OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

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phono
 
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OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by phono »

So i bought a second TR-606 for modding,

here's both together

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Anyway before it arrived, i started planning out the mods i would do, since i already had a 606 here i could figure out the size and placement of knobs with the abs boxes listed at my parts supplier.

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Here's the first draft, along with knob placement and the other 606 for reference (i like to visualise things when possible)

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As i researched what mods were possible i made several drafts of the breakout box.

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I finally settled on this design (nice feet lol). The boxes are only there for reference for the knob placement/spacing.

So here's a run down of whats going to happen, by the time this is finished it will be somewhere between a 606 and an 808. A 608 perhaps? :teeth:

Bass Drum Mods.
Tune
Tone
Pitch Env
Decay

Snare Drum Mods.
Tune
Snappy
Decay

Tom Mods
High Tom Tune
Low Tom Tune
Low Tom to 909 kick (switchable)
Low Tom to 909 kick (sweep amount)
Low Tom to 909 kick (sweep decay)
Remove Noise Gen Signal from Low Tom (switchable)

Cymbal Mods
Decay
High Pass Filter
Band Pass Filter

HiHat Mods
Tune
CH Decay
OH Decay
Band Pass Filter (this is twined with the cymbal mod)
Low Pass Filter

Additional mods
Individual Outs on switched jacks (5 x 6.3mm)
System Noise amount (how much of the noise gen reaches the oscs)
Hihat Input Jack (this switched 6.3mm jack will replace the hi hat osc with whatever audio desired)
Accent Overide push button

So once the 606 arrived from pezno it was time to strip it down and give everthing a once over, clean it up, look for problems etc

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Everything checked out, except there was an intermittant fault where the leds in write mode would flicker if the instrument knob was touched. It didnt stop the machine functioning, but i knew it wasn't normal behaviour. After investigating further i realised that it was actually dropping out of write mode when it was flickering, a few fault tests later and i found a weak track next to the knob. Since thats a mechanical part with somewhat heavy clicks when turned, its quite normal to expect something like this on a 25 year old machine. I used a small jump lead to repair the track, and it was as good as new.

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So it was time to start the mods, i'd placed my parts order but they still hadn't arrived, i did have enough parts home that i could do the Tom tune mod, so i started that.

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The pots that will control the tune.

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Some testing before soldering.

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And the completed mod, i now have 808 style tunable toms.

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phono
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by phono »

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so monday i finally got the rest of my parts through..woot

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marking up the holes for the pots

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cutting the 606 case...that was a little painfull :teeth:

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a quick test to see how it looks

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add the jacks and switches

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top view

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lots of pots, i had to loose something from the center row since in my drafts i hadn't accounted for the screw holes. I decided to loose the accent override for now, since i can mount that on the main case later.

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lets see how it looks, obviously the pot stems will be cut at some point ;)

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well thats most of the cutting and drilling done, next up will be to actually start the hard part of wiring all this up

:biggrin:

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phono
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by phono »

so finally here the rest of the pics from this adventure :)

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the completed "808" bass drum. This mod involves disabling one of the BD osc's and converting it into a feedback stage and adding a pitch env. Its based upon the actual 808 circuit.

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working on the toms mod. The "Low tom to 909 kick" mode, doesn't really sound like a 909 that much, it's similier but the tuning is too high, i may adjust that later though.

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Adding the rest of the mods.

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when adding the cymbal mods, i wasnt too impressed with the CYM bpf, it hardly did anything tbh, so i dropped that slot in favour of the accent override button (which i'd decided to drop earlier)this is getting messy :teeth:

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what a total rats nest. Thats all the mods done.

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a quick test to make sure everything still fits, its really camped inside the 606 case now.

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The individual outs mod, due to the screw mounts (mentioned earlier) i couldn't place them exactly perfect, but thats not really an issue. The documented mod for this suggests to remove all the instrument volume knobs and bend up legs. That would have been a pain in the ass, but i came across some text written by Robin Whittle (of devilfish fame) that suggested a much simpler mod. It involves one wire for the "mix" a ground wire and lifting one leg a resistor (after the volume control) for each instrument. Then you just add switched jacks so that when nothing is plugged in, the lifted resistor is connected to the mix line and when a jack is insterted its removed. Worked a treat and was a lot simpler than removing 5 volume pots ;)

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thats the outputs completed.

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Adding the battery backup mod (you cant see it here, except those two screws on the side which hold it in place) Bascially since the 606 is so old, at the time of manufacture non volatile memory was too expensive, so if you turn off a 606 without the C batteries in then the memory is lost. Thats a bit of a pain, especially since if you forget to change the C cells they can leak and destroy the machine. This problem has killed many 606's over the years (303's too since they have the same problem) So this mod involves adding a lithium "coin" battery, soldered to the memory chip which provides a 3v trickle to save the memory contents. The battery should last about 3-5 years.

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here's some of the parts that were removed during modding (some were replaced in differnt positions)

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Almost done, some final testing/tweaking.

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The pot shafts have now been chopped, knobs added and some temporary labels for the controls written on.

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front view

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rear view

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finally added some printed labels

And thats it, a few tweaks are needed, some better labeling but for the most part its completed. I'll post some audio examples when i get a chance, actually i'll probably make some you tube vids and a/b it with the stock one, should make for an interesting comparison.

Must say a big thank you to bcbox for figuring out the battery backup mod for me :)

kroffe
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by kroffe »

Nice job!
Looks like the same mods I used with the exception of the bassdrum decay-one were I used Geoff waterston model instead. That way, you don't have to sacrifice one oscillator in the bassdrum-circuit to make it feedback. My 606 isn't nearly as neat though, since I crammed all mods inside the 606-case itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW7cqF9ZbAE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuo7PZ9uMZ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=320KTrsswLA
:)
/kroffe

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phono
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by phono »

kroffe wrote:Nice job!
Looks like the same mods I used with the exception of the bassdrum decay-one were I used Geoff waterston model instead. That way, you don't have to sacrifice one oscillator in the bassdrum-circuit to make it feedback. My 606 isn't nearly as neat though, since I crammed all mods inside the 606-case itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW7cqF9ZbAE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuo7PZ9uMZ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=320KTrsswLA
:)
/kroffe
yeah the BD one is slightly modified from the feedback model also, 2 caps and resistors that were pulled were placed elsewhere making the base pitch of the BD lower. The loss of an osc isnt really noticable,since this way its much more like an 808 BD circuit. I'll make some videos soon.

kroffe
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by kroffe »

Looking forward to hear and see the mods on youtube then... :wink:

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phono
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by phono »

So finally here's the promised A/B videos, i set it up with a crossfader so you could hear the difference easily, webcam/youtube sound is a bit crappy, but you get the general idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRH30DEVnKo

Comparing the Sounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd-ffpVoTvk

Comparing Patterns

kroffe
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by kroffe »

Great effort!
Very nice comparisson between the modded vs unmodded 606.
Howvere, I still believe that the BD sounds better with the two oscillators intact and the feedback-circuitry added "on the side"... ;)

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phono
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by phono »

kroffe wrote:Great effort!
Very nice comparisson between the modded vs unmodded 606.
Howvere, I still believe that the BD sounds better with the two oscillators intact and the feedback-circuitry added "on the side"... ;)
of course thats very subjective :D

one thing about this modded 606, the hats/cymbal are very differnt to the other 606 i have, they sound "deeper" and its not down to the mods, it was like that pre modding. I guess the same old "no two 303's sound alike" is the same for the 606's, it makes perfect sense really.

wotatwaat23
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by wotatwaat23 »

Hi there,
nice job on the mod!
I was just wondering if you can remember how you did the cymbal decay. I can't find it anywhere!
Cheers
Al

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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by wotatwaat23 »

Hold, just found it. 163 it is!

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maxtim
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by maxtim »

Fantastic build!!

Thanks for sharing the pics.
I love the 808 KICK! :mrgreen:

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phono
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by phono »

maxtim wrote:Fantastic build!!

Thanks for sharing the pics.
I love the 808 KICK! :mrgreen:
me too, its very close to my 808, not quite as beefy but like 90% there and with more tuning range

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maxtim
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by maxtim »

phono wrote:
its very close to my 808, not quite as beefy but like 90%

Well, I guess I can’t fully tell through a YouTube recording, but it sounds absolutely brilliant to me. Perfect balance and power and just plain sweet.
I am green indeed, I want just that BD! Just a small pitch change in that sweet kick could totally carry a song (House) in itself.
I would love to build a little box with just that kick. (Nicer than the Jomox Mbase01 (IMHO))
If you want to fatten it up, and/or make it hit a little harder (depending on the musical content) you can always send it through a compressor and/or parallel-track and mix with a little (and/or) chorus/dist/EQ/even reverb added.

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phono
 
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Re: OT: my tr-606 mods (lots of pics)

Post by phono »

maxtim wrote:
phono wrote:
its very close to my 808, not quite as beefy but like 90%

Well, I guess I can’t fully tell through a YouTube recording, but it sounds absolutely brilliant to me. Perfect balance and power and just plain sweet.
I am green indeed, I want just that BD! Just a small pitch change in that sweet kick could totally carry a song (House) in itself.
I would love to build a little box with just that kick. (Nicer than the Jomox Mbase01 (IMHO))
If you want to fatten it up, and/or make it hit a little harder (depending on the musical content) you can always send it through a compressor and/or parallel-track and mix with a little (and/or) chorus/dist/EQ/even reverb added.
well heres's a samplepack i made 8) should keep you occupied

66 Bass Drum variations
67 Snare Drum variations
47 Low Tom variations
27 High Tom variations
46 Cymbal variations
31 Open Hat variations
37 Closed Hat variations

http://www.bahnhof.se/wb447909/phono/tr-60x.zip

20mb

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