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My Drum Project
I've done no work on the Synsonic for over one year. Although *others have successfully done my modifications -- which remain valid -- I couldn't leave well enough alone, and through my tinkering managed to damage not one, but two Synsonic boards.![]()
So I 've come up with a new plan. Part will use a PAiA DrumTone kit, and part will be D.I.Y.
This should actually turn out better than my original plan. Details begin at NEW PLAN
I've wanted electronic drums ever since the late 1970s. Commercial units were beyond my budget, at the time. Besides, what I really wanted was to build electronic drums. But every electronic kit and D.I.Y. circuit I tried was somehow dissatisfying and disappointing. Even PAiA let me down.
Then along came the Mattel Synsonic. It was inexpensive, had four drumpads that could be played with sticks and, most importantly, it could record and playback user-created rhythms. It seemed to have all that I wanted and I could possibly build upon it. Alas, I was once again disappointed. The sounds it made were ok, if a little bland, but the programming method was, in my opinion, atrocious. What's more, recorded patterns were lost when the unit was turned off! And the so-called Bass, which was just a click, was not manually playable, having only on/off and tempo buttons that "pounded out" its miserable clicking on every beat. What the hell was that? That's not how human drummers always play kick drums! Not if they have any imagination. Or minimal talent.
Lacking any information on the innards of the toy all I could do to modify it was wire up a jack to connect a foot-switch in parallel with the Accent button, which shortened the Cymbal decay to sound like a closed Hi-Hat. (I later learned that this option, as well as an asynchronous input for Bass, appears on the 5-pin din jack that looks like MIDI but isn't.) The Synsonic got packed away and didn't get unpacked when I moved -- three times. My electronics D.I.Y. activities dwindled.
Fast-forward to the Internet Age. I found a wealth of information on what could be done in Analog Percussion Synthesis and techniques that hadn't occurred to me so long ago. My decades-old desire was rekindled. In my searches, I happened upon burnkit2600, a site devoted to Circuit Bending -- modifications to existing devices to get new sounds from them. Hells Bells! There was a thread devoted to my long-neglected Synsonic -- including the Service manual! It had all the information I needed: schematic, component layout and (barely adequate,) circuit description.
On the following pages you'll find my modifications to and enhancements of the Synsonic's capabilities.
You'll also find my future plans for my Monster Synsonic.I am indebted to Thom and Justin of burnkit2600 for making the information I needed available, and grateful for their kindly reception of my contribution.
* Here's one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y93N92J9oFE (wotatwaat)
and another (Dan Lavin at electro-music.com)
Start Overview Update Samples Construction Documents Speculations NEW PLAN