Adding sounds to TD-10-from DCI Forum

[MustangMick]

Just saw thi son DCI Forum.
Maybe one for the technical people here - would be useful to burn your own samples onto a TD-10 - why is Roland not offering this?

http://www.drumcenterforum.com/viewmessages.cfm?Forum=4&Topic=14904

Cheers
mick

[Boingo]

Originally posted by Harlock
been sleeping the last 15 minutes boingo?
... Though I edited the post to make it a little shorter if you don't want to follow MustangMick's link...

I am very, very, very sorry. It is unbelievable how "work" interfere's with important things like posting to vdrums.com .

[tonycpsu]

wow.

This is quite possibly the coolest announcement ever made here on the BBS.

I hope this kind of hack gets illustrated in more detail soon!

I would pay some pretty hefty paper for the ability to just dump samples onto a memory card and load them on my TD-10.

[tonycpsu]

Well I admit to not being familiar with all the technical details, so your skepticism does sound pretty valid... Thinking about it, the M-512E definitely doesn't have enough room for samples, so there must be some missing hardware ingredient in his scenario.

I'm no EE, but couldn't he just burn an EEPROM and replace the TDW-1's ROM with that EEPROM? I don't know if EEPROM's come in sizes large enough to hold sample data, but I'm just guessing at what he might be doing...

The thing is, why would this guy BS? He's not a Johnny-come-lately, he has 1000+ posts over on that BBS... It would be REALLY cruel to make something like this up. I hope he really has something...

Mind if I cross-post your skepticism to hear what he has to say?

[Ranman]

Originally posted by feefer
So what's the reason for his secrecy, i.e. the whole 'hint' business?

Maybe the reverse-engineering effort could land him in hot water with Roland. Just a thought.

[tonycpsu]

Great... The only thing worse than someone who falsely claims to have something like this is someone who DOES actually have it and can't/won't share it with the rest of the world. I almost wish I never heard of such a thing now.. . Ignorance is bliss, right?

I'm going to hold off on questioning the tech stuff until I see some more responses on the thread... See what else he says about it.

[Ranman]

Personally, I'm a huge fan of the 'open source' movement. I don't think that ALL software should be free, but openly allowing 3rd party developers to provide content or, in this case, sounds only ADDS value to the equipment.

Arguably, one of the reasons the 'pc' - a relative "Johny Come Lately" to the computer scene - managed to trounce all the competition was that the design openly embraced 3rd party hardware AND software developers.

If other vendors could provide alternative 'upgrade' cards and options for the TD10, Roland would only sell MORE TD10's s a result.

[tonycpsu]

Here's some text from one of his earlier posts...

"Hi Kid_DW,

I'm a Senior Electrical Engineer in Computers and "retired" from Intel several years ago and was there while Intel became a dynasty. Stock options and pay were, well, pretty damn good. I moved back home to Austin where I'll retire when I'm dead and now work for the "enemy", AMD on the new 64 bit Hammer processors. Took a VERY long time settling down and bought a ranch and lived in my 5th wheel a year before I bought a house in a little town 50 miles east of Austin.
"

He could be making that stuff up, but why?

[Ranman]

Originally posted by feefer
Geez, you guys are coming up with his alibis and excuses for him, i.e. "Yeah, that's it: I might get in trouble with Roland."

To borrow a phrase from our Brit friends, that argument is complete and utter bollocks

Wow. Does it turn you on to flex your intellectual muscle like that?

I was simply offering a suggestion.

[Ranman]

Originally posted by feefer
(is your BS detector going off? )

I had to disarm my BS detector because I'm so full of it myself. Darn think kept going off every time I opened my mouth!

[tonycpsu]

Well, to get back on topic a bit, I think we ALL want this to be true, and I think this guy sounds credible, if you buy his description as a former Intel guy now working for AMD. There are technical holes he has to fill in, but he sounds like he's an older gentleman with a lot of technical knowledge and a lot of tinerking time on his hands. For now I'm going to believe him and wait for his response to requests for specifics on the workings of his alleged hack. If it turns out to be another pipe dream/scam, I'll live another day.

That said, there clearly is a precedent for "cease and desist" orders (legal or not) which scare people away from posting schematics, how-to's, etc. which are the result of reverse-engineering efforts. This guy might be just as happy to enjoy the fruits of his labor on his own rather than have to share it with a bunch of newbies. That strategy would also keep any kind of heat from Roland's lawyers away.

[tonycpsu]

Originally posted by c. jude
even if a techno wiz does pull it off, it is not something you and I are going to be able to replicate with a memory card, a phillips screwdriver and a stick of chewing gum. It would require some pretty sophisticated understanding or someone to write some software to facilitate mortals doing it.

Yeah, I assumed it wouldn't be something anyone could do. But I figured there was a fleeting chance that a few people who have the equipment/know-how to do it might offer some kind of service to modify TDW-1's. In any event I wanted more info on it before I dismissed it entirely as a scam. "No stone unturned."

[Cyberjam]

Wouldn't it be nice....

If that M-512E slot on the back of the Roland module could accomodate (perhaps through a 3rd party invention) a simple compact flash or smart media card?

What would an adapter that fits into that M512E port be worth to you with the capability of converting it to a more useful slot?

Ah yes indeed!

Wouldn't it be nice if this item could load samples, sequences or be used as a recording medium?

Maybe I should head back over to the wishlist, sorry...

I will have a look into these claims and reserve my judgement. For now I will play the usual role of iconoclast, the skeptic.

[Real-ity]

sounds like a sampler would be easier

[genus5033]

I used to be very active here at one time but gave it up for exactly the reasons reading some of these posts personally attacking me for what I've done for my V-Pro's on what provocation??

Let's start at the beginning. Credentials. I've been working with guitar amps since the 60's and some of you know me as a major collector of Vox and Marshall amps with my collection currently over 250 amps ALL of which I maintain. As a musician I'm first and foremost a drummer though some of you may remember the DSP work I did years ago and put that info up on alt.guitar.amps. Those of you who follow me on the DCI forum know I'm a regular there and I find it sucks when someone here with no knowledge of me thinks my extent with Rogers and my website is that maybe I've tuned a "Dynosonic". Are you a real drummer? It's Dyna-Sonic and I've studied drums right down to the cell structure of the wood in both vintage and modern shells and have shared that knowledge freely with the DCI forum. I'm also in the process of resurrecting Rogers USA with a group of serious investors and wanting to OEM V-Pro's with a history of Rogers sounds in the TD-10 is what led me to "improve" my V-Pro's in the first place.

As I said on the DCI Forum I'm an Electrical Engineer by trade in Computer Architecture and have been doing it since the 70's and mainframes through minicomputers and then PC's followed by the Intel 64 bit architecture and now the AMD Hammer based systems. I have a personal interest in DSP technology and musical instrument emulation and hold two patents in Server Management Architecture and Chip Design. I went to Cal Tech in Pasadena California. In my personal lab I have a Tektronix TLA 711 Analyzer, an Audio Precision System One and Two Digital Domain Audio analyzer's and a couple of Tek Scopes as well as a DSP programmer.

My initial experience with Roland was with my VG-8's crappy Vox emulation. So I reverse engineered it and fixed it. Compared to the technology in the VG-8 the TD-10 is a simple subset. To reverse engineer anything Roland you're going to have to know DSP technology really well and how to figure out program code from waveform algorhthms and you'll not only need to have a processor emulation pod for the TLA you'll also need to write your own disassembler and carefully track memory accesses to the Eprom as well as the DSP inputs and outputs.

Yep, those of you who wrote the M512 only stores parameters are correct BUT it IS a memory interface that Roland could have done great things with but didn't. WHY?? Roland keybords use this interface to add completely new sound modules into the system and to download code updates. I'm betting the next V-Drums WILL be downloadable but the TD-10 is stuck with TDW-1 type updating only.

Open source software? From Roland?? Yeah, right. Roland considers what I've done sacrilege at the very least and surely considers it top secret proprietary information and so very well done it took me two years to crack it. Publicly release it? Sure, if you guys are willing to put up a couple of million dollars to fight the lawsuits resulting from releasing Rolands intellectual property. Just because you can reverse engineer it doesn't mean you have the right to release it and I won't. I did it because it became a challenge and I had a specific goal in mind and I DO play my V-Pro's both in the studio AND live and wanted MY drumsets in there to play. By the way, there is international judicial precedence now if you know about the Microsoft and Sony game console cracks for Linux and the companies that released it and are following those through the courts.

Bottom line is, IF I can get an agreement for Rogers to modify the module and get a license to sell it from Roland you'll be seeing new sounds available. If not, you won't be seeing them from me. You can believe WHAT you want 'cause I don't care. But the fact remains, COSM CAN be cracked.

Gene Miller

http://www.rogersdrums.com