Changing a backup battery on a Korg S3

So, you need to replace the backup battery of your Korg S3 because every time you start it up you have to do the INIT procedure ( hold 'Stop' and S1 when switching on the machine ) to hear the drums.

After managing to remove that backplate you're faced with this vision..

Now, don't do what I did and unscrew all the black screws - roughly 17 of and remove the entire board ( ok I got to clean the switches, so not an entire waste of time ) just unscrew those two brass screws, lift back the 'tin-foil' to reveal the battery ( D'oh! )

The battery just slides in and out - standard 3v coin battery.

It's easier putting it back together by the way :)

Just these two

Et Voila!

Korg DDD-5 joins the family

So, I've managed to get hold of a Korg DDD-5 drum machine to go along with my other Korg gear. Last time I used one of these was back in the late 80's. I't a great sounding little box ( love the bass slaps.) The previous owner's taken great care of this unit as it's in excellent condition, the only issue with it is a dead battery and a missing rubber foot, but it does come with the ofter lost presets facia panel. This fella is going to sit along his big brother the DDD-1 ( still my favourite drum machine in the studio. ) Might see if I can acquire some extra sound cards for it too.
DDD-5 Rear	DDD-5 Front	Presets Panel
DDD-1 - The 5's big brother

Akai S700 Sample Dumping

Motu Fastlane

I have an old Akai S700 with a faulty disk drive. I've been meaning to get round to replacing the damaged belt with a new one, but also wanted to be able to archive the samples to my Mac. I knew from reading an old article in Keyboard magazine back in the 80's that the only application that works reliably is Sound Designer.

I managed to find a copy of Sound Designer (1.5 Universal) a while back to use with my old trusty Apple Mac Performa 630 (running Mac OS 7.5.5) and hooked it up using another old bit of vintage kit - my Mark Of The Unicorn 'Fastlane' 1 in 3 out midi interface.

Success! The Akai and Mac swapped file seamlessly..

On the left is the Akai loading the sample dump from Sound Designer; below is the file being sent.

I was hoping to integrate it with my Opcode Studio 5LX's but it doesn't completely work. While the Akai can receive the files from the Mac, there seems to be an issue sending files via the Studio 5's through the MOTU interface. I might be missing something though..

But, at the end of the day I can use my Akai s700 and save the samples onto my old P630 and Zip drive. It just requires changing a midi cable when using the S700 with the rest of my OMS setup. Not much of a hardship. I could get a Midi Merger though? That would fix that problem :-)