Post by rodney on Dec 11, 2019 0:18:04 GMT
I have an old yellow Korg Kaossilator.
Although they are becoming collectibles and the prices rising, they do still sometimes appear for sale by people who got the latest version.
It has an x/y pad and lots of sounds and drum loops etc. but can not remember anything much when you turn it off. it also can not send or receive anything in the way of midi or sync. This makes it essentially a live improvising toy.
Its pros include:
- quite compact so it won't eat too much real estate (I have not really measured it up to see if it can be shrunk to AE dimensions).
- Has a 5v input for power
- basically monophonic
- it can record, loop and overdub its own internal sound (for up to 4 bars with a little coercion)
I found a few hacks online that might make it handy as an AE module. one is to put it under MIDI control by intercepting the voltages coming from the x/y pad and replacing them with output form an ATtiny or similar to pick up the midi via serial interface. CV input would not be hard to apply in this way, since we are dealing with voltages - getting them in tune may be a another challenge though.
It should not be rocket science to get a 0-5v out from the touch pads either. These could be separated so the pad could control something else while something else controls the Kaossilator's synth sounds.
I found another hack to hijack the tempo LED on the numeric display to get a rather rough sync output.
web.archive.org/web/20190304130813/http://acidotunismo.com/en/2013/10/kaossilator-bpm-out-mod-or-any-led/
... aaand ...
Another mod to break out some of the switch functions that could, with a little more circuitry, potentially make the record, 'arpeggiator' and other things open to external control and triggering.
Of course, what invariably happens to me is that I chop up a perfectly good cheap synth toy then find a few years later that it has become a valuable antique!
I suspect this is what will be the case with my Korg SQ-1 sequencer that may soon experience some tough AE love involving a Dremel and lots of sparks! - but that will probably become another thread.