Friday, March 26, 2010

Making drum sounds with an SH-101 and MC-202



Making drum sounds with an SH-101 and MC-202 with a little help of a TR-606. So I finally have my studio rebuilt and so I'm able once again to make videos. This time I'm showing how to use the SH-101 and MC-202 as percussion instruments. In the example I'm using a TR-606 to send triggers but you could use any trigger source to do this. If you don't have external triggers you could use the machines internal sequencers to trigger the sounds.

Friday, March 19, 2010

A Brief Intermission

There's going to be a short pause with the videos, the reason for this is that my studio is in a transitional stage. I just built a hackintosh and my old audio interface isn't working with it. A new one has been ordered but it hasn't arrived yet. Hopefully it will arrive sometime next week.

I guess this is a chance for me to reflect on what I'm going to do with the blog in the future. I may add some content related to some of the other machines in my studio since there's only so much I can show on the x0x stuff. We shall see, of course the empasis will still be on the x0x stuff but I think it might not be a bad idea to broaden the horizons a little from time to time. I may well start by adding more stuff about the modular, since thats one of my other passions.

Anyway, things will be moving again very soon so stay tuned.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Adding proper CV/Gate inputs to a Roland MC-202



For the final MC-202 modification in my little series, here's how to add proper cv/gate inputs. In the video I highlight the differences between the internal inputs (which are quantised by the cpu) and the modification.

This mod requires cutting traces, so a little extra care is needed. Be extra careful when working on the gate part since there's not much to solder to around the CPU. You'll have to scrape off some of the mask on the traces and wire direct to them. Take your time on this and be sure you have done it correctly before applying power to the machine.



Friday, March 5, 2010

A close up look at the Roland TR-808





Here's a two part video looking at the TR-808 features and programming. This is one of my favorite machines, with its pure analog tones and deep bass drum boom.