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I’ve had this drum machine, the Alesis HR-16b, for about 15 years. I haven’t used it much lately because although it’s a nice machine which is really quick and easy to program and a lot of fun to use, it has to be said that the sounds are a bit too clean. It’s hard to get it to sit right in a mix, it always needs a bit of distortion or lo-fi filtering.

And with the easy availability of far more sophisticated software drum programming tools these days it just isn’t worth using drum machines for recording unless you really like the sound of them. And even then it’s usually easier to record the sounds you like and sequence them in a software environment.

I would, however, like to incorporate this machine into a live performance set-up. For one thing, I like to have sounds coming from multiple sources – rather than all out of the same usb port on the laptop, into the same channel on the desk, through the same effects etc – and secondly, like I said, it’s a really fun machine to use. Soooo…..

…. I was pretty excited to read this very informative thread which explains just how easy it is to warp the HR-16 / HR-16b to get a huge variety of distorted, gated, glitchy, modulated sounds. Oh Joy!

What I learned (from the link above) is that all of the sound data is stored on two 32-pin chips, and connecting any two or more of the pins on each chip to any other pin on either chip gives you the bends (so to speak).

I also learned to “stay away from pin 1 (program supply), 22 (chip enable), 24 (output enable), and 32 (+5V)”.

So the trick is to make some kind of switching system to make connections between the pins, preferably something a bit slicker than poking screwdrivers at them while the machine is running.

Most people who bend this machine seem to like a patchbay system, others use quite complex switching systems, usually built on the top of the machine which has a big flat space with plenty of room for sockets and switches.

There’s plenty of room inside, too – no trouble finding space for extra wiring. It’s a bit like working on an old car.

For some reason (beyond my current understanding of such things) the data is identical on both chips so it’s only necessary to use half of the pins. This makes soldering a bit easier as you can just use every second pin, alternating between the chips, and still get all the possible connections.

From a comment in the same thread (above) I got the idea to do all the switching and bending in a separate box, so I’ve used one of those long connectors you find on the back of a floppy drive (which is exactly where I found it) and wired each usable pin to a corresponding pin on the connector.

Now I can use a flat ribbon cable and experiment in a separate box without destroying too much of the case of the machine until I know what I want to do. Also I can potentially build several different boxes with different switching systems so it keeps the whole thing nice and flexible. Also I can put the machine back together and keep using it as normal while I experiment with breakout boxes.

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As you can see, so far I’ve just been putting together other people’s tried and tested ideas but next comes the interesting part – coming up with some way of switching the connections. I haven’t given it too much thought yet but I do have the idea that some way of fading between connections and combining different bends in a smooth, fluid way might be fun.

Maybe something with LDRs (photocells)? I think I’ll start with pots and faders and see how I go. Any ideas appreciated.