Linn Drum Custom Samples EPROM Programming

Many old drum machines like the Linn Drum are sample based. They use sounds that are stored digitally on microchips, called EPROMs. It is possible to change the sounds by swapping out the factory EPROMs with ones that have your own custom data burned into them. In this video we are showing you how to do this, what to use for it and how the Linn Drum sounds when you use these new sounds.

Software used for sound conversion:

Eprom programmer used:
Genius G840 USB Flash Bios EPROM Gal 51 AVR Pic MCU Universal Programmer N0061

We use microphones, headphones, lighting and recording equipment from these companies:

00:00 - Intro
00:06 - Gearjunkies leader
00:44 - About the Linn drum
03:43 - EPROM programming
05:29 - Downgrade samples wil software
10:48 - EPROMS in the Linn drum
11:08 - Sound demo
13:09 - Outro
#linndrum #diy #eprom #programming #electronics #drummachine

[marcmarcamsterdam]

It's already a little more than 10 years ago that I made the 'X9 pitch mod' for Stefan (the 9 extra pots at the right upper side). He was a very early adopter for it. The mod quickly developed from an experimental board to a PCB. It's still available. Nice to have the making your own sounds on the eproms explained.

[Ashfaq]

Great video. I had the linndrum from 1987-1993. Had great times with it but always found it tricky to change the eproms. It eventually broke down after years of use. But a good drum machine.

[baddriddimworkshop]

I HAVE A HISTORICAL QUESTION ; does anyone know who, witch company(s) provided drum machine manufacturers like lynn, oberheim, or sci, and simmons (mtx9 and you're packed), with those classic sounds some of them share in theyre list. i mean alot of those sound are used in several units, i'm pretty shure someone specialised in recording and digitalising (Ulaw) drum sounds at the time was providing several compagnys with those drum codes to burn on eproms, but who? Ithink but i'm not shure, i mght remember reading somewhere that this ward Clavia's first activity, but i'm having trouble to find my info, and google has became useless for these types of reaserchs since a few years anyway....

[thedutchgoonie]

leuke video 👍 tof dat je je eigen drums samples kan maken

[acidjack]

great. have tro try it for my dx and drumtrax too. looks easy... :-)

[DJJUANG]

Great video 2 thumbs up. I would like to do this. Can you recommend a programmer I could buy and a UV eraser. Thank you

[robotussin_synths]

Hi nice video! I just got a LinnDrum and I'm going to buy some different eproms. You mentioned that it's hard to replace the sounds that are split over multiple eproms. That would be... the ride, the crash... which other ones? I really don't use the ride or the crash so I wanted to replace those, but if it's too hard, maybe I could replace the toms... Thanks for any advice!

[morphoice]

too bad we can't get zif sockets anywhere

[wrldonwill]

Is it me or does the EPROM software slightly cut the attack of the sample?

PS: Thank you for the video.

[dnantis]

I will try to do this for a KORG DDD-1
It is a 12 bit rom player with 4 external cards that the ports card for Eproms are already done !
What format should I create these samples ?
Degrade them from 16 bit to 12 bits ??
I believe it handle only 064 K data
Can it put more sounds on a bigger 2 megs rom ?
Cause some factory Roms had only
2 samples like 2 RIDES bell and long
RIDE decay !!

Can you help ?

[MusicFed]

My Linn’s mid Tom is much higher in volume than the low or high. Anyone else has the same issue?

[redspiderz]

Hi, could you send me a link of where I could buy the blank eproms? Thanks