Lord of the Hertz

I can't get enough of clocking devices. After 30 plus years of 'music making', I've come to appreciate just how incompetent I am. This is largely due to me being a lazy, ill-disciplined git who never practices - I can barely sustain the simplest pattern of chords/notes/beats beyond a few bars. I can however improvise like hell but that's at the expense of musical meaningfulness - fun to do but not a spectator sport. The solution is a system that runs itself - one which allows me to hook up all my disparate pieces of gear to run in perfect sync. With everything sequenced, I can set it 'in motion' and then more less leave it to it while I potter about drinking coffee and smoking roll-ups, making the occasional adjustment or fiddle. The system would combine both MIDI and analogue clocks. Some gear behaves itself but with others, there can be timing instabilities and drift - often the case with things like the old Casiotones I've modded myself or devic...

Behind the Yamaha PS-30's "Solo" section, there's a simple monophonic analogue synth. Here's how I brought the filter and tuning controls to the front panel...Quite simple, it's involves removing 3 trimmer pots from the PCB and replacing them with regular potentiometers mounted on the front panel. First, however, much gratitude goes to the excellent Table Hooters site for the detailed information on this keyboard's inner workings: http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/Yamaha_PS-30_PS-20.html       (click images to enlarge) My Yamaha PS-30 - the green, blue and red knobs (top right) control de-tune, cut-off frequency and resonance respectively You can already access the solo section's tuning control via a removable plug on the back of the case: Removing this plug allows access to a trimmer pot on the PCB. I replaced this with a regular pot mounted on the front panel. Back of case removed... The solo section PCB is the shaded area on t...

UPDATE - May 2025 I've recently revisited this theme and found a more robust solution which has better stability in terms of timing. This involves using a photo coupler to isolate the external clock signal from the Casiotone's circuit. The approach shown below is still viable but I'll endeavour to post the updated method soon. ====================================== The older Casiotone keyboards with analogue circuitry can generally be modified to accept external clock signals for synchronising their rhythms to other equipment - but there are a few caveats: 1. there are various Casiotone 'families' based on different chipsets and implementations. This means there's no standard way to do this across all models and even models that share the same CPU might be programmed differently. For example, with an external clock signal, the CT-310 and the MT-65 sync at the same tempo while the MT-86 plays at half their speed. 2. the mod outlined below might not deliver a ...

You've reached the Lord of the Hertz information service... Here's the plan: use this space to share some of my home-built musical devices, modifications to gear, electro-mechanical tinkerings and perhaps one or two other activities that I feel might fit in with the overall "scheme of things/general vibe" - like a photo or something. With any luck, the information might be useful to others. That's the plan at least....