rare birds: Viscount PCM R64s digital/analog drum machine (with pitch mods)

video upload by studi-ohm-studi

Follow-up to this post.

"The Viscount PCM R64s is a 80s italian rhythm machines, combining 8 bit PCM samples (10 sounds) and analog sound (both TOMs and the Cymbal). Actually the 'bongo' sound is made of both a sample and an analog sound, so that's 4 analog sounds on board.
Bad news is that it is not a drum machine but a rhythm machine, indeed you cannot program anything onto it, it's purely a presets unit !
Good news is that it sounds great and thanx to some mute switches and several instruments group volume knobs you can get make the 64 onboard patterns sound like more. It also features 'break', 'handclap solo' and the ability to be synced and/or sync to/from other gear.
Overall sound is fat and punchy, with the analog Cymbal sound bringing some "air" to the sound. Stereo image is quite wide.
I modified this unit by adding a global "pitch" control that act on the 10 PCM sounds (basically changing the clock speed of the sample playback, just like on the MXR 185 for instance) and a Cymbal tune pot. These are simply trimmers that are on the PCB that I externalized. There are also 2 more trimmers to tune the 2 TOMs analog sounds, but since they are not used on many patterns, mainly for breaks, I didn't feel it would add a lot to the sound.
These modifications do however transform this unit and make it more versatile.
In this video I first play with the "samba" differrent patterns and in the second part I demo some more patterns. When you only hear the Handclap sound this means I'm pressing on a footswitch (off screen) plugged to the unit to that intent.
The R64s is plugged into the Tapco 4400A dual spring reverb and then recorded straight with no further editing nor treatment.
Sorry for having my right arm in front of the camera and for the focusing issue."