Modded Roland TR-606 (aka poor man’s 808)

Posted by admin in equipment, KORN HARDCORE CUSTOMS, mods & repairs, Studio

Duration 8h for Mods: 450€ + parts (knobs+housing) + postage (No VAT (small business §19 (1) UStG))

Here is a little drumbeat on the 606 to demonstrate the modifications done by discrete audio solutions and me last year. the sound of the polite machine is now ready to transform into the direction of TR-808 (BD, SD, HT) or even TR-909 (SD, LT, ).

this is one of the most complicated mods i have done so far, since the PCB and housing of the TR-606 is very small and a lot of components had to be changed, traces to be cut and wires to fit in (thx Claudio!)

First time the BD-decay-mods did not work, so i decided to open the silver box again and finally it was possible to get the long 808 type of booooom. i also fine-tuned the other parameter-ranges with trim-potis and now i am really satisfied with the results.
you probably notice the bleeding from the (accent?!) trigger on the main out. i was not able to get rid of this – so if anybody got an idea…

the full list of mods:

-separate outputs for BD, SD, Tom, CY, Hihat
-BD tune
-BD tone
-BD decay
-SD tune
-SD noise hipass filter
-SD decay
-LT tune
-HT tune
-system noise level
-CY + Hihat bandpass filter (=tune)
-CY hipass filter
-CY decay
-Hihat bass boost (hipass filter with resonant lowpass)
-OH decay
-CH decay

the mods were mostly from this page (i left out the diode pitch stuff):
http://www.confusedmachines.com

shout outs to:
http://www.discrete-audio-solutions.com

www.jacobkorn.de
2013/2014