YAMAHA R100 REVERB MODS: £110
(Installed on your machine by circuitbenders)
If you've made it here then you've presumably just discovered, or you are just about to discover the problem with fairly obscure Yamaha kit. This is mainly that because Yamaha produce a vast range of what we can only call 'stuff', they also make a Hi-fi stereo receiver called the R100, another reverb called the REV100, and motorbikes called the RX100 and RS100, along with any number of R1000, or RN1000 amps and god knows what else. The drawback of all this is that companies like ebay and google think they're being helpful by including every single one of these results. Try searching for Yamaha R100 on ebay... theres currently 2200 results on the UK site. A total of 18 of them are in the music gear department, and half of those are Kawai R100 drum machine listings!
Anyway, with that small, but mildly infuriating irritation out of the way... The Yamaha R100 is pretty much a stripped down REX50 that only features the reverbs and a selection of delay effects, but none of the modulation, distortion or ridiculously bad ( or weirdly usable if you don't use it for the stated purpose) pitch shifting effects. Its not exactly the same hardware, but its pretty close and you'd have to suspect that the same reverb firmware was reused. None of the reverbs or delays are what would be classed today as being smooth or transparent, or any number of other inexplicable adjectives, but they are pretty much exactly what people are looking for when they refer to Lo-FI or grainy effects. Theres a certain magic to these things that no more modern reverb or plugin can get anywhere near. Obviously they're objectively shit... but like the REX50 theres just something kind of pleasing about them that just makes you want to listen.
Our mods have added a 4x4 RAM glitching matrix (16 switches), a RAM loop switch, and a reclocking knob.
The switching matrix operates on both the reverb and the delay effects. Using various switching combinations it allows you to apply what sounds like a wide range of comb filters, audio chopping, bit crushing, distortion, and what can only be described as audio smearing™. Each switch has a certain effect variation that is usually associated with it, such as a certain rate of chopping or aliasing frequency, although its effect can often be altered depending on which other switches are activated simultaneously. You have to activate more than one switch at a time for any new effect to be applied, but when two or more switches are activated their associated effects will combine to produce something new.
The reclocking knob sets the system clock speed of the RAM and both the ADC and DAC converters. This means it will extend the reverb and delay times to a degree way outside of what would normally be possible. Reverbs can be altered from short metallic ambiances at the upper settings, to massive washes of grainy and crunchy disconnected sound at the bottom, just by turning the knob.
The reclocking knob also controls the clock rate of the converters, so it also changes the sample rate of the audio. At higher than normal clock settings the audio quality is actually better than the stock machine, but with the actual effects in bypass mode the audio is still passing through the converters and the R100 can still be clocked down. This allows you to use the unit as a fully adjustable standalone bit crusher.
A small silver dot is added to mark the point around the knob where the unit is set to its normal system operation frequency
The RAM loop switch grabs whatever is in the sample RAM for the effects at the time of activation, and loops it around endlessly until the switch is deactivated and normal effects resume. The switch matrix still effects the audio as the RAM loops around, often cutting, splicing and distorting the RAM loop into smaller looping sections. This usually happens in a non destructive manner, so the loop is still intact when the switches are released.
Take a listen to the demo below to hear the kind of effects that this thing can produce.
If you want your Yamaha R100 modded get in touch using the CONTACT form.