This manual shows how to install uniPulse in a Korg MiniPops 3 (aka Univox SR-55 and Aria Diamond) and trigger all 9 instruments via midi.
The installation is fairly simple and only requires soldering a few wires and parts into place, as well as drilling a hole for the midi socket.

Trigger connections

Here we see the 9 trigger points for the various instruments. These are trigger outputs P1-P9 from uniPulse directly soldered to the trigger points.

uniPulse power supply

In order to power the uniPulse you need to add a few parts, but it is rather simple. The following image shows how we added an additional diode resistor and capacitor in order to get a positive supply voltage for uniPulse. These parts are included in the kit on request. This is a 100uF capacitor, a 1N4148 diode and a 2k resistor. The resistor avoids high voltage spikes, its value is not critical. A 2.2k resistor can also be used.
As you can see the capacitor is connected to the black GND connection with its negative pin, the diode feeds a positive voltage to its positive pin. The resistor is soldered across the capacitor. The brown +V wire from uniPulse is connected to the positive side of the capacitor.

Ground connection (red GND wire from uniPulse) can be connected at the point seen below.

Installing the midi socket

Installing the midi socket is simple. A drill guide is included in the kit. Any location is fine, we chose to install the socket in the cable compartment of the machine. The white marking on the midi connector points inwards on the uniPulse board.

Config file upload

After installing uniPulse, turn on the machine and make sure the LED on the uniPulse is turned on. This means it has power and is running.
Connect midi and use the config tool to upload the following configuration.

Config file (right click, save as)

have fun!

It has come to our attention, that the Multivox FR6M is identical to the Roland TR-66.
Here is the TR-66 installation manual which should work perfectly provided this is indeed the case

Additionally, there are these posts by jlo form the Muffwiggler forum who has figured out how to trigger and sync the FR6M.

See his post here (scroll down a bit)

These instructions show how to connect the uniPulse to your MR-10 in order to trigger the instruments via midi.

These informations were sent to Tubbutec by a customer and could not be verified. They work for him and also make sense when looking at the schematics.

Connect uniPulse pins P1 .. P7 as shown in the picture above. Using the configurator, config all outputs as -8V, Rect or Open Rect, velocity link to voltage.

You can trigger the following instruments:

Bassdrum, snare, low tom, high tom, cymbal, hihat and high bongo

Getting power for the uniPulse is not as straight forward. The MR-10 has a strange -9V power supply. We therefore recommend to use an external 12V supply.

Alternatively, you can connect uniPulse as following: (However this has not been tested)
-9V from MR10 —> GND uniPulse
GND from MR10 —> +V uniPulse

In this case all triggers need to be set to +9V (not minus) and the velocity voltage link set to ‘Velocity R’

This is the instruction manual for installing uniPulse in a roland TR-808.
It adds the following features:

• Midi trigger of all instruments
• All instruments are fully velocity sensitive
• 5 Bonus sounds can be triggered as well
• Sync to midi clock, you can still use DIN-sync of course

When the sync switch is set to OUT, the 808 will output the internal clock via DIN-sync.
When set to IN, the 808 will be clocked via external DIN-sync when it receives a DIN-sync signal, otherwise by midi clock.
You can even use an Y-cable at the input to get a built in midi2din conversion.

Continue reading →

Features

• Midi trigger of all CR-78 instruments, most fully velocity sensitive. Guiro pitch can be controlled slightly.
• Midi controlled accent trigger (send max velocity 127 to trigger accent). Accent amount is still controllable via knob.
• Instrument mixer on CR-78 will continue to work.
• Sync via midi clock, switch between internal clock and midi clock via toggle switch.
• Use CR-78 Rhythms and midi control simultaneously.
• Not need to cut any traces, installation is completely reversible.

Get the kit in our shop (select Version: CR78)

Installation manual

The installation manual as PDF

Config file

Config file Download (Right click, save as)

Thanks to Jonas Olesen we now have a comprehensive uniPulse installation manual.
He also installed extra outputs and pitch mods which are of course optional, but recommended modifications.

Note from Tubbutec forum user Cyrano1 :
Note this is only for AV-64 MK-1 boards (->1979).
Auto-Vari 64 MK-2 board (1980) has completely redesigned unit on one single board with various ICs that is totally different.

The Hammond Auto vari 64 – Unipulse installation and modifications

By Jonas Olesen

some more info in this thread.

Caution!

The power wire in the back goes directly to exposed solder joints besides the transformer, BEFORE they go
into the transformer. This means that 220v is completely exposed – be careful.
I glued a piece of plastic on top of these joints.
The service manual is extremely well written and explains almost all circuits in detail, and combined with
the fact that all connections in the machine are marked with their functions in plain English, makes the
machine very easy to work with.

Installation of the Unipulse:

Very straightforward – simply cut the wires in the voiceboard connector and solder on the unipulse triggers and power. Then reinsert the connector.
[Tubbutec: We believe there is a way to avoid cutting wires, but lacking a machine we can not test this. If you own a machine and want to test this, please get in touch]

I attached the unipulse board to a piece of wood glued and screwed to the chassis.
Trig outputs 1-9 triggers the sounds, except brush and sandblock.

On the front of the Autovari I have installed 10 additional outputs from the Unipulse, so these can be used
to trigger / synch other machines. Please note that the back panel is too thick to attach minijack outputs,
The fron panel is thin metal, and there is a lot of space for outputs and additional potmeters here.
Midi input installed on the back besides audio outputs.

Small corrections to the Tubbutech voice board trigger points:

Bassdrum trigger: differs from the drawing, has to be Bassdrum besides it (has a wire)
Brush has no wire in the connector, it will probably trigger if the trace is followed underneath the voice
board, but I did not implement it. Strangely the Brush plays in the internal rhytems, although no visible wire
is connected to it via the voiceboard main connector.

Modifications:

Low frequency output:

Seperate output for the low frequency content.
Main output contains both hugh and low content – the balance pot located on the back is moved to the
front – from here the balance can be set to only high frequency content.
This way there are a seperate output for low and hugh content.

Pitch mods:

Easy and a must do!
I found the resistors by poking with alligator clips – the online scanned service manual is so low resolution,that the resistor numbers can not be read.
1: Bassdrum: Replace R4 with a 50k log pot
2: Snare drum low frequency: Replace R65 and R55 with a stereo 50k log pot
3: Conga: Replace R14 with a 50k log pot
4: Bongo. Replace R23 with a 50k log pot
5: Claves: R33 + R32 50k log Stereo pot (to obtain a wider pitch range)
6: Rimshot: Replace R40 with a 50k log pot
Cowbell: The cowbell consists of two seperate sounds:
7: Cowbell 1: Replace R50 with a 50k log pot.
8: Cowbell 2: Replace R58 with a 50k log pot.

Not implemented:

Sandblock CV trigger.
Brush trigger.
Decay mods.
Sync clock:
Not tested

Download the config file (you need to extract the pconf file from the zip file).

This manual describes how to add velocity sensitive midi to the Rhythm Ace FR6 using uniPulse.

Picture via Matrixsynth

This was not tested by us, but a friendly customer provided pictures and a schematic drawing for the sync circuit after a successful installation. Thaks to Pieter Vochten.

Configuration file is here. (Right click, save-as)

Trigger

The picture below shows the trigger point locations. Just solder uniPulse wires P1 – P8 to these points.

Board overview, Unipulse triggers soldered in place:

Board placement:

Connections on backside:

uniPulse power

Solder unipulse wire V+ to the V+ point shown in the picture below. Solder uniPulse GND to the V- point.

Clock and sync

Schematic diagramm, showing the clock and start/stop connections:

Clock connections, resistors not shown:

Transistor placement:

Start/stop connections in place:

This manual shows how to connect uniPulse to the Ace Tone Rhythm Ace FR-1. It is possible to control all 10 drum voices via midi and they are velocity sensitive.
It is even possible to control the Brush sound in a velocity sensitive way.

Trigger

Here you can see the voice board with the connections of uniPulse triggers P1-P10. The brush control needs a general purpose PNP transistor such as BC557 and a 56k resistor. Connect them them just the way it shown in the picture.
B, C, and E are the Base, Collector and Emitter of the transistor.
Connect the base to point B, the emitter to point E and the collector to uniPulse CV-out via a 56k resistor. The 56k resistor is not connected to the 470k resistor on the board, it only looks like that in the picture.

Continue reading →

Trigger the voices

Here you can see the trigger points for the Maestro Rhythm King.
In the upper right corner you can also see the +12V power supply for uniPulse.

Here is a picture of the voice board.A kind person from 9bit.se sent us this annotated version:

Interfacing the clock

The following created by our customer James Lo who did an awesome job interfacing the Maestro Rhythm Kings unusual clock circuit.

These instructions show a way to inject uniPulse sync clock and sync gate signals into a Maestro Rhythm King MRK-2. This is the MRK-2:

The MRK-2 has the unusual feature that it changes internal clock speed dependent on whether triplet or 16^th note beats are selected. The circuit also encapsulates one of the more convenient clock injection points inside an RC network SIP, so we have to resort to unusual means. My solution parallels the transistors that comprise the “clock multivibrator” and selects the correct sync pulse based on the current beat. Here is a schematic-view of the points we will be attaching to:

Next is a component-view of those same points. The board containing the clock circuit is underneath the voice board, which can be easily removed to gain access.

To interface the uniPulse to the MRK-2, the uniPulse triplet and 16^th note sync pulses are first level-shifted to the MRK-2’s v+ (~19V), and then one is selected by the triplet switch position (which is itself set by the current beat). The chosen pulse is used to drive a pair of BJTs that take over from the MRK-2’s clock multivibrator transistors. The MRK-2’s transistors are disabled by shorting their bases to ground via diodes, and the BJTs are enabled by shorting their sources to ground via diodes. Finally, the sync gate is used to switch v+ to the MRK-2’s start signal bus, mirroring the function of the start footswitch.

Here’s the uniPulse configuration:

The MRK-2’s clock multivibrator produces 15ms positive and negative pulses at all frequencies, so its duty cycle is frequency dependent. The uniPulse sync clock however is a square wave, but it doesn’t seem to matter. It’s possible to switch between duple and triplet beats while the machine is running, but you risk losing sync alignment. Note that the selection of active components isn’t particularly sensitive; you could, for instance, substitute a CD4011 for the CD4093. I just used garden variety small signal transistors I had left over from previous projects.

One known issue is that the clock rate is not quite right for the waltz and swing waltz beats.