Any other great mods...??

Etherium · Post by **Etherium** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:52 am

So I've seen the link to the stick on skins for the electribe, and have read about you guys and heard the difference in some samples yous have posted with aftermarket tubes, and have heard people suggest to get new knobs (witch I've often thought about myself)......though I've never done any of these yet.......but one thing i would love to do is somehow pimp the memory in the esx....I realise this is not really possible, is it......well, I mean is it possible to unsolder the memory chip....or whatever it is, with something that has more storage space, but obviously the same type.....so it can just pop straight in and be soldered...?, I'm guessing no..!, but hey, thought I'd ask.....I've never opened up any of my tribes so I don't know what it looks like under there.....Also is it possible to get better filters with less noticable stepping, better knobs I assume won't fix this, though maybe the new tubes will help. But I assume this comes down to the way the firmware codes have been written for the DSP's...?, meaning i can't do s**t, about that...?.......Thanx in advance guys...!!

Ruso · Post by **Ruso** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 5:33 pm

A Part mute toggle button. Which is quite a groovy mod and I had it on my emx for a while but then I took it off.

Also I've seen a vid of a guy who's got all the led's under the pads different colors (like all his drums are blue except 1,5,9 and 13 are a different color.

Etherium · Post by **Etherium** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:27 am

"a part mute toggle button" does sound groovy..!!, plz explain...??, and yeh I have seen the different colour leds video on youtube, witch looks very cool, though if your not going to be working with the same format everytime such as "bass drum on ch 1", etc, etc. then i suppose it could get a lil confusing. but if the whole memory thing was possible then that would be a definite goer for me..!!, i supose that evan if you somehow stuck a bigger stick of ram in there, then the firmware is gonna have to somehow be aware of the extra space there...?, so I'd better stop dreaming bout this mod...!!...??

Ruso · Post by **Ruso** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 5:03 am

The toggle switch mute button is a mod where you open up the box and solder(very carefully) two wires to the mute button's top and bottom contacts and carry them out else where. It's a cool mod however there is a side effect where a lot of functions of the box are not available while the switch is on(the mute button is held).

To do this mod you have to be somewhat good at soldering. You have to solder in a particular place and have to be able to tuck and snake the wires on the inside between buttons and it has to be clear or all of them. The modification will void any warranty, can potentially fry the box if you solder something wrong or make your mute button stop working if you solder cricked.

m4m · Post by **m4m** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:55 pm

can you post a pic or something, as i don't mind losing like the audio in thru button for that wonderfull purpose

or at least a diagram/pin numbers to solder on, i'll do it right away, the mute/solo thing pises me off so much in live situations

gmeredith · Post by **gmeredith** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:16 am

You can expand the memory in a sort of a way, by dropping in a larger chip of the same type. This sort of expansion has been done a lot in other samplers and sequencers. It will give you "banks" of extra memory - but not longer sampling time within a bank. For example, if you put a chip in that was 4x the memory of the original, it would give you 4 banks of whole ESX memory amounts, each separate from the other. So it would be like having 4 ESX's, rather than have 4x the amount of sampling time in a single ESX. And you simply switch between each bank with a toggle switch.

Another mod that I'm working on is having internal speakers - so you don't need headphones if you don't want to. You just use some small 4cm ultra flat speakers like these, or in Ipod docking stations

http://www1.jaycar.com.au/productView.a ... BCATID=621

and hook them up internally to the headphone jack solder points. Works really great for a quick "switch on and start working" kind of thing!

Cheers, graham

TrondC · Post by **TrondC** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:35 am

gmeredith wrote:You can expand the memory in a sort of a way, by dropping in a larger chip of the same type. This sort of expansion has been done a lot in other samplers and sequencers. It will give you "banks" of extra memory - but not longer sampling time within a bank. For example, if you put a chip in that was 4x the memory of the original, it would give you 4 banks of whole ESX memory amounts, each separate from the other. So it would be like having 4 ESX's, rather than have 4x the amount of sampling time in a single ESX. And you simply switch between each bank with a toggle switch.

Another mod that I'm working on is having internal speakers - so you don't need headphones if you don't want to. You just use some small 4cm ultra flat speakers like these, or in Ipod docking stations

http://www1.jaycar.com.au/productView.a ... BCATID=621

and hook them up internally to the headphone jack solder points. Works really great for a quick "switch on and start working" kind of thing!

Cheers, graham

I want 4x memory

that would have been awesome, too bad I know nill about how to handle electronics :p

Ruso · Post by **Ruso** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:58 pm

gmeredith wrote:You can expand the memory in a sort of a way, by dropping in a larger chip of the same type. This sort of expansion has been done a lot in other samplers and sequencers. It will give you "banks" of extra memory - but not longer sampling time within a bank. For example, if you put a chip in that was 4x the memory of the original, it would give you 4 banks of whole ESX memory amounts, each separate from the other. So it would be like having 4 ESX's, rather than have 4x the amount of sampling time in a single ESX. And you simply switch between each bank with a toggle switch.

Another mod that I'm working on is having internal speakers - so you don't need headphones if you don't want to. You just use some small 4cm ultra flat speakers like these, or in Ipod docking stations

http://www1.jaycar.com.au/productView.a ... BCATID=621

and hook them up internally to the headphone jack solder points. Works really great for a quick "switch on and start working" kind of thing!

Cheers, graham

I do not see this one working on the electribe, It would need a custom OS patch to be able to recognize more ram. And I highly doubt Korg would ever go for that.

As for the mod I'm talking about, the audio-thru button would not work, because it's not a true button... well it is a true button but it's not a true switch. It's just a button with a software switch which means that it lights up because the operating system tells it to light up.

You could potentially solder a relay to the light on the audio thru button and have the relay press the mute button but that would be tricky because the terminals on the led's are TINY.

gmeredith · Post by **gmeredith** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:58 am

I do not see this one working on the electribe, It would need a custom OS patch to be able to recognize more ram.

Actually, to get it to recognise more RAM in the way you are referring to, it would need an new OS and also extra data bus lines ie. a whole new circuit board design.

But the expansion I was referring to doesn't actually need any of these because you're not expanding the "recognisable memory", you're switching between banks of standard size "recognisable" ESX memory modules - all the same physical size as the ESX original memory. As a result, though, you can only use one bank at a time. But it is a handy type of expansion. I've done this expansion to my Casio SK-8 sampler (with a 32x memory expansion) and also my Alesis MMT-8 sequencer (with a 16x memory expansion), and you just switch to a whole new bank of samples with a toggle switch.

With samplers like the ESX that also have a storage card for memory, the expansion is less important, because you can always load a whole new machine bank of samples off the card. But again, the advantage of the RAM memory expansion is that to get a new bank of samples is instant - flick a switch, and they're instantly there - no load time.

Cheers, Graham

m4m · Post by **m4m** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:09 am

Ruso wrote:
gmeredith wrote:You can expand the memory in a sort of a way, by dropping in a larger chip of the same type. This sort of expansion has been done a lot in other samplers and sequencers. It will give you "banks" of extra memory - but not longer sampling time within a bank. For example, if you put a chip in that was 4x the memory of the original, it would give you 4 banks of whole ESX memory amounts, each separate from the other. So it would be like having 4 ESX's, rather than have 4x the amount of sampling time in a single ESX. And you simply switch between each bank with a toggle switch.

Another mod that I'm working on is having internal speakers - so you don't need headphones if you don't want to. You just use some small 4cm ultra flat speakers like these, or in Ipod docking stations

http://www1.jaycar.com.au/productView.a ... BCATID=621

and hook them up internally to the headphone jack solder points. Works really great for a quick "switch on and start working" kind of thing!

Cheers, graham
I do not see this one working on the electribe, It would need a custom OS patch to be able to recognize more ram. And I highly doubt Korg would ever go for that.

As for the mod I'm talking about, the audio-thru button would not work, because it's not a true button... well it is a true button but it's not a true switch. It's just a button with a software switch which means that it lights up because the operating system tells it to light up.

You could potentially solder a relay to the light on the audio thru button and have the relay press the mute button but that would be tricky because the terminals on the led's are TINY.

is there any real true switch(i guess not)

could i drill a hole and install a switch sowhere?
what type of switch, momentary or latching?
and where do I plug it, i'll do that tomorow if I can, the missig mute buttons are really making me crazy, especially with a hand on the kp3 and trying to stretch my fingers to press mute and the stretch part for example)

Etherium · Post by **Etherium** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:42 am

Oh, thankyou, thankyou....Grahem.......this is exactly what I've been wanting......have got a few things goin on at the moment but as soon as i get a chance I'm goona pull the hood off and have a look under there and see what i can find online to replace it with.....not gonna do a thing though unless I'm 110% sure its gonna work though!!, so has this been done by anyone....and does work?....

Etherium · Post by **Etherium** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:55 am

so I've popped the hood and heres a few photos, dunno what the f*ck I'm doin here but haven't really done anything lethal yet...!!, there seems to be a few chip lookin things there (lol). But hey the solder points on all of those things look pretty minute.....this is way to hard for me..!!, would there be anything on the underside of the board..!!, while I've got it apart I might order those tubes....don't think I'm gonna mess with tha LED's.

Etherium · Post by **Etherium** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 4:12 am

so I've popped the hood and heres a few photos, dunno what the f*ck I'm doin here but haven't really done anything lethal yet...!!, there seems to be a few chip lookin things there (lol). But hey the solder points on all of those things look pretty minute.....this is way to hard for me..!!, would there be anything on the underside of the board..!!, while I've got it apart I might order those tubes....don't think I'm gonna mess with tha LED's.

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... D=14582223

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Etherium · Post by **Etherium** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 4:14 am

try again....
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... =14582213 http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... D=14582223
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... D=14582233

Etherium · Post by **Etherium** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 4:22 am

yet again...lol, I'm no good at this...
[/url]http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... D=14582213
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... =14582223 http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... D=14582233