Forum Newbie / Roland R-8

[LoneStar81]

Hello everyone,
I'm new to this forum, so hello to you all. I've bent some drum machines in the past few years such as Roland TR-505, TR-626, R-5, R-8, korg DDD-1, DDD-5, Yamaha RX5, Kawai R100 and (not finished) Alesis HR-16.
I appreciate the site and forum with all the tips and information, and would like to contribute a little.

Roland R-8 - there have been topics about the overall bendability on this forum, ranging from "you'd be mad to try" to "I've done it but won't tell how because I make money with and patented it". The latter is undoubtly lame, stupid and wannabe-elitist.

Bending the R-8 perfectly follows the standard procedure of ROM bending. The interesting chips are IC30, IC31 and (partly) IC12. Some shorts on the pins of the chips DO crash and/or lock up the machine, but I was always able to return normal operation by switching on/off. Rarely it was neccessary to perfom a factory reset (check manual).
Be carefiul with IC12 as it appears to be some kind of gate array like in the TR-505. Only a few pins are usable, others will crash.
I hope that info will help a few people here who have thought about bending R-8 machines. The effort is surely worth it since the R-8 itself is such a good drum machine, and´there are tons of really cool ,musically usable bends.

Examples:
http://lonestar.madtracker.net/Musix/R8bleep.mp3
http://lonestar.madtracker.net/Musix/R-8final2.mp3
http://lonestar.madtracker.net/Musix/R-8lal.mp3

Picture:


Greets,
LoneStar

[catweazle]

wow, thanks a lot for that info!!!
I've tried to bend it, but I had no nervs and fun to reset the machine every two seconds.

[nochtanseenspecht]

hey, thanks for that info
finally some serious r8 news.
i would't bent it easily however. maybe i had to much bad luck recently with bending..
i blew a few things    but who knows some day...

[LoneStar81]

btw, the bends work on sound cards too since those run off the same data and address bus

[Circuitbenders]

I hope you realise that S-CAT is going to have to have you killed now to protect his circuitbending empire 

[LoneStar81]

Lol. He can kiss my arse.
I've sold bent machines too, but I don't make such a fuss about my "trade secrets".
Everyone with a bit of bending experience and technical knowledge can come up with
the same bends I do. Of course I also use the ideas and techniques I find online, but that's
why they're online in the first place. 

[nochtanseenspecht]

maibe it is possible to bent only the romcard ? i noticed some typical bend sounds if i moved the card a bit in it's slot... or what about a breakoutbox that you can stick in the slot...

anyway it is a nice drummachine 

[Circuitbenders]

or what about a breakoutbox that you can stick in the slot...

I've got a breakout box on one of my Cheetah MD16 racks that just plugs into the expansion slot. Very handy when theres no space on the front panel to mount a patchbay. Luckily the expansion port on an MD16 is just an IDC socket rather than some weird card connector so its pretty easy to put together a ribbon cable to connect it up.

[Signal:Noise]

Nice work there. especially like the break out box. bends sound really good as well

[davethedoobie]

Thanks for that contribution.  Its nice when people share.  This will be my summer project.  I hope to put up some pictures when it is complete. 

[s-cat]

Roland R-8 - there have been topics about the overall bendability on this forum, ranging from "you'd be mad to try" to "I've done it but won't tell how because I make money with and patented it". The latter is undoubtly lame, stupid and wannabe-elitist.

We are not here to argue with you and can appreciate that you have also found bends on the R-8, which was listed as non-bendable on this site.But you have got it wrong there, we did not say that we had patented the R-8 bends in any of our posts and thought that we should set the record straight once again. If you are going to say something then please get the facts right. We refused to give info on the R-8 bends that we had found and yes we do make money at what we do, but there are many people who circuit bend machines and sell them and we would put money on saying that a lot of them copy diagrams that other people have published, where as we do not and pride ourselves in discovering things.

We see that you have taken to the anti S-CAT team and would like to ask why, is it because we make money from what we do or is it deeper than that? Do you sell the machines that you build or are they for your own recording projects?

[Circuitbenders]

For fucks sake scat, this thread IS NOT ABOUT YOU, stop trying to make every single thread about YOU. Ok, so someone made a joke at your expence, so what? Just deal with it and stop trying to turn every single thread you comment on into some discussion about you. I don't want to have to restrict you to only posting in the banter section because every other thread you post that is actually about circuitbending gets destroyed

In case you didn't notice, people were trying to discuss the Roland R8 on this thread. If you want to actually make a  contribution to the discussion then please do so. In fact i'm going to politely ask that seeing as you apparently have done some good mods on the R8 that you post details of them on this thread, because thats what this thread is for. Or at least it was but now its going to descend into pointless squabbling yet again.

Now, about the R8.............................

[s-cat]

Now, about the R8.............................

The Roland R-8 is one of the easist machines that we have worked on and can give excellent results with very little effort. I am now going to open up the unit and tell you what was done. I thought that if it was meant to be funny then it should have had a smiley face, but it did not  

Give me 1/2 an hour and I will get the info posted and try to upload some images for you all......


Here is what we have found, we seem to be working in a completley different section of the board on our R-8, working around Q3, IC14, IC15 and IC18. Has anyone else used these chips to get results?

Starting with Q3's centre leg, IC18's pin 6 and IC15's pin 2. Connect these to a three way toggle on/off/on, just experiment to find which is the common connection.

Next, IC18 pin 15 to pin 13 via a two way on/off toggle.

Next, IC15 pin 5, IC14 pin 51, IC14 pin 55, connect with another 3 way toggle and again experiment with the common centre connection.

Next, IC15 pin 6, IC14 pin 56, two way toggle.

Next, IC15 pin 10, IC14 pin 60, two way toggle.

Next,  IC14 pin 47, IC14 pin 57, two way toggle.

No photo's but it should be very simple to understand from the description. These alongside the mods to IC12, IC30 and IC31 should make things very interesting.

You only had to ask

[pneaveill]

btw, the bends work on sound cards too since those run off the same data and address bus

Are you serious on this? Been toying with some ideas for years, but never brave enough to try some of them doing this and some other things. Care to share the ideas/ schemos whatever with us?

--- edit ---

Wondering if the whole sound cards thing needs to be in its own little thread?  Maybe am wrong. 

I have a variety of SB live! cards and a few others been hankering to tink with.

[LoneStar81]

I have a variety of SB live! cards and a few others been hankering to tink with.

Nonono, I was talking about the sound expansion cards for the R-8! Never meant computer soundcards.