This new “old” sampler has a great sound.
Summertime is here!
New groovin’ house music – hear, here!
Get ready for Summertime
New track out very soon. Giving you those warm summer vibes.
Changing the Battery on the Elektron Octatrack
I have been getting the “Battery Low” message on and off for a while now. I thought I would open it up and take a peek. Here is what you need to do if you are in this situation.
- A screwdriver with a 2 mm hexagonal tip.
- A Panasonic CR 2450 battery.
Both of these items are a bit uncommon so here is some more information. I happened to have the screwdriver as part of a Radio Shack Electronics Screwdriver set. The set has 20 interchangeable tips, including the one listed. The CR 2450 battery is something I had never seen previously. It is larger than most coin batteries and I would say it’s about an inch in diameter.
Once you have all these, it seems to be a simple matter. Pop out the old (I think I am going to pull it out with a pliers actually) and put in the new one. Haven’t done it yet but seems to be a 5 minute operation if all the materials are available.
Hope this helps. Let me know how it goes if you change your battery.
Rare cartridges for Yamaha RX5 drum machine
Not too long ago I did a video on button repair for the Yamaha RX5. I happened to be browsing eBay and I saw a (very expensive) auction for an RX5. The auction includes two very rare cartridges that add TR 808 and TR 909 sounds to the RX5. They were produced by Metra Sound in Germany which also produced other Yamaha cartridges. There doesn’t seem to be any pictures of these cartridges available anywhere so here they are for your viewing pleasure.
They are bigger than the the usual cartridges and one of them here is taped together.
Quite a lot of money for sounds everyone can get for a few dollars on an iPad but the cartridges themselves are an interesting piece of music history. Enjoy the photos and drop me a line if you win this auction 🙂
Repairing the buttons on the Yamaha RX-5 drum machine
This Yamaha RX-5 needed some TLC. The buttons were not responding so well any more, especially the Edit Voice button. Here’s the fix.
https://youtu.be/LQUNP_PKrKY
Mu major chords
While reading about music theory, I came across the mu major chord. It was named this by Steely Dan and someone put together a big website about here. Lots of good info and always nice to get the chance to listen to some Steely Dan and get behind the scenes with what is going on.
Fireknife for Monomachine – Audio and Files
Now available – check out the info here!
Site sign-ups
Hey everyone – I was getting hit with a lot of weird user registrations. So if you registered on my website, please feel free to re-register. Sorry about that. Thanks and keep on grooving.
Machinedrum archeology – the RRine Machinedrum UW kit
Elektron-User Rrine posted these Machinedrum samples at some point many years ago. I am not sure whether these files were posted to his/her personal website, www.rrine.com, or to Elektron Users. The samples themselves seem to all date back to 12/28/2007.
Rrine only had a few posts at Elektron Users. The posts were around 2008/2009. Beyond the Machinedrum, he/she was also interested in buying a Monomachine.
The sample zip file Rrine shared contains 16-bit 48000 Hz samples. There are 22 samples in total taking up 1.75 MB of space. The general feel of many of these files is on the noisier, atonal side. Here are a few descriptions of some of the samples.
*Cik, chunky snare-like sound
*Cluster and cluster2, noise-oriented
*Crumble, paper crinkling
*Graindump, swoosh
*Rapple, sounds like vinyl record noise to me
*Teer, a zap-like sound
*Tone3, sci-fi sound
Given that RRine shared these files, I imagine he/she was making them available to other musicians. Repost available here. If of course I am mistaken, I will take them down. samples rrine-machinedrum-kit-1