#synthmods

[svartmalt]

I was tagged by @devilishugly!! thank you! I'm a known tag game enjoyer hehe

These are my first 6 songs from my "on repeat" playlist on spotify, and you can vote for the one you like the most:

I'm tagging: @mackmp3 @gloryofnegativity @synthmoder @imnotviciousreally @sieben-schrauben @olyve-oyle no preassure, also please do it if you want to and was not tagged!! <3

[synthmoder]

HELLO MUTUALS oomfie synthmoder can’t sleep

[mysynthfetish]

Volca Keys MIDI Out Mod. Or, KORG, WTF?!

Right. So I need to get my shit in gear and start figuring out a live set for the annual Showa Techno event that’s coming up late April. Not wanting to haul a shit-ton of gear up stairs that are more like a fucking ladder, in an OLD house in an area of Osaka City that survived the fire-bombing of WW2, I thought I’d try to go with a minimal amount of gear this year. Volca Keys & Modular, MFB-503 & a Doepfer Pocket Control, a few pedals, maybe the Virus TI Polar or Novation K-Station to keep things interesting. First order of business: noodling with all of the above minus keyboards. Hmmmm. The Keys only has a MIDI in. Hmmm. The MFB only has a MIDI in. Oh for fuck’s sake, seriously?! Goddamit. Half the fun of these live events is ACTUALLY DOING SHIT LIVE, so for the past few shows I’ve played, I dropped the master sequencer from the gear list, using only the on-board loop sequencers of whatever such-equipped gear I decide to bring. Anyway. Yeah so as is, no noodling was gonna be possible thanks to NO MIDI OUTS. I know KORG has been rather kind and labeled solder points on the PCBs of the various Volcas so users can mod them easily, and that’s nice and appreciated, but it still means more work for the end user, and time lost which could’ve been spent noodling around as opposed to doing said work. Sigh.

First step was opening up the Keys and locating the appropriate solder pads. There they are above. You need to wiggle out the connector there for added clearance, Clarence. Be sure to check your vector, Victor. Roger. What?! Ok, random movie reference over. Couldn’t help myself.

With wires soldered up.

With wires soldered to a 1/8” stereo jack.

The end. It took maybe twenty minutes start to finish. I could’ve been a little more precise in my hole-drilling but I was in a mood, and just wanted the goddam thing to be over and done with already. Here’s a dumbass video I sent to a pal in Oakland when it was all done.

Oh shit I forgot I bought a fucking cheapo reverb pedal off amazon. Spawn #1 wanted a magazine of some jap idol music shit, but it was one of those “total order must be over ¥2000 or nope” weirdo deals they do, so I looked for something random I didn’t really need and found that reverb pedal. The outfit that makes it is called Gokko (incidentally, as a suffix that means “pretend~” in Japanese), it’s from china, it was on a special limited time 50% off sale so for ¥3000 (about $30) why the hell not? It’s mono, but has six controls (!!!), seems to be true bypass, and it actually doesn’t sound bad at all for what it is. Very nicely surprised! Now, does it compare in freaky weirdoness to the Death By Audio Reverb Machine clone pedal I just built? Nope. But for what it is, I can’t really complain at all. And besides, the name of the pedal is “Creepy” LOL. Good shit.

[zzzwiw]

These cassettes are full of modded Korg Poly-800 mkII sounds :) Recorded on Tascam Portastudio 424 mkIII #synthscaper #korg #poly800 #tascam #portastudio #portastudio424 #synthmods #synths #synthesizer #sounddesigners #sounddesign https://www.instagram.com/p/B0Z8Wf6Be7F/?igshid=w7jd3lmdhpyq

[ansheemusic]

The fifth 🎹🎶 #itswednesday #newsong #thefifth #ansheemusic #retrostyle #synthmode #musicproducer #musiclover #itscomingtoday (en Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires) https://www.instagram.com/p/BynJdXHg08P/?igshid=5oy9p33et0ta

[aurohollo]

Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne. #ElectronicMusic #SynthPop #SynthMod #DreamPop #BritPop #House #Dance #Techno #PsychPop #ChamberPop #IndiePop

[qtzmusic]

by @kabiriamusic “Analogue shmanalogue 😛 got the digital out for big sounds today son. Shout out to Tony Reynolds for the hawk mod! #ex800 #hawk800 #korg #synthmods #jp8080 #supersaw #roland #newmusic #newshit #kabiria” #synthporn #синтезатор #🎛

[kabiriamusic]

Analogue shmanalogue 😛 got the digital out for big sounds today son. Shout out to Tony Reynolds for the hawk mod! #ex800 #hawk800 #korg #synthmods #jp8080 #supersaw #roland #newmusic #newshit #kabiria

[synthmoder]

your mutual synthmoder can’t fall asleep

[mysynthfetish]

Roland VT-4 Blue LED Mod

Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm thinking when I set out on these fucking mod projects. I've been without a vocoder for a while, so when I saw a Roland VT-4 on the auction here for a good price, I jumped on it. Green LEDs though, ugh. Too much of this green shit with the whole Aira range. I have a TB-3 on the way, actually. Another SAY WHAT?! price so I jumped on that one too. Anyway.

Love how that photo is a tad out of focus. Aaargh. Anyway you get the idea how it looks now. A huge improvement? I dunno. Personal preference, blue looks better than green did.

We need more robots. Uh, or more actual robots and less people who are like robots. Yeah, that.

Vocoders rule. BY YOUR COMMAND!!!

So obviously the LEDs were all surface mount, and by far the fucking SMALLEST I've ever dealt with. Nearly drove me crazy. My goddam hands shake like a tree in a hurricane anymore. I suppose there's a special soldering iron made that's just for desoldering SMD components, but I haven't looked, and if they exist they're probably fucking pricey, so I do what I can with the equipment I have on hand. I couldn't get the factory LEDs off the PCB using either desoldering braid or a sucker, so I was like "Well, shit." But then I had the brilliant idea to just carefully apply the tip of the soldering iron across the width of the entire LED (like 1 fucking millimeter, seriously) and then gently slide the whole thing off the solder pads. Of course, this destroyed most of the LEDs so there was no going back. I then cleaned the pads with braid, and put a wee dab of solder on each one, then set about carefully, slowly, nerve-rackingly soldering the blue LEDs. I stayed too long with the iron on one and accidentally melted the thing in half, so I had to take that one off and in the process lifted a fucking solder pad. AAAAARGH!!!! But, I am a crafty motherfucker, well-versed in ghetto-engineering and finding creative solutions, so I scraped the green screen off the trace leading to the pad, roughed it up a bit (carefully, mind you) with the tip of a scalpel, and then slathered solder onto it. A bit of careful LED placement and soldering iron witchcraft later, and the goddam LED was working. Yay me!

I gotta say that I really DON'T recommend trying this mod yourself. It was not as easy as I thought it would be, even though I got the results I wanted in the end. If you have steady hands, or an SMD component desoldering device, then go for it, but if you're like me and just have the every day synth repair and modding level stuff, you might wanna think twice before fucking with shit this small. Here, look at these photos to get an idea how small the LEDs are:

That's the underside.

That's the top. SMALL. AS. FUCK. Here's the bag of 20 each, five or six colors, SMD LEDs I got off Jamazon for like 5 bucks:

Those are 0805!!! (I think that means 0.8mm wide and 0.5mm tall) And those were a tad LARGER than the factory ones! I need a drink....

[zzzwiw]

Korg Poly-800 mkII mod. For new experimental presets for the SynthScaper app. Details on https://motion-soundscape.blogspot.com #synthscaper #korg #poly800 #korgpoly800 #synth #synthesizers #vintagesynth #synthmod #synthdiy #mobilemusic #musicapp https://www.instagram.com/p/BzxyjAAB0P5/?igshid=7hiw23llaapa

[aurohollo]

Saint Etienne Synth Band. #SaintEtienne #SarahCracknell #London #ElectronicMusic #SynthPop #SynthMod #DreamPop #BritPop #House #Dance #Techno #PsychPop #ChamberPop #IndiePop #SYNTHWAVE #TECHNO #RETROWAVE #ALTMODEL #SCENEKID #FASHION #DANCE #DJ #GOTH #MUSIC #LOVE #ME #BEAUTIFUL #POP #DISCO