This project is oldie, bit forgotten, but it deserves a comeback. It’s a Arduino / Atmel ATMega328 based midi upgrade for DR55 replaces the TC5501 SRAM. It acts like the original RAM but it can also carry out extra tasks such as midi receiving and transmitting. Without midi connectors fitted, the operation of the DR55 remains the same as on stock DR55, so it’s possible to use this as replacement of 9V battery killed RAM.
New features so far are:
- Midi clock sync: Internal clock is rejected if the midi clock is received. Midi clock pulse triggers hihat as in original one.
- Patterns 7 and 8 (12 steps) has different prescale for midi clock keeping the bar tempo same as 4/4 patterns
- It responses the midi in notes. Accent is enabled if velocity is greater than 100.
- On internal playback mode the sequencer output is echoed to midi out.
- Amount of patterns stored in memory is doubled. Active bank is selected during the power up, by setting variation switch position (A or B).
- All patterns and settings are stored in eeprom in the controller. Batteries aren’t needed for maintaining the contents of the memory.
