I’ve posted a video to YouTube tonight of some of my breadboard experiments with CMOS logic chips as DIY synth oscillators (CD40106 & CD4093) connected to the Korg SQ-1.
You can check that out here.
Korg SQ-1 is here!
Oh yeah baby. 🙂
I’ll be sure to post my thoughts and comments on this device once I’ve had a chance to play with it.
There is a USB port on the back which might be able to provide power but interestingly the unit takes 2 AA batteries, 3v.
MIDI operates at 5v and the CV on the MS-20 I believe is 8v so Korg are obviously doing something devious here to save power. Possibly using some sort of ‘joule theif’. Interesting.
Check back for updates to this post with more information as it becomes known.
Internal hard disk options for the E-MU E5000 Ulltra (SATA to IDE, IDE SSD)
I’ve been trying a few different methods of connecting modern hard drives to my E-MU sampler. My aim, to reduce the noise to an absolute minimum with the side benefit of possible requiring less power from the ageing PSU.
Power
One of the quirks of the e-mu e5000 ultra and other samplers in the range, is that the power output header on the motherboard for internal hard disks has had it’s pins reversed in order of a standard PC. Plugging in a hard drive to the sampler and turning it on without modifying the power cable will result in +12v being where your hard drive expected +5v and a puff of magic smoke will signal the death of your hard drive.
SATA to IDE coverters
I tried several different converters without success until I came across the WinTech 93205-GB which worked great with standard 2.5″ spinning SATA disks but although SATA SSD drives were detected by the sampler they were not able to be formatted or accessed when pre-formatted as FAT.
The WinTech has a slide switch to select between host and device. Device was selected.
The fix for the reverse power connection was simple, clip through all the cables and connect the red to the yellow and the yellow to the red, swap the ground cables and test with a multimeter to make sure I hadn’t made any mistakes. I took this opportunity to also solder in the tiny 5v power connector for the WinTech in series from the 5v power cable and ground.
To connect the hard drive to the case I used a 2.5″ to 3.5″ mounting bracket with rubber washer to reduce vibration noise and fixed to the top mounting holes for a 3.5″ disk.
Lovely, barely a sound and worked flawlessly.
I wanted more though.
PATA SSD
I took to google in a quest to find myself a IDE/PATA SSD hoping that it just might work.
I was in luck. I found myself a 32GB IDE SSD on Amazon (32GB KingSpec 2.5-inch PATA/IDE SSD Solid State Disk (MLC Flash) SM2236 Controller) and a cheap 2.5″ to 3.5″ IDE converter and after a two week amble from Hong Kong I had it in my hand and ready to go.
Of course the power cable needed adjustment first.
But I’m pleased to say it worked first time.
Along with the silent fan mod I did to replace the PSU fan this thing is now absolutely silent except for the initial floppy noise on boot. Excellent.