Tweet
SO.. to the Alesis HR16..
Got this one on fleabay for almost nothing, shipped from the USA.. Needs a 9v AC power supply, kinda tricky, but i had one..
This machine was very popular in 1988.. Everyone raved about it's Velocity sensitive pads and massive soundset. The sounds are Stereo, faux 16-bit - streamed from 2 8 bit roms.. This makes for easy fun with the usual Addressline bends and taps..
Burnkit have a page on the HR16 - you need to study it, and can get stuff like the manual and bins for the various roms. You can make Your 16 into a 16b with a firmware rom swap and sound rom swap easily.. The B has more electro sounds, but they really don't sound as good as the 'natural' sounds in the stock 16 when glitched..
I was going to make a custom rom for it, but there really is no need, the rich stash of stock sounds is punchy and has a slight ambiance sampled with some hits sometimes, that makes lovely aliasing when you glitch the sample position.
The real killer on this is the STEREO.. the sounds just go bonkers in the field (check out the attached audio..) when you jumble the lines up..
So, just when you thought you had heard it all from 8-bit rom PCM machines, the HR16 brings it newstyle!
You can get a taste of honey well quick using the piccy attached with the colour blobs - just pick one blob, and wire up shorts from it to pins of the same colour.. I have grouped the pins using colour as these bends are safe and usefull. they don't cause crashes and sound useable.. there are plenty of other combinations, but they sound samey or shite.. You can stack bends from each colour group for even more nonsense in safety too.
I tapped to the underside of the board and ran wires to a piece of blob board, and from there wired a loom to the controls. This is by far the way to go, as stacking the wires onto the underside of the main board is asking for trouble. Just duplicate the underside of either of the roms, or a side from each is best, on a remote piece of board, then put it back together and work from this extension board..
Some of my switches have 2 bends on them, some are 1 bend, with latching in one direction, and momentary in the other, but the same bend both ways.. I also made all the bends on the flippers (6 in total) lockable using a rotory switch and a 2-way switch - this also allows me to stack any combo from the 6 bends available to give even more unique bends.
Also - the EARTH tap, caused much randomness. Like actual non-repeating glitches.. Interesting..
Got this one on fleabay for almost nothing, shipped from the USA.. Needs a 9v AC power supply, kinda tricky, but i had one..
This machine was very popular in 1988.. Everyone raved about it's Velocity sensitive pads and massive soundset. The sounds are Stereo, faux 16-bit - streamed from 2 8 bit roms.. This makes for easy fun with the usual Addressline bends and taps..
Burnkit have a page on the HR16 - you need to study it, and can get stuff like the manual and bins for the various roms. You can make Your 16 into a 16b with a firmware rom swap and sound rom swap easily.. The B has more electro sounds, but they really don't sound as good as the 'natural' sounds in the stock 16 when glitched..
I was going to make a custom rom for it, but there really is no need, the rich stash of stock sounds is punchy and has a slight ambiance sampled with some hits sometimes, that makes lovely aliasing when you glitch the sample position.
The real killer on this is the STEREO.. the sounds just go bonkers in the field (check out the attached audio..) when you jumble the lines up..
So, just when you thought you had heard it all from 8-bit rom PCM machines, the HR16 brings it newstyle!
You can get a taste of honey well quick using the piccy attached with the colour blobs - just pick one blob, and wire up shorts from it to pins of the same colour.. I have grouped the pins using colour as these bends are safe and usefull. they don't cause crashes and sound useable.. there are plenty of other combinations, but they sound samey or shite.. You can stack bends from each colour group for even more nonsense in safety too.
I tapped to the underside of the board and ran wires to a piece of blob board, and from there wired a loom to the controls. This is by far the way to go, as stacking the wires onto the underside of the main board is asking for trouble. Just duplicate the underside of either of the roms, or a side from each is best, on a remote piece of board, then put it back together and work from this extension board..
Some of my switches have 2 bends on them, some are 1 bend, with latching in one direction, and momentary in the other, but the same bend both ways.. I also made all the bends on the flippers (6 in total) lockable using a rotory switch and a 2-way switch - this also allows me to stack any combo from the 6 bends available to give even more unique bends.
Also - the EARTH tap, caused much randomness. Like actual non-repeating glitches.. Interesting..
Comment