Midi for Roland RS-202 – organDonor

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organDonor installed in a Roland RS-202

Overview

The RS-202 version of organDonor offers the following features:

  • Fully polyphonic midi input for all 60 notes
  • Optional learn button to set midi channel and keyboard offset.

Installation

The installation is relatively simple, but does require basic soldering skills. You will need to drill a hole for the midi socket.
Installation instructions can be found in this PDF.

User guide

Setting midi channel and keyboard offset

If the optional learn button is installed, it can be used to quickly change the midi receive channel and the keyboard offset of organDonor.

Connect midi out of a computer or keyboard to midi in of organDonor. Make sure not to send any notes.
Press the learn button and while it is pressed send a midi note on any midi channel. organDonor will set this note as the lowest note of the synthesizer and use its midi channel. These settings are saved.

Playing notes

Send midi notes on the configured midi channel (see above)

6m0d6 production – Update December

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Last month there was a lot of progress, you can read about it here:
6m0d6 – Production progress November 21

Since then we

– Received the panels
– And have a date for the SMD assembly. End of this week and the coming week our boards will be assembled by a company here in Berlin.
However we are still waiting for the potentiometers, so they can not do the THT assembly yet.
– We are still busy though: Working on a printed manual, finishing the firmware, taking care of packaging and distribution.

6m0d6 – Production progress November 21

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Here is an update of the 6m0d6 module production progress.
Since we showed the module at Superbooth and started taking preorders we have:

  • Received all switches for production
  • Received processors for production
  • Received several small parts such as screws and nuts (we use very fancy nuts for the pots)
  • Finalized the front panel, had a sample produced and ordered panels for the first batch
  • Finalized the PCB. We implemented a few improvements to reduce noise and allow even better dynamic playing (video coming soon). We also had to change to another opamp footprint (part shortage, see below)
  • Confirmed the final design by building yet another prototype (rev 5) and ordered all PCBs
  • Improved the software and now have velocity control via midi
  • Designed and build production tooling (like soldering jigs), created assembly instructions.
  • Talked to our assembly house here in Berlin so they can start production.

Bad news: We are still waiting for the potentiometers and do not have a confirmed ETA just yet.

Good news: We will start with SMD production nevertheless, so we can perform the final soldering step as soon as the pots arrive. We are very happy that despite the current shortage of electronic parts we were able to source all components and can start assembly. Some parts were incredibly hard to get (for example processors, opamps) and cost us many hours of research, nerves and board redesigns.

Update: 18.11.21:

We received the PCBs and all parts are now being sent to our assembly  house.

Hohner Rhythm 80 Midi with uniPulse

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This manual describes how to use and install the uniPulse midi interface in a Hohner Rhythm 80 drum machine.

Installation requires soldering some wires and drilling holes for the midi socket. However no need to cut any traces.

midi socket installed in a rhthm 80

Picture by Beatkamp

After installation you will be able to trigger all sounds via midi, most velocity sensitive.

Bass Drum
Snare
Hihat
Cymbal
Maracas
Low Conga
Low Bongo
High Bongo
Claves
Cow Bell

Installation

Unplug the Rhythm 80 when working on it!
After opening up the enclosure, you are presented with the following view of the boards:

Continue reading →

Hohner Automatic Rhythm Player Midi

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This manual describes how to install our uniPulse midi retrofit in a Hohner Automatic Rhythm Player.
After installation you will be able to trigger all 10 sounds, most of them fully velocity sensitive. You will not be able to sync the internal rhythms to midi clock however.

Soldering pulse triggers

Installation is fairly simply and requires you to solder 10 wires from uniPulse to points on the Rhythm Player voice board. These are P1-10 and CV (as labelled on the back of the uniPulse board). The black P7 wire is not used.

Unplug the machine, remove the slotted screws and open it. Then solder the wires as shown in the following pictures. The “CV” connection used for the Maracas needs an additional diode. Any Diode is fine here. As you can see, the cathode of the diode (marking) connects to the cathode of the existing diode.

Installing uniPulse GND and VCC

The supply voltage connetions for uniPulse are GND and VCC. Note that the GND wire is red and the VCC wire is brown, unlike normal conventions.
The following pictures show the locations to solder the VCC and GND wires:

INstalling the midi socket

In order to install the midi socket you need to drill 3 holes. A stencil for drilling is provided. For the large hole you can use a stepping drill. Now mount the socket using the screws provided.

Mounting the unipulse board

You can mount the uniPulse board anywhere in the machine. We decided to use thick double sided tape to mount it on the rear. Make sure the board can not short to the metal chassis.

first start

After installation, plug in the machine and turn it on. The LED on the uniPulse board should light up indicating proper power connection. Using the uniPulse configurator tool, upload config file for the Hohner Rhythm Player (zipped, extract before opening in the configurator)

That’s it! have fun!