TraceKaiser: Can you snap some photos of the insides?
Should I disassemble it, or just take a pic of the guts as is?
I'm just trying to look for any anomalies, really. It sounds like a very strange error. Are you sure that nothing is shorted? Are all the connectors fully inserted? What you're describing might be a problem with the power regulator chip, but even then I have a hard time seeing how you could have damaged it.
It kinda seems like it isn't latching properly, because if you hold the switch down everything works perfectly. It just turns off when you let go of the switch.
I'll check the connectors later (it's nearly 1am here), but everything was connected as well as I could get it.
I switched around the screws on the back (the ones holding the i/o board in place and the ground one) and it worked with them in different positions. Though that was likely a fluke.
It works sometimes, but then doesn't. I have no clue...
Man, I bet there's just something jammed in the switch. Shake it around and hit it a bit maybe. Spray some contact cleaner in there.
First off, that switch is not a real on/off switch. It's a momentary switch which causes the power regulator circuit to turn on when pressed, and off when pressed again. In other words, it doesn't latch, it just closes momentarily. To my understanding, what causes the regulator circuit to react is a positive edge, i.e. off -> on transition.
The only thing I can think of is that you have somehow pressed the button too far in a lot of times. My theory is that when you press your switch all the way in, the switch first makes, then breaks again when you press it all the way in. Then when you release the switch, it makes and breaks once more on the way out, causing the unit to go off when you release the button. Check if it works better if you try to press the button as quickly as you can or if you only press it halfway in.
Also, you should place the screws correctly, as they have different pitch. The silver screw should be to the left of the power button. This is the "ground screw". It might be so that the board flexes back and forth, if you placed a black screw there, assuming the screw doesn't even grip onto the screw mount. But those two things are really all I can think of. And apart from the screw placement, neither thing should have anything to do with the mod.
Oh no, I just switched the screws around to see if it was somehow shorting where it shouldn't have or something similar, I didn't keep it like that hahah
Out of interest, what do you base that theory about the switch on? Just that sounds like an extraordinarily weird way to do things rather than just have a momentary push to make switch being monitored by a PIC - hence why you have to hold the switch for slightly longer to turn it off.
I'm not at home currently, but I'll probably strip everything down again and reassemble it, just to see if it's a slightly dodgy connection or something stupid. Its really really weird haha. It's not like I went mad with a soldering iron inside or anything, I know what I'm doing in terms of electronics.
By latching I meant like, a thyristor latching or something by the way, not the switch itself.
Of course, I could just replace it with a latching switch...
No, it's just a momentary switch. What I said about the switch going off when pressed all the way in, was a theory of how your switch might have failed in such a way that the unit turns off when you release the button.
Ohh right I see.
Anyway, I tried just tapping it and pressing it quickly etc, and it didn't work, it just goes straight off... ._.
I guess I'll have to put up with using tape or blue tack to hold the switch down then, haha.
The only way I got it to sync with LSDJ is if I had one DMG playing ONLY the pulse. It was also really picky about what kind of pulse it would take - I ended up making clicks in the noise channel that it liked.
mind if I ask you how did you make this noise instrument for the clicks? I tried a bunch of different settings, some of them work great, but when I change the BPM everything fucks up.
got myself a monotribe and I can't get enough of it. So much fun.
I set it at C7, and use a pulse instrument in the noise channel
Envelope 61
Wave 50%
Output R
Length 02
Sweep FF
Table ON
VOL TSP CMD
0 71
1 K00
I think I was using the output from my prosound (can't check quite now) to trigger it
Hope that helps you!
thanks! gonna try that later and post the results.
I had some verbal diarrhea, and the result is available here: Syncing monotribe to LSDj using the sync jack (no MIDI)
Also, TraceKaiser, did you ever get your 'tribe working properly again?
Yeah, it was just the ribbon cable wasn't QUITE fully in. Like, a couple mm out? And yeah, that caused all the problems haha. So make sure you put it back together well!
Also worth mentioning that my DMG is prosounded pre-pot - where the volume control won't affect it - and so it's louder and punchier than DMGs prosounded from the pot or afterwards. This may have some bearing on whether or not it works for you, so experimentation is the key really.
Hope this helps! If needed I could take some video/photos of everything, but it's pretty simple
thanks a lot nitro! I didn't want to waste my wave channel, so I was figuring a way to use the noise. The only way I could figure it would play only one step was with a K01 command, but that wasn't enough on a lower bpm. Putting the O command on the table was the genius step for making a perfect click, thanks!
Hey somone is selling this mod now: