Monday, May 11, 2015

Casio "Cool Drum Synthesizer" circuit bend/mod

First of all, I really dig the fact that one of the "features" is "Big Speaker". (pictured in second photo).  Second of all, believe it or not, there was NO INFORMATION ON THE WEB ABOUT THIS SYNTH/TOY/PRODUCT...none..ZERO..zip.  Crazy, right?  You just don't expect that anymore.  Honestly, im sure there IS something, somewhere, but its not reachable via any combination of search/meta search terms or phrases I can think of--so its at best difficult to find.
So, I'll give you all the information I can think of that's relevant and useful.  I'll post a pic of the PCB and the bends I found (see pic #3), and I'll attach the datasheets of the relevant IC's (also hard to find).  Just as an aside, the chips-although unnecessarily complicated-are pretty fucking awesome.  I dunno where else or who else made a series of chips with actual drum SYNTHESIZERS on them that were cheap and simple. Im pretty sure Holtek, the maker of the ones here-the hp3090 and the hp82142 *(so necessarily coupled that their datasheet includes each other), is the only maker who did.  They made a LOT of bad ass chips that are killer and absolutely PERFECT for the DIY community.  Among them are the ht8955 voice echo, the ht8950 voice modulator, ht8970 delay, etc.  I dunno why they were such a kick-ass company in the 80s to the late 90s/early 2000s and stopped being one now..probably financial reasons.
Anyway, enough digressing, check out the "Big Speaker" (technical term)
"big speaker-about 3.5" in diameter, 8ohm"
I was really impressed when I opened this thing up because, thankfully, there were no black gumdrop processors and no SMD.  It was like a breeze of sweet fresh air blew into the voodoo lab from an oregon forest.  You just never see stuff like this anymore. Things just MADE to be fucked with.  (with the notable exception of Korg's consumer products like the Volca and Monotron series-they have SMD's etc BUT also have all useful bend points, like "pitch" and "snare" identified with written notes on the PCBS..very cool). Anyways, heres the back of the PCB.  Click on the pic for the larger version. Ive done my best to make it clear where stuff is and take a clear photo. Im sure its not perfect but im not putting hours into it or anything.

If anyone else finds this product or another one using the HT3090/82142 combo, keep this in mind: bends involving the 3090 will affect only the sequence..the play of the sounds. For example, I found some that were stutters which basically made the drum being played do a drum roll. Imagine a snare shot being repeated quickly in succession.  Other ones were repeats sounding like echos or tempo changes-slowing or quickening.  A few stopped or paused the play of the sequences or beats.  I didn't note most of these as they were either not all that useful to justify using a switch up or did not return to the beat after being triggered so weren't useful for that reason.
Bends from the 82142, particularly the oscillator in/out were the most effective on the sound of the drums.  I wont bother going into them -i dont want to take the fun of discovery out of bending this killer pair of chips--but start there if you are looking for really fuck with the drum sounds.
As far as the pitch goes (note in the pic of the top of the PCB-the clock setting resistor is right on top of the 82142), note that it is a GLOBAL pitch change that is affected by altering the resistance however you do it (potentiometer, LDS, photo, softpot, etc)-so the WHOLE sequence will be pitched up or down (making it play faster or slower)-so its really most effective if you manually trigger a change and quickly return the pitch to normal so that only one drum hit is affected.  Anyway, here is here it is located:
Clock resistor, I believe its 120k


Note: the pitch/clock resistor appears to be a 120k one, but since the 4 band code for 120k 1/4 watt involves a yellow band and the resistor is old and sorta worn-I cant be sure. It might be a white band or something else.

Here's my plan--Im going to run all the bends to individual SPDT switches, and run a potentiometer like 250k from the clock resistor spot to allow me to dip below and above the set value, essentially slowing and speeding up or pitching down and up.  THEN im going to run a 4017 to a 4066 and run a single track sequencer which will have a rotary switch allowing me to send the 4017 trigger pulse (in this case-according to the 3090 datasheet, a low instead of high trigger) to one of the 4 4066 switches and trigger one of the 4 drum synths.  Since there is no cymbal/high hat etc I dont see the reason to have any other tracks and Im pretty sure the 3090 wouldnt be able to trigger all 4 drums at once anyway.  So one track will be sufficiently useful to be worth doing.

Just FYI the reason I need the 4066 is because its basically a series of switches (4, i think) which can be triggered via electronic means-opening and closing the circuits like the pushbutton switches on the synth itself do-to make the drums play.  The 4017 is basically a sequence playing chip which runs 10 steps over and over, and has a few other functions like a reset and stop/pause.  Helpfully, each step has a up and down.  Im not sure if this plan will work. Ill post later regarding the success of it.
I'll also post a video with audio of the finished synth.  If ANYONE has one of these or sees one, I'll buy it, no matter the condition, unless its missing the chips. Ive tried everywhere to find them but cant. Ive put out some feelers on alibaba and some other supply houses which might have surplus left over from whenever sitting around.  of course, that sorta request basically leaves you open to fraud and getting a bunch of "HT3090" chips which have "holtek" printed on with magic marker or whatever.
Anyways, here 's some more photos of the crazy cool 80s box etc:

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