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This weekend my 909 left the studio for the first time since 2009, as Jeff Mills was playing at LIFE X1, and needed a loan of one. Previous to this, it's lived on it's shelf since 1993! I was super nervous he would freak out when he saw the mods, as it could effect his performance and throw him into a bad night in front of a festival crowd, but, as with ALL my mods, i made sure the machine could be set at STOCK and would behave like a virgin 909. My only big concern was my controls are mounted on the sides, in the hand rails. SO, if he was to pick up the machine to move it, he could have hit off some of the switches, making it go crazy. So, i had to warn him before he played. He DID NOT freak out. In fact, he was curious. In fact, everyone on the crew that day was curious about the mods and what they did. SO. here we go.
My 909 has been used on pretty much every recording i made since '93, usually for it's unmistakable Hi hats and bouncy kickdrum. I went thru' a phaze of distorting the kickdrum, but in 2009 realised it had not been used properly in ages. This was because of the shift in taste towards a lower more tonal kick. You probably know what i mean - the TICK-WHUMP kick that virtual synths do so well. The 909 does not do this at all well stock, so i set about trying out some bends on it.
If You watch the video You can see i name the parts i lifted off the board and moved to a switch matrix. Each part will effect one of the 3 things that make up the 909 kick. As usual, You have a choice of the STOCK part, and either an interesting alternative, or a variable version. This means i can change the Drive/Hammer intensity, The decay, The pitch of the main osc, and The effect of the pitch envelope. By combining these You can get all manner of real analogue kicks, and even emulate the low-voltage distortion You get from jacking the inputs to Your desk, but without the added high noisefloor, or lack of low-end. There is also some subtle changes to the range of the 'tick' in the sound, so You can wind back the drive, add decay and trick-the-tick to make a really good 808 kick. Anyway, i love it now, and cannot understand why i left it stock for 15 years!!
All the Kick tricks are on 3-way switches, with the middle being a NULL position - this means you can MUTE parts of the sound, leave them stock path, or via a different resistor or cap. Leaving them in the middle can make some sexy clicking sounds, which can be fun.
The hats are a piece of piss to mod for pitch - Just lift R492 and make it switchable between the original resistor and a pot of Your choice. Best not just replace it with a pot, as you WANT to stay at stock pitch - trust me on this. I made mine 3 way - Stock (thru' the lifted R492), to nothing (gives only a CLICK) and thru' a nice plastic pot which will allow it to scrape along at super low rate thru' to so high the eprom fails to be read. Lovely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcDRloMxXHQ
My 909 has been used on pretty much every recording i made since '93, usually for it's unmistakable Hi hats and bouncy kickdrum. I went thru' a phaze of distorting the kickdrum, but in 2009 realised it had not been used properly in ages. This was because of the shift in taste towards a lower more tonal kick. You probably know what i mean - the TICK-WHUMP kick that virtual synths do so well. The 909 does not do this at all well stock, so i set about trying out some bends on it.
If You watch the video You can see i name the parts i lifted off the board and moved to a switch matrix. Each part will effect one of the 3 things that make up the 909 kick. As usual, You have a choice of the STOCK part, and either an interesting alternative, or a variable version. This means i can change the Drive/Hammer intensity, The decay, The pitch of the main osc, and The effect of the pitch envelope. By combining these You can get all manner of real analogue kicks, and even emulate the low-voltage distortion You get from jacking the inputs to Your desk, but without the added high noisefloor, or lack of low-end. There is also some subtle changes to the range of the 'tick' in the sound, so You can wind back the drive, add decay and trick-the-tick to make a really good 808 kick. Anyway, i love it now, and cannot understand why i left it stock for 15 years!!
All the Kick tricks are on 3-way switches, with the middle being a NULL position - this means you can MUTE parts of the sound, leave them stock path, or via a different resistor or cap. Leaving them in the middle can make some sexy clicking sounds, which can be fun.
The hats are a piece of piss to mod for pitch - Just lift R492 and make it switchable between the original resistor and a pot of Your choice. Best not just replace it with a pot, as you WANT to stay at stock pitch - trust me on this. I made mine 3 way - Stock (thru' the lifted R492), to nothing (gives only a CLICK) and thru' a nice plastic pot which will allow it to scrape along at super low rate thru' to so high the eprom fails to be read. Lovely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcDRloMxXHQ
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