Swingin' Keyparty

Probably a decade ago at this point, my rad lil brother gave me this old Wurlitzer drum machine - the Swingin' Rhythm. I love these old drum machines. They all sound exactly the same yet ever so slightly different, with subtle variations on the same rhythm pattern presets from the popular music of the era. Hits like "Waltz", "Latin", "Foxtrot", "Teen" and "March" - all of which have clearly stood the test of time and remain culturally relevant to this very second.Even with the option to create more intricate patterns by holding down different combinations of beats, this thing is pretty limited. The tempo is tough to sync with other gear, so it has just been the sort of machine you can play along with on an analog instrument, or record and resample. All of the instruments are individually playable, but not very practical unless you incorporate a looper or some other recording device.I cracked it open and took a look at its guts.Its beautiful, beautiful guts.I'm always hesitant to modify anything that plugs into the wall. There just seems to be the potential for REAL ACTUAL DANGER AND FIRE there, and I'm just not ready to bring that into my life. Then someone on Facebook told me about how there are points that will trigger all of the drum sounds individually from single pins, easily accessed inside the machine.In the end I wanted to wire up 7 wires. One for each drum, then a pair for the audio output (I ended up not really using this - but we'll get into that later.) I decided to use an old Ethernet cable for this. Not only because I use old Ethernet cable almost exclusively in every project - I was going to use the connector, too. We'll get into that later, too.Now it is time to connect this to some sort of trigger system. My first, only, and best thought were all about my modular, and my Arturia Beatstep Pro, for which I had built my BeatstepStool - also to facilitate easier modular connections. I designed and 3D printed a 5U module just for this!I tried out a new concept (for me at least) for the faceplate. Since I needed to both label one side and hold a component in on the other, I decided to print the faceplate in two thin pieces. One in wood PLA because I like the look (and I feel like it suits the original machine), and the other in some clear green I already had loaded into the printer from another project. The first printing had two issues. First, it was too close to the bottom of my case. Second, it was too flimsy. It bent and wobbled and that's just no good! I moved the bottom connector up a few mm and reinforced the back plate and my new plate was good to go! I call it the KeyParty, since it connects you to that Swingin' Rhythm. DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE? You can download the stl file for it here. That big spot on the front is for that Ethernet cable! I thought that would be the easiest way to be able to connect the drum machine to the plate while still making it easily disconnectable - something I didn't work out on the BeatstepStool I mentioned earlier. You'll notice that there's no photo of the cable running out the back of the drum machine itself. That's because it doesn't look that great. I ran the cable out through the aux port and used some parts from a half-printed pedal and some electrical tape to keep the hole sturdy. Okay, fine. Here is a picture but I made it very small so it's going to be hard to see. I also didn't include a picture of the inside wiring. This is because I forgot to take one, and am too lazy to pull this out of my modular and take some pictures. Here's what I can tell you. The trigger wires are all going to the tip connections of 3.5 mm jacks. The top jack is for the audio output, which is a 3.5 mm jack wired in the standard fashion, from the blue and blue/white wires connected earlier. Everything is internally wired to the appropriate connection of an RJ45 connector I harvested from an old coupler I had lying around.And here it is! All plugged in and ready to go. I ended up not really using the audio output because it is SO quiet in a modular system. Even running it through a maxed-out A183-3 makes it barely audible against anything else that is playing. I left it wired up and just used the standard audio output to run this to my mixer. So...how does it sound, you ask? I think it sounds pretty damn great!https://youtu.be/YTaNJGY9GAU

"Mantis Hat" Mounting Bracket for Kordbot

New stuff on the way!