The Theory:

Over the past few years I've modified about a half dozen DR-110s. The DR-110 circuit board is poorly made with thin copper traces that peel right off the board if you're not careful. Additionally, there's no extra space inside the case for adding new controls or jacks. For this reason, I decided it would be easier to clone the voices from scratch.

Instead of limiting myself to voices from the DR-110, I decided to clone all of my favorites. This includes modules from the Boss DR-55 and DR-110 as well as the Roland TR-606 and TR-808. I may also experiment with voices from the Roland CR-68 and CR-78 at some point.

As I've been thinking about the project, I had a few goals in mind. First, it should be modular. Each voice will be a seperate entity. Second, I'd like to have a mixer module that is patched internally, so the machine can be used without patch cables, and without burning up channels on my studio mixer. Finally, I'd like to distibute gate signals internally as well. I will have a 15 pin D-Sub connector on the mixer module that is compatible with the Kenton KADI interface. Again, this will be installed to reduce the number of patch cables required.

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My wish list of voices:

• Boss DR-110
• Snare
• Hi Hats
• Cymbal
• Hand Clap
• Boss DR-55
• Bass Drum
• Roland TR-606
• Bass Drum
• Roland TR-808
• Bass Drum
• Hi Hats

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Module Progress:

January 2006: Designed and built stereo mixer
March 2006: Built initial prototype of Boss DR-55 Bass Drum
July & August 2006: Refined design of DR-55 BD. Created new PCB layout and built new prototype. See the BD-55 page