Rare cartridges for Yamaha RX5 drum machine

January 13, 2019 — Leave a comment

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.

Metra Sound Cartridges for Yamaha RX5
Metra Sound Cartridges for Yamaha RX5

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 🙂

Metra Sound of Cologne, Germany
Metra Sound of Cologne, Germany

Repairing the buttons on the Yamaha RX-5 drum machine

October 21, 2018 — Leave a comment

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

August 12, 2018 — Leave a comment

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.

Site sign-ups

July 12, 2018 — Leave a comment

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

May 18, 2018 — Leave a comment

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

Be My Devil

May 13, 2018 — Leave a comment

Hell actually freezes over… a fiendish new track from me comes out! Check it out on SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/catabolic/be-my-devil

Monomachine SuperPoly Waves Available Here

April 20, 2018 — Leave a comment

More info at this permanent page I set up here to host the files.

Of Kick Drums and Key Signatures – Choosing a Song’s Key based on Frequency/Pitch

December 9, 2017 — Leave a comment

When you are playing guitar, some keys are easier to play in than others.  And singers may be more comfortable in some keys.  For electronic music though, these factors don’t apply as much while the low end can be quite important.  It can help to have the kick drum to be in tune with the rest of the song or else some wobbling/phasing can sometimes be heard/felt.  So I thought I would look at some tunings for kick drum parts and the musical keys that would go with them.

If you assume that most speakers can’t do well below 40 hertz, then here are some keys that fit the bill.

Frequency (hz) Note
E1 41.2
F1 43.6
F#1 46.2
G1 49.0
G#1 51.9
A1 55.0
A#1 58.3
B1 61.7
C2 65.4

After B1 and C2 we are getting further out of the deep bass range.  So for a song with deep bass or a deep kick, it might be better to stay out of the keys of C# to D#.  Still, there are plenty of keys that would support a deeper bass/kick.

Not all speakers can go down to 40 hertz of course.  I checked my trusty iPad as an example of a pretty bass-starved environment.  Anything below Middle C (261.6 hz) started to get a lot quieter and by the time we go an octave below that to C3 (130.8 hz) the sound was mostly gone.

PS – Thanks Wikipedia – you’ve done it again 🙂 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies.

Most streamed on Spotify

October 21, 2017 — Leave a comment

Looks like my top two most-streamed tracks on Spotify are “Who Let the Freaks Out” and “Let Me Love You”.  Thanks for listening!