Midified CR78 and TR606 sound demos

Posted on 26.02.2013 by tubbutec

Here are two sound demos of a TR606 and a CR78 I midified.

Note the full velocity sensitivity capability of the 606 and the pseudo-velocity sensitivity of the CR78.

Some more infos about the CR78 mod:

Depending on the midi velocity sent to the device, the master volume is adjusted. That is of course not the same as full velocity sensitivity, but gives you a surprisingly great amount of flexibility. Think of the 808 for example which has one accent track – this is similar, but you can adjust the accent on the fly.

Polysix mod prototype boards arrived

Posted on 05.02.2013 by tubbutec

Good news!

The prototype boards for the Polysix mod finally arrived from the manufacturer after four long weeks of waiting. I will run some tests, see if everything works as it should and then go into production.

So you’ll be able to get the kit soon 🙂

Adding output capability to a 10€ logic analyser

Posted on 09.01.2013 by tubbutec

What is this?

I got myself one of these cheap USB logic analyses for about 10€. You can order these directly from china, free shipping, for example at dealextreme or aliexpress.

Unfortunately the hardware only supports digital input but not digital output even though the software does. But as it turns out you can add output capability with a nice small hack. This way you get a logic analyzer, a frequency generator, frequency counter, PWM generator, arbitrary digital signal generator,….! All in one.

The hardware of the LA basically consists of a CY7C6813A which handles the USB communication and a HC245 bidirectional bus driver. Yes bidirectional! A little debugging showed that the CY7C6813A as a matter of fact does output digital signals, when requested by software.

The only problem is, that the direction pin of the HC245 is hardwired to input mode.

Howto

You need:

A soldering iron with a small tip
A 10k resistor (or any other value between, let’s say 10k and 100k)
Some enamelled copper wire
A little switch
maybe some super glue

Take a knife or a scalpel and cut the trace marked in red. Solder the resistor to the contact marked as GND and use the enamelled copper wire to connect it to the pin which was connected to the trace you cut.

Take a small switch – I just took what I had lying around – and connect it to VCC and to the direction pin.

You can use the knive to cut an opening for the switch into the case and then use the super glue to glue it in. Done…

So now you can switch between input and output mode. Just be careful not to leave any outputs connected to the device when putting it into output mode.

(I used hot glue instead of super glue so it looks kind of ugly, but I don’t care 😉

This is a 1Mhz signal at the output:

Have fun!!

There is a nice writeup about which software you can use on the ePanorama Blog

update: A lot of people (including myself) had problems with the USB cable that came with the LA. I couldn’t even charge my phone properly with it. So if you ever experience problems with high sample rates, glitches, etc, replace it.

Modified TR-505

Posted on 29.12.2012 by tubbutec

One of my early works from 2007…

my trusty modified Roland TR-505!!

Apart from a couple of bends (the 10 switches on the top), you can tune all the differnt percussion instruments, plus a master pitch up.

So far nothing new, but there are also two LFOs with adjustable speed and amount which you can route to the instrument pitch.

Down on the side are some Leds which light up if an instrument is played. Each instrument has its own Led and the Bassdrum has 5 Blue Leds for its own.

Warning: Old and crappy video

tr-606 extension box

Posted on 06.10.2011 by tubbutec

My new 606 mod. I included some features that I think are new to the world.

Cymbal and open hihat got an attack/decay envelope which is fully sensitive to velocity. This gives you independent control over the attack and decay times and the volume of the instrument.

Also I added a ring mod variant to the existing six hihat/cymbal oscillators using XORs. Gives you a great range of metallic sounds.

Audio soon to come…

Features:

-Open Hihat attack, decay [velocity sensitive!!]
-Cymbal attack, decay [velocity sensitive!!]
-Control pitch of two oscillators for the cymbal and hihat metal sound
-Chose hihat sound to be, oscillators, two oscillators with ringmod, four oscillators with ringmod, mix
-Adjust hihat highpass
-Adjust cymbal highpass
-Adjust hihat+cymbal bandpass
-Adjust cymbal bandpass
-Low tom pitch
-Switch tom noise
-Snare noise amount
-Snare tune
-Snare decay
-Snare highpass filter

mc-202 mod

Posted on 06.10.2011 by tubbutec

Features:

-Midi-In (controls pitch, vca att., vcf att, filter, pw)
-Adjust VCF and VCA attack independently
-Extended LFO Range (100Hz to 0.1Hz)
-Filter moulation (chose between 15 different modes and sources)
-Distortion
-Ext. audio in
-Triangle waveform

New envelope for tr-606, tr-808 hihat and cymbal

Posted on 05.10.2011 by tubbutec

Have been working on a velocity sensitive AR-envelope for TR-606 and TR-808. Attack and Release times can be adjusted between 1ms and 5s and of course the open hihat can be cut by the closed hihat.

Simulation results look very promising:

Bent Furby

Posted on 26.05.2011 by tubbutec

Polysix pseudo portamento and spread detune mod

Posted on 27.05.2010 by tubbutec

Polysix mod by Tubbutec from Tubbutec on Vimeo.

More info coming soon!

Midi for Acetone Rythm Ace drum machines

Posted on 30.03.2010 by tubbutec

we now offer to add midi input for Acetone Rythm Ace and similar drum machines.

An example: This is a Goya Melodic Rhythmer an analogue drum machine built into a guitar amplifier case. But is is not only very similar to the Acetone Rythm Ace, it also uses the same PCB ! So it is basically a RythmAce for cheap (but sounds the same).
The picture shows my own unit in my studio, it has been modified and now has midi input. Also the original lights at the front had been substituted by bright red LEDs. The downbeat indicator now blinks in sync with the midi clock.