quality control electro: TR-606 DFM, Moog Rogue, Optigan

Published on Mar 11, 2013 burnkit2600·44 videos

"The tail end of a little living room jam messing around with the newest TR-606 DFM to come off my assembly line. Sounding great, 100% analog gold.
Also starring: Moog Rogue, Optigan & featuring surprise guest Miette.
More info about my drum machine mod work here:
http://www.burnkit2600.com/tr-606_dfm1/"


"The analog architecture has been expanded to allow for control over every essential parameter, plus a few surprises.

The connection panel in back retains all of the original ins and outs (power connector, main audio output, headphone audio output, LT trigger, HT trigger, DIN sync connector port, DIN in/out switch, start/stop foot-switch input jack) plus 3 audio inputs for injecting a signal to mix with or replace the 1) Snare drum noise path, 2) Tom drum noise path, 3) Cymbal or hats shared oscillators. There are also individual audio outputs for the Bass drum, Snare, summed Tom drums, Cymbal, summed Hi-Hats.

The ‘analog panel’ provides hands on control for all the following instrument parameters.
Bass drum: envelope emphasis, adjustable decay rate, tonality and augmented pitch.
Snare drum: input 1 and/or original white noise signal mixer; noise channel/input 1 decay rate; noise channel/input 1 tonality; oscillator pitch.
Hats: Open & Closed High Hat decay, oscillator frequency (pitch), and oscillator frequency overdrive.
Cymbal: Blend between the 2 cymbal elements (bell and bow); decay rate, bow tonality, bow mix between oscillators and white noise.
Additionally, Hats and Cymbal bow share a blend control for input 3 and/or their shared oscillators.
Tom drums: The main controls for the Low Tom and High Tom largely work in concert with each other. That is, there are controls for individual volume, decay rate, envelope emphasis and pitch control. The unique architecture of the Tom drums links them together so that a balance must be found between the 2. At their extremes, each control can override or defeat their siblings control. This structure is retained and further exploited with the ‘Megatom’ toggle switch. This epic modification works primarily to combine the 2 separate Tom drums into 1 super, 808 bass drum rivaling hit. In this mode, each of the Tom drum controls are extended and take on new characteristics that can work in total unison together as the single Mega drum, or as separate augmented Tom drums. Either way, a careful hand is needed to tame the beast.
Additionally, the Tom drum Noise element is handled completely separate, offering controls to blend between input 2 and/or the original white noise element; extend/shorten decay rate and filter tonality for input 2 and/or white noise.

The ‘real time sequencer’ front panel features buttons that allow ‘on the fly’ individual drum part mutes or quantized drum triggers with rudimentary velocity control. A toggle selects between these 2 modes and works for Bass drum, Full snare, snare noise channel/input 1, Low Tom, High Tom, Tom noise channel/input 2, full cymbal, cymbal bell channel, open and closed high hats. The drums can be triggered in either pattern play or write modes.
The front panel also features an accent bypass toggle.
Though portable battery-only operation is no longer possible with this instrument, the pattern data IS stored virtually forever via a Ni/Cd battery."