I have been chatting with a few guys about the possibility of making a run of separate out mod kits for the Analog four. At this point I have no idea if such a thing would be worthwhile (well it would for me and a few others) and how feasible it is to do it PROPERLY, by that I mean something that is simple enough to install, and that adds the outputs so that they are at no risk of causing damage to the A4 or external equipment.
So, assuming it can be done, and I’m thinking it can, and bearing in mind you will be kissing your 3 year warranty bye bye (unless I can arrange something with Elektron, but I doubt it) how many would be interested in such a kit?
Parts and PCB are likely to be in the £20-40 range, that is using decent jacks, high quality pro made PCB, headers cables and components, so the cost to you would be in the £50-90GBP range. It would include full instructions, drilling template (so no wonky holes) and require no soldering, just plug in.
Realistically I’d need to get at least 30 people interested to make it worthwhile, and of course at this point it is uncertain how the poly mode will impact the routing of the sounds - I’d need to check that. So if you feel you would definitely be interested post in this thread.
Really no soldering? How would that work?
I’m a total electronics dunce, and would never tackle anything complex inside my A4, but if it was really just plug and play with a bit of drilling then I would be very interested.
interested in where you would put the sockets on the A4?
Or have a single multi-prong (e.g. VGA ) socket on the A4 that provides pre-DAC signal and power so you can plug in an audio breakout box with 4x stereo 1/4" output sockets?
Putting all the electronic components into the external breakout box would leave the internal of the A4 limited to just soldered jumper cables to minimise pollution of the beautiful A4 interior !
Yeah breakout box would be the way to go, probably have 3.5mm CV outs broken out too, audio on pairs of TS 6.35mm jacks.
I will need to check with Elektron first though before proceeding with any offering, to make sure they are cool with it, but I did not see any point in doing that before seeing if there would be any interest.
Aside from the drilling, it would be a plug and play solution, with full instructions regarding installation, I have experience of doing this kind of thing, and in every other mod I have offered I have not had anyone who had difficulty following the guide. DIY guys will probably just do this themselves anyway.
At this stage though I should reiterate, it is not happening if Elektron are not cool with it, ideally the routing would need to be supported in the OS as it is in the A-Keys as well.
I don’t see the need for any OS support? presumably it would be a direct and constant tap of each voice pre fx? I wouldn’t be suprised if this is how it is done on the AK. I also don’t see Elektron, or any manufacturer approving such activities as hacking their hardware… Could lead to problems that they would have to deal with.
We’re talking about externalising the dry track signals, without any FX right?
If so, it still might be easier if elektron could allow us put the A4 into a new ‘separate mono outs mode’ and then in each AMP screen per track, CHO DEL REV are greyed out and PAN changes to DST and is a choice of Main L, Main R, CVAB, CVCD as the output destination for that track’s mono signal … for us to take into whatever external treatment we want. (like for instance Chorus, Delay, Reverb LOL)
Not sure if we are talking about making internal A4 FX part of a ‘separate outs’ world, so the internal FX engine would be disabled. I’m guessing it would be impossible/undesirable to have discrete FX on each of the mono tracks anyway.
Also, not that I’m exactly an expert on this scale of electrical theory, but wouldn’t there be a gain reduction of the voices that were routed to the fx track if the signal were split?
no matter which way it is done, warranty will go poof with this 100%.
seeing as my unit already has its skin modded, I’d be willing to sacrifice it as an early test model.
It will be interesting to see what Elektron’s response will be. If they supported it they would have to supply the schematics and such otherwise it would have to be reverse engineered. It’s all SMD, but the layout is spread out a bit which makes modding it easier. There looks like an unused header footprint at the top near the outputs.
Does anyone know how the AK will handle separate outs with FX?
