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I have to admit it, I'm a bit of a junky. Over the past 6 or 7 years I've been spent a good deal of time repairing, modifying
and cloning the Boss DR-110. I'm not sure what initially attracted me to the machine (probably the low cost), but I always
seem to come back to it. I'm currently building my third generation DR-110; be sure to see the photos
In it's stock form, the DR-110 isn't an overly expressive drum machine. The drawbacks are a lack of tone
editing capabilities, no sync input, and only a single mono output. It does have some highlights, however:
an easy to use grid-style pattern sequencer, and some good analog sounds. As a matter of fact, it's my favorite machine for handclaps.
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I've tried dozens of different modifications over the years, and I've built a few different generations of modified DR-110s; each
revision has more features and becomes more intricate than the last. My favored approach for the DR-110 is to use two machines,
one as a sequencer, the other as a sound module. It would be totally possible to combine all of these modifications into a single
DR-110, but things end up getting complicated, and the machine becomes difficult to work on due to the shear amount of wires flying
off of the voice board.
The biggest challange with the DR-110 is the case. There is absolutely no room for additional circuitry or knobs in the stock
plastic case. There are several options:
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It's possible to squeeze a D-sub connector on the side of the case. This would allow you to connect a break-out box with a
ribbon cable. Things to remember: The DR-110 will not work without the breakout-box connected. Also, it's likely that you
will get cross-talk on the ribbon cable. Careful signal routing will be important, especially if your clock
is running through the ribbon cable for external sync.
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You can permanently attach the DR-110 to an external knob box by using glue and screws to hold them together. This allows
you to have a large opening through the bottom or back or side of the DR-110 case to pass wires to the external circuitry. I've tried
this approach before, and the biggest problem is attaching the external box without interfering with the on/off switch, power jack
or battery tray. For this reason, the box fits best on the side... but it's difficult to get all of the wires out due to the limited
space between the voice board and CPU board. Difficult, but not impossible.
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Another option is to use the battery tray as space for circuitry. A small box can then be attached to the side of the DR-110 for the
additional knobs. You simply carve out all of the bottom of the battery tray and glue the lid on. This would be enough room to add
sync circuitry, allowing you to have audio and sync seperated to avoid sync signals bleeding into the audio path. The space inside the
battery campartment also gives you a lot more room to route wires to a break-out box, simplifying things a little. One thing to note:
if you remove the battery, you lose the memory backup. It may be possible to use small coin-cell lithium batteries, although I haven't
attempted that.
- The most drastic approach is to ditch the stock case, sequencer and button board entirely and use the DR-110 as a sound module.
The DR-110 could be triggered by another drum machine, or from a MIDI-to-gate module. I met someone who put the DR-110 voice board
inside of a TR-707. A set of switches selects the DR-110 or TR-707 voices, and the audio is routed through the 707's mixer. Neat!
One drawback with this method is: The claps won't sound right without the repeating trigger... you either need to accept the fact that
the claps will sound different, or you can add a repeating trigger generator (Thomas Henry's "Electronic Drum Cookbook" has a good
example circuit).
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Finally there's my approach: Use two DR-110s. I use one as a sequencer by adding some form of sync and trigger outputs. The second
DR-110 gets stripped down to the voice board, and gets placed in a seperate box. All of the tone modifying circuitry gets added to to the
second machine, and it's tied to the sequencer with a 9-pin D-Sub cable. This cable is carrying only trigger signals, so cross-talk
is not really an issue. One benefit is I have the ability to use both DR-110s at once. The "sequencer" still has a stock voice board in
it, and it acts as a stock DR-110 with MIDI sync. I can simultaneously trigger the "sound module" from my MIDI-to-GATE, basically having
two drum machines. Other times I'll just use them together as a single unit. Drawbacks? Well, you the biggest one is that you need two
DR-110s. When I first started experimenting, they cost about $35. Unfortunately the price has risen pretty dramatically, and it's not as
easy to buy two... so I usually buy them broken if possible.
I've performed a variety of different modifications to the DR-110, and there are descriptions of these mods below. Some of the mods have
links to a page detailing what I've done. I hope to add schematics for all of the mods when I have some free time.
- Sync: I've installed 12ppqn Sync, DIN-sync and MIDI sync to the DR-110
- Trigger Inputs: Allowing you to trigger the voices from anyting outputing a 5V gate
- Trigger Outputs: Use your DR-110's sequencer to control other analog gear
- Mute Switches: To turn individual voices on or off
- Direct Outputs and Mixer: Gives you more control over the voices, and allows you to add effects to a single voice
- Bass Drum: pitch
- Snare Drum: Impact Pitch, Snare ("Snappy") level, Decay
- Hi Hat: Filter, OH Decay
- Cymbal: Filter, Decay
- Handclap: Filter, Decay
If you need a copy of the DR-110 Schematics,
you may download this file in PDF format. I'd like to thank Leviathant for scanning the service manual Be
sure to follow the link to his site on the DR-110 Links Page
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