EPROM burning...

Sir Ruff · Post by **Sir Ruff** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 5:41 pm

I just picked up an MXR 185 drum machine whihc is EMPROM based... I know there are various older units you can buy to burn your own eproms, but these seem to be getting pricier and rarer.. I know sample based eproms is kind of a redundant area, but I love the idea of swapping chips around. Anyone have any suggestions on some modern EPROM burners that could be used to burn older chips, or some method of using computer + cheap burner?

hageir · Post by **hageir** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 6:47 pm

you can submit your own samples and have them burnt here:

http://www.djdab.com/dabframes/MOD.htm

prophei · Post by **prophei** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 6:58 pm

burning chips is easy. just find out what kind of eprom chips your device uses, and look at the supported chips spec of any burner. there are tons of em out there... i got one on ebay.

then research online about the type of formatting the samples need for that machine. there is a dos app that will convert to most drummachine format bin files that is free and was written by the guy who worked on the oberheim prommer. i use this with great results. i use this to burn chips for my drumtraks.

polardark · Post by **polardark** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 8:06 pm

I use the Willem burner for my pet projects. You can either buy it as an electronics kit or pre-built, and there are a bunch of addons for different types of chips. Not that expensive either.

Sir Ruff · Post by **Sir Ruff** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:24 pm

polardark wrote:I use the Willem burner for my pet projects. You can either buy it as an electronics kit or pre-built, and there are a bunch of addons for different types of chips. Not that expensive either.

cool-yeah I saw that mentioned on another website where the guy was custom programming his hr-16. The MXR 185 is 8-bit, but most of the samples seem to be split across 2 chips, so I'm not exactly sure how you'd figure out how big they were. I guess this makes writing chips (x2) a little more difficult-can modern prommers write to multiple chips?

hageir · Post by **hageir** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:02 pm

so you need a pc with dos to use this?
probably some old port too?
or do usb burners exist?

polardark · Post by **polardark** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 5:37 am

Sir Ruff wrote:I guess this makes writing chips (x2) a little more difficult-can modern prommers write to multiple chips?

You just write to them one at a time. The tricky bit might be to get the encoding right. Even though the actual EPROM chips are fairly standardized, the encoding schemes for different drum machines are not. Some sample-based drum machines use simple sample compression schemes as well, to squeeze as much quality as possible out of 8 bit data storage. A bit of programming experience might come in handy here.

The willem burner works in windows xp, but you need a real parallel port on your computer. Not always a given these days.

Altitude · Post by **Altitude** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:26 am

I would also recommend you use ZIF sockets (zero insertion force, they have little locking levers) so you wont damage chips taking them in and out

Sir Ruff · Post by **Sir Ruff** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 5:22 pm

polardark wrote:
Sir Ruff wrote:I guess this makes writing chips (x2) a little more difficult-can modern prommers write to multiple chips?
You just write to them one at a time. The tricky bit might be to get the encoding right. Even though the actual EPROM chips are fairly standardized, the encoding schemes for different drum machines are not. Some sample-based drum machines use simple sample compression schemes as well, to squeeze as much quality as possible out of 8 bit data storage. A bit of programming experience might come in handy here.

The willem burner works in windows xp, but you need a real parallel port on your computer. Not always a given these days.

yeah, I just got a new puter and I dunno if it even has a parallel port! the funny thing about the MXR using two chips per sample is that you can hear (i think) how they split it and didn't quite snip it evenly, cos there is a little echo/flange on a couple of the sounds. it's actually good sounding in a way as it adds more presence... but i'm sure it wasn't intended.

this site has some useful general info on DIY sample promming:
http://burnkit2600.com/gear/?page_id=34
I guess all you can do really is just start burning chips and testing the results...

polardark · Post by **polardark** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 9:29 am

Sir Ruff wrote:I guess all you can do really is just start burning chips and testing the results...

The best way to get started is to rip the contents of the roms already in there, and figure out how the data is stored from that.