Roland R8 / THE S-CAT HILARITY THREAD!

[Signal:Noise]

ooooh the cheek

[LoneStar81]

Whahaha and it goes on.
I'm surprised that someone who claims to have bent an R-8 needs advice for an R-5.

In the meanwhile, I have bent my second R-5. It's the same standard procedure as I described in my posts about the R-8 bend, find sound roms (there are two just side by side, 28pin or 32pin, don't remember) and do the usual shorting. The FTQP or what-wasit-called SMD chip nearby seems to be the usual gate array Roland always uses, and has the most interesting ones. Sorry that I can't supply any pictures at the moment, but any half-experienced bender should be able to easily do an R-5 like that.

At the back there is space for a DB25 connector conviently just above/behind the solder side of the sound roms, you just have to cut out the metal reinforcment plate for that. I built an external box which connects like that. Apart from the mechanical work, I have to say all in all an R-5 is pretty easy to bend and sounds all fun again:

http://lonestar.madtracker.net/Musix/TR-5.mp3

And now get out your R-5s and have fun!

EDIT: I have found a pic of my first R-5



On this one I fit the DB25 connector to the side, but from that view below the sound roms there is the space I talked about.
That pic should help to locate everything needed.

[SineHacker]

keep watching the fury creature grow? 

[Circuitbenders]

keep watching the fury creature grow? 

It passes the time i guess 



Lonestar81, can you start another topic on the R5 as i suspect a few people might be interested, or stick some details in your R8 thread. Your pictures don't seem to be showiing up for me for some reason.

[LoneStar81]

Your pictures don't seem to be showiing up for me for some reason.

Fixed

[S-CAT]

Oh dear god, i think i might piss myself laughing!

Sorry to ressurect this thread once again but i just got an email from one Abigael Saward asking me if i have any plans for the Roland R5 available. A little research reveals that someone of that name just so happens to be the wife of one Arron Courts, who some of you might know as S-CAT! 

After their complete and utter point blank refusal to give any details of any of their mods the irony is crippling me. 

Hello, It is me again.
I am very sorry to anyone who may be offended by my past comments on this site and would like to appologise in full. In reference to the above post...I contacted the forum to ask about the Roland R-5 mods, in hope of being able to come back on the site, we had previously modified a Roland R-5 which was around 2 or thre months before asking this leading question. Here is a link to the video...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2sBkJ8V7Gg

Arron

[S-CAT]

And anyway, I bet the R8 *is* bendable if you know how to go about it.  You're probably going to have to do more than just short wires across the pins of chips though.

I reckon changing the samples would be easy, too.

As you can see from the pictures above of the R-8 it is as simple as short wiring across the chips, sometimes it is best to not know what you are doing to start with and then back track once your confidence grows, it works for us.

[S-CAT]

well that was disappointing.

Allow me to quote from the forum rules:

* Forum Members that post details of their bent machines but persistantly refuse to supply any information on how their mods were performed when asked, will be warned and then banned. This forum is for the exchange of information and tips not gratuitous self promotion.

* Abusive and obnoxious behaviour will not be tolerated.

You fail on both counts i'm afraid.

Could you quote an obnoxious message that I had left on this site, just so that I know what got me banned in the first place?

[S-CAT]

Has anyone else seen s-cats other ebay account selling all the stuff he's broken trying to bend it. I won't put a link up as it will just get removed but there was a bass station claiming it had been 'damaged in the post', a 'non functioning' Roland R8 - surprise surprise, and a load of 'original used parts' from things like 707's, 101's & 606's!

What an impressive circuitbender he must be.

Just a note here to set the rcord straight, we do not sell vintage spares from failed circuit bent projects, the Roland TR-606 spares that we have been selling are are very good source of income for us. We managed to buy a damaged TR-606 for just £25.00 and sold it on ebay after breaking it down for an amasing £600.00 so as you can see, why circuit bend them. You would not get that price on a modified unit.

[S-CAT]

I really still am  about his copyright crap. His argument logic would NEVER hold up in a Civil court - I hope Roland busts him big and good if he continues claiming circuit designs and "modifications" as his own copyrighted idea

Think about it. Thousands of benders across the world have connected part of a circuit in a drum machine with a wire from here to there to get a different sound. What's to say some kid with an R8 hasn't already discovered S-Cat's bends first? Is S-Cat going to sue him for "breach of copyright" What if an R8 goes faulty and causes itself to have the same bend internally, causing the same sound? Will he sue Roland?

Roland will not even allow you to copy a cosmetic aspect of their equipment - such as a colour scheme, logo, shape, let alone modify a patented circuit of theirs - I know because people on software design forums have made VST versions of Roland gear and have been given cease and desist letters from Roland - I've seen them. And modifying a circuit does not give you copyright privelidges.

In order to have a genuine copyright, S-cat would have to produce an independent "add-on" circuit that would not have anything in common with the Roland circuit or design or function - such as a module or expansion board - and sold as an independent add-on product - not a part of any of the Roland circuit - meaning that the add-on would function in its own right no matter what you attached it to - it must not need the R8 circuit design for the bend to work. An example would be a VCF external circuit - if you could find one not already copyrighted.

And it couldn't be a circuit consisting of a few wires and switches in certain places - you can't copyright wires and switches - they are subject to their own maufacturers copyrights or licences, if you want to argue the point.

You can't fool me SCAT I've been down this legal road myself before with the Alesis MMT8 and I tell you that Roland would butcher you if you tried to copyright your bend it unless you built a 3rd party add-on "module" that was independent from the R8 and absolutely completely different in design from any other design already copyrighted.

How so very "hubrous" (look it up  )

Cheers, Graham

You have written the details in full for me here, I was not given the chance to give full details and all that needed to be added is that if a machine was put into production with an independant add on, then a contract of joint copyright owner ship would have to be drawn up before production began. It is the obvious step forward for any serious circuit bender who want to make a career out of their designs.

[S-CAT]

I just had a look at a few videos of his stuff, just to see what all his hype was about. Well, basically that's what it turned out to be - hype!

Most of his sounds were just digital distortion stuff - like when you fool around with data lines or overdriving sounds. You could do 90% of what he does with a distortion pedal on the output of your keyboard. Lots of videos of keyboards and drum machines doing the same stuff that you hear being done by people on this forum. And he wants to copyright that??                         

Cheers, Graham

Distortion pedals will cause alot of background noise, I used to use 10 distortion pedals when playing live(sequenced) techno, the distortion bends that we find do not have the noise, which is a bonus for the musicians that buy our machines to make music, rather than talk about technical bollox all of the time.

[S-CAT]

What a shame!
could have been a interessting brainstorming...
... but thinking about money had destroyed a lot in history.

The R8 can also be used as a MIDI Trigger (the pads send MIDI messages)
I don't have to bend everything I get into my fingers.

maybe there are some other interesting (and free) stuff in other threads here ...

@S-CAT:
I think I can understand you a bit,
"cool, I've done something others want to know...but wait...I can earn some money with this maybe"
Tip:
Build a simple 12AX7 tubepreamp circuit inside the R8 and you get 10x times the money.

good luck with you buisness ...

What price would we expect to get for an R-8 with the simple 12AX7 preamp? We have been offered £375.00 for our modified R-8 and to add a zero sounds interesting, but who would buy such a thing when they can get the R-8 for £375.00 and maybe have a 12AX7 unit built for under £100 and use it to run any instrument through?

[S-CAT]

I agree.

Cheers, Graham

We would be very interested to see the machines that you were building in your first year of circuit bending.

[S-CAT]

have copy rights on all of our machines.

WHAT!? i don't think so. Are you copyrighting the idea of removing and replacing a clock resistor? Are you copyrighting the idea of a voltage cut crash? In that case i'm copyrighting here and now the technique of shorting the pins of a sound ROM chip together which means from now on nobody can build circuitbent drum machines to your own designs or anyone elses designs unless you pay me a licencing fee. I do hope you won't ever be putting a patchbay on anything as you might be violating a circuitbenders.co.uk copyright    I think its a safe bet that you can't copyright any circuitbending ideas or Reed Ghazala would own us all.

So much for an open sharing of information.

We are sure that the books that he sells has copyright notices on it, but without seeing a copy, do not quote us on that.

[Circuitbenders]

Please mate, i have already asked you once to stop putting up separate posts answering every single little point. I'd appreciate it if you want to answer what people have said then do it in one post and edit it when you have something else to say.

People don't want their inboxes stuffed full of 100 messages saying you've replied to a thread.

thanks.