KidQuaalude @ EM411 has posted a new tool for exporting and importing pattern/song and instrument data from DS-10, DS-10+ .sav files.

Hi Folks,

This will only be of interest to those of you who have a DS, either ‘Korg DS10′ or ‘Korg DS10 plus’, a PC and a way of getting your DS10 save files to/from your carts.

Last night I quickly knocked-up a tool that allows you to both import and export songs from the 18 available slots in the save file and also import and export your 24 saved synth patches. This will allow DS10 users to share songs and patches more easily and also backup and restore songs/instruments.

There is one minor issue with song sharing tho…due to the changes between DS10 and DS10 plus, songs created in plus cannot be loaded in DS10. However songs created in DS10 may be loaded in DS10 plus. This incompatibility does not affect intstruments.

The program itself is pretty self-explanitory…and there is no documentation yet

Download : http://www.lazytrap.com/files/Korg_DS10_SaveTool.zip

Enjoy! (and note i’m not responsible for any data loss/damage that may occur from using this app )

Chris

Had to repair my ESX-1 today. I went to turn it on this morning and it would not power up. The symptoms are: Unit turns on; Yellow back light comes on; No text on the display; No Led lights. When you turn it back off the LCD’s Back-light turns off very slowly after you press the power button, as with lag. These are all very noticable. If your unit is doing these 5 things and nothing more, nothing less… then is it very likely you have a bad fuse. Once I googled the info up (I had read about it before), the repair took me about 30 minutes.

Apparently many of the early models off the Korg line had a 1.5a fuse on the board that often goes bad, they later replaced it with a stronger fuse. Many people bypass the fuse altogether in order to get their ESX-1’s (and EMX-1’s) working again since the fuse is not a typical one you can easily find. I bought my ESX-1 used off Ebay nearly 3 years ago and the problem did not occur until now. I do not leave my ESX-1 powered on when unattended because it can run pretty hot after awhile and here in Louisville we have alot of lightning/thunderstorms. It was not a storm or power spike that caused it to go out, Korg just chose a bad part on these early models. They used to repair them for free, but I believe that period has ended. You can always contact Korg Repair and ask if there is an authorized repair shop near you, or failing that you could send it in.

I do not recommend anyone else doing this repair unless they are confident about their precision/pcb soldering skills as the contact points are very small. However, if you insist on doing so (like I did), there is a helpful thread about doing this @ Korgforums. The pictures in it are poor quality though and there’s no mention of taking apart the ESX-1. I found a couple other pictures to assist me. Click them for larger views.

The first picture is one of the Fuse itself that needs to be replaced or bypassed, note that with a bypass like this once you know the rating needed for the fuse you could add a ratshack one in yourself inline (i did not). Note that the fuse is labeled ‘FUSE1′ and that its near the cluster of capacitors located on the right-hand side of the board:

This second picture is from a forum thread back in 2006 that I had to dig up off Archive.org. It shows the simple process of taking your ESX-1 apart. There are 14 total screws, 10 of which are 2.5mm HEX that hold the faceplate on and then 4 Philips head screws around the Tube section that hold the control panel to the body:

Finally got around to turning my Bliptronic 5000 into a super affordable Monome, many thanks to the kit by Wil Lindsay. 50$’s + 68$’s = 118$ monome (!)

It’s a novel idea and not nearly the coolest thing about [BLOK],.. but a pretty unique and cool looking one. Made a little video of it:

The Stretta Procedure released a clone of the simple Tonematrix Flash synth that he has dubbed ‘obo’, which itself is a clone of hardware devices like the Monome/Tenori-on. It’s a simple matrix sequencer with a built in synthesizer, but Stretta has also added MIDI out/sync/scaling to it. Unfortunately it’s only for Mac/OSX as a standalone app, so limited few of us will get to enjoy it (have to admit to dusting off my macbook just for this app), but regardless of that it’s a fun tool worth pointing out to those who missed it being posted last April. Thanks Stretta! More information and download @ http://stretta.blogspot.com/2009/04/obo.html

Quote:

If you like tonematrix, but would prefer something standalone, with MIDI output, sync and tweakable note assignments, you can download this standalone application for MacOS X. It is free! Enjoy! – Stretta

The upcoming release of Blok Modular has been announced. Blok is a modular plugin for audio hosts (VSTi + Buzz formats with Effect versions planned for near future). It holds similarities to other synth building modulars like SynthEdit, SynthMaker, Reaktor and so on.. but where it breaks from those molds is its primary focus on classic modular synthesis, an intuitive interface, speed and ease of use. Its approach is simplified and more refined soley towards synthesis than the forementioned applications/plugins, but beware of misinterpreting that as meaning it lacks power or flexibility because those are it’s direct aims. There are 4 basic types of Bloks; Generators, Modifiers, Controllers, and Outputs (which also includes global bus effect bloks, signal analysis bloks, and others).

The launch is coming soon, but there is a freeware version of Blok already for Buzz modular (also freeware) and a Save-limited Demo VSTi currently available for any VSTi-compatible host.  It’s going to be crazily affordable already, but apparently smart people will be available to get in on an Early Bird special discount price (35 euros).

Anyways, that’s enough information from me, if you want to learn more visit http://www.blokmodular.com/.

The screen-shot above shows a project I recently made, it’s a setup that uses multiple Keytrack modules to split it’s Note input through different paths and control over the modifiers (a sort of multitimbral + filter tracking combo). Check out the audio below to hear what the example sounds like, everything in the recording is done via the Blok patch shown above plus an additional Drum machine Blok patch I created.

One of the cool things about Blok is that it fully supports copying and pasting of Blok data across multiple instances or from other sources. For example, if you want to try out a Blok from a site or friend, you can literally just copy and paste the XML data into Blok.  Open a Blok window then paste (Shift+V), it’s that simple… TIP: To avoid conflicts with VST loader and Host short-cuts, Blok’s editing shortcuts have been moved from the CTRL key to the SHIFT Key, so to select-all/copy/paste/undo, etc. use SHIFT-C, SHIFT-V, SHIFT-A, SHIFT-Z and so on.

more…

I’ve put together a collection of some PyBuzz scripts I have created over the past few years (most from 2005-2006).  A few others are included as well by Dukajoe (PyDrum) and Kazuya. One or two the scripts might not work in the latest version of PyBuzz, but the code is still relevant so I’ve included everything in this zip I could put together.

lazytrap_pybuzz_scripts.zip

PyBuzz is a native meta-controller of sorts written by Leonard Ritter for the modular audio application Jeskola Buzz. It the Buzz world, these control signal-type modules and their data are commonly referred to as Peer Controllers or Control Machines. PyBuzz is basically an empty shell of a machine that gives a Python scripter access to the Peer interface, making it possible to integrate custom Python scripts in order to control, react, or automate other  machines within a Buzz project.

Below is an example of one of the more complete and useful scripts in the .Zip. It’s called master&servant and the principle is pretty simple. You assign Master and Slave  targets then control it with the Master parameter slider. Anytime the value of  Master goes above the Threshold, the Master parameter slider will begin to also control the Slave target.

more…

Found this on my harddrive recently from an old project, example provided to me by Ed some time ago… Better posted here than lost or squandered. To explain, it’s a relatively simple python script that you can run against your Buzz gear directories and a list of all machines in the directory is given and the type of machine, what flags it uses, the author, etc. is returned. It is more or less a starting example, but you may find it useful for sorting modules as-is:

more…

This isnt a development of my own but its a topic I’ve been watching heavily since the Bliptronic 5000 came out (and I ordered one). Finally someone has done the ground work.. Will Lindsay @ the Stray Technologies website has done a full pin out (see picture below) and testing of the board in order to attach a Arduino, or A_SID, YM, (or whatever else .. you get the point) to it and make it sexy. Check out his site/post for more info. There is also some useful info @ electro-music’s forum, here.

I’ll be updating this post with future links.

Additional info:

blipduino.org, not much there yet but you can download a .pdf of the Bliptronic’s CPU Board Mechanicals.
Hacklab Perth – Projects:Bliptronic Arduinome (WIKI)
Youtube – Bliptronic MIDI Sync circuit – schematics and PIC program posted online.

SynC Modular, the precusory application that lead to Native Instrument’s Reaktor, is now offically free (ahem, finally). Nowadays there are a large collection of modern applications that can do what it does, however.. the aged app presents a somewhat unique tonal quality (thanks to dated dsp no doubt, aimed @ performance marks for early 2000’s pcs) and the standalone, never-going-to-get-an-update factor of it is quite charming. Add into that several Ensembles that you can find littered across the internet and you’ve got yourself one sweet piece of modular freeware, old or not.

The free registration key and more info can be found @ SynC’s website: http://www.syncmodular.com/ A new forum has also been started there for all you trainspotting, retro-softwarizing, modular loving, low-cpu hugging geeks out there… so it appears that some people are trying to stir a community together for this fine piece of software. I’ll definitely be checking in from time to time to see what emsembles ppup-up or if any new hacked-up uses occur.

Here’s a good archive of SynC ensembles: http://sites.google.com/site/syncensembles/