan Hendry specifically related to the S01. However, having quite literally scoured every page of this forum I still have a few queries as follows:

1. I've seen a couple of references to connecting patchbay points to all the pins on ram chips - surely connecting some of these together isn't a good idea, especially the Vcc and Vss pins (supply and ground)?? It would seem wise to ignore these pins but then again I don't want to miss out on any interesting bend points.

2. When connecting various points on ram chips is there any merit in adding in potentiometers? Do these change the amount of 'glitch' being applied or is it just on or off? Thinking it would be easy to add some pots onto the front panel of the patchbay for extra flexibility along with momentarys/switches/multipliers.

3. The pin diagram for the S01 ram chip mentions address inputs, data i/o pins, chip enable input (clock), output enable/refresh and write enable. These all seem like interesting points to connect but are any of these likely to be useless in terms of useable audio effects?

4. Are there likely to be any further points on the board worth looking at? I'm thinking that the ram bends will provide enough options on their own unless anyone suggests otherwise...

I do realise that some if you will say why not just open it up and experiment which is fair enough but I'd like to go in as thoroughly prepared as possible. I'm not a very successful gambler so wont be doing any prodding around whilst the machine is switched on.

Hopefully any answers to the above will also help people with similar ram chip synths/samplers.

Cheers.

[Circuitbenders]

I don't have have my S01 notes with me at the moment, but:

1 - You could use every pin, but you will get a few crashes and potentially lethal (to the S01, not you) connections. I'd usually use just he ground rather than the positive supply pin or both, due to the danger of accidentally shorting the power rail. Unless of course you use a switch with the ground connected to one side and supply to the other, so you can't use them both at once.

2 - Its digital. Its either on or off so i doubt a pot is going to make any difference. You can't have a slightly less on or off. Give it a go though.

3 - The address and data pins will give you the best results.

4 - I guess you might get some distortion from the output stage, but i generally don't bother and stick with the RAM.

[Neil_M]

Thanks for the advice, very much appreciated 

I like the idea of putting a switch between the ground and supply pins so that patch points can only connect to one or the other. Would be very interested to see whether your S01 notes mention any other connections to be avoided.....