New Stuff and Updates

Let's start with the S-770. After spending a few days scratching my head, trying to figure out how to get this thing working, I finally found a solution. It is somewhat convoluted, but it works. Roland's website has the OS and a program for writing the startup disks. You will need a DD floppy disk though, and they aren't common. You can, however, format a "normal" 1.44MB HD floppy disk to 770kb. All you have to do is tape over the hole on the bottom right corner. This will make it read as a DD disk. If you are running Windows XP or later you can't format disks to 770kb DD. For that I used Alkonost MaxFormat, very useful for formatting floppies. After formatting the disk, write the OS with Roland's program and you are all set!

I ordered a SCSI Zip drive from Amazon and I dug up a bunch of old Zip disks. Now, instead of only having 40MB of storage, I will have hundreds of megabytes of storage. Lots of samples. I keep reading reviews of this thing, and it makes me more and more excited to start playing around with it:

Most impressive in 1990 was the S770, a 3U rackmount sampler that, nearly 15 years later, remains a superb instrument. It was 24-voice polyphonic, incorporated an internal hard disk drive, offered sample RAM that was expandable up to 16MB, had digital inputs and outputs, offered 20-bit A-D and D-A conversion, supported all the peripherals already launched, and was compatible with the existing S-series library. But it was not the S770's specification that held the two secrets of its excellence; these were rather more intangible. Firstly, there was the sample editing system, which was a hugely powerful and elegant synth in its own right, but which was overlooked by the public at large. Secondly, there was the audio quality. Thanks to a new reproduction method called Differential Interpolation, the S770 eliminated the grainy distortion that appeared when you played at low pitches on other manufacturers' samplers. Unfortunately, just as they had on the W30, Roland had missed a trick... once again, the S770's specification lacked the crucial words 'Akai' and 'compatible'. Had it been able to load and/or convert the Akai sample library, it might have gone on to become the new standard. But it didn't, so it didn't.

Akai can eat it.

In other news, a friend of mine pointed me to a website that sells PCBs for stomp box clones. I ordered a Zvex Woolly Mammoth clone and a fuzz that uses a 4049 chip (basically it sounds wild, unlike any other fuzz, its kind of like the Red Llama I was making earlier, which I abandoned). I also bought the parts for everything, so hopefully I'll have two new fuzz pedals to make loud guitar noises with.

Alos purchased: a parallel printer to USB adapter for my EPROM programmer. Oh yeah, apparently you need a parallel printer to use the EROM programmer, so the Ensoniq is still not working. Soon though, hopefully.

CAD

Whenever someone mentions CAD around me I immediately have a flashback to middle school where we had a tech course and learned how to use a CAD program; I think it was AutoCAD, but there is a good chance I am making that name up. That was my only experience with a CAD program for many years.

The Red Llama and Other

The Red Llama didn't make it into the Monster Guitar. OK. I have all of the parts to build it though, so I think I will build it. I'm not sure why it didn't work, but then again, I hardly expect anything I build to work on the first try. I just wanted the guitar to play. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out why it didn't work, its just a matter of sitting down with my DMM and prodding bits until I accidentally make it work.

I don't have an enclosure for it though, just a cheap Radio Shack metal box thing (otherwise known as a project enclosure, if you want to use real, big people phrases). It shall live there for now, maybe one day I'll but it a real enclosure. It will have to work first. the plan is to do this tomorrow. Or tonight, I dunno.

I also plan on swapping the middle humbucker in the Monster Guitar with a spare one I have hangin' about the apartment. Cause I want to. And its better.

The Monster Tamed

It was a wet and, well wet Saturday. I was feeling antsy and needed to do something. I needed to get something to work, anything really, and I didn't have a lot to spend buying $60+ worth of tubes. So I got into my car and headed to Guitar Center. After playing with the keyboards for an hour I headed to the check out counter and bought a new 5-way switch. Made by Fender, not a wacky Chinese company.

The "Monster" Guitar

This was my first guitar. I did not look like it does now. I think it was black.

Welcome!

Howdy!

Just starting this blog. Its goal: to follow my progress in all the various music-electronic projects I have going on. Many of them are long term tinkering and experimenting. I plan on updating whenever I work on something, highlighting my progress, the what and how (any why, if there is a why) of what I did. Hopefully there will be lots of pictures, drawings, and other fun stuff.

I'll start with a list of current projects I currently have on the table. Some of them I haven't the slightest idea what I'm doing, so it will be a learning process.

Anyway, here is the list:

• Fix a broken key on an Yamaha DX7
• Finish putting a distortion circuit in a guitar. The guitar is some Japanese Strat knock off (Aria Pro II, if it matters). The distortion is a Way Huge Red Llama.
• Build a guitar. This is a very long term project. I'm just in the planning phase now. It will be cool though.
• Troubleshoot a SLO 100 clone (or should it be a SLO 50? Its the 50 watt version) I built a while back. Somethings wrong, and I don't know what.

There will be much more detail on all of these individual projects as I get around to working on them. In the next week or so, depending on time, I'll post detailed explanations of what I'm doing and a few pictures of them. I also have a few other projects that I might start, but those will be kind of spontaneous. If I dont have time to work on things, I might post pictures of past projects.

And about me? Well, I majored in Audio Technology at American University. That doesn't mean a whole lot though. I developed a passion for playing with electronic things during that time, but I have always enjoyed taking things apart. I don't work in the audio field, but I do have a decent job (I also majored in International Relations, you know, liberal arts BS) that I enjoy, and it helps fund my projects, so there you go.

Enjoy!