Hi, Bob & other M-6/-6R owners!
BOB! That all sounds great. Just for information's sake, here are my responses to your questions:
1.) A more expensive OLED display that fits would be very acceptible to me. The cost of the mod matters less thant the functionality for me.
2.) While the "British Flag" characters are great, as that's what we're used to seeing right now, a finer resolution LCD display would be a bit of an improvement - one that I, for one, would pay extra for. For me, the characters do not have to look like the "old" M-6/-6R display to maintain any kind of 'authenticity'; I'm good with functional and legible.
3.) Likewise, it isn't necessary to match the blue-on-black color scheme of the original VFD display either. White or light blue lettering on a blue background would be perfectly acceptable, as would a dot matrix/graphic type display. In fact, it might be interesting to have the M-6 display look a bit more like the Xpander/Matrix-12 displays... "Keep it in the family", so to speak.
Again, speaking only for myself, function, legibility and the ability to keep these extremely flexible and lush-sounding synths afloat is primary. I bought my M-6 new in 1986, and it's still one of my main go-to toys. While it takes time to program, the Matrix Mod feature is SO POWERFUL easy to use that I wouldn't trade it! And those Obie strings! YEOW! :-D
A couple other suggestions, if I may... For me, an "Alpha-Dial" like Roland's, would be a step up from the Data entry function from the factory. And I wish that the noise source wasn't so light on low frequencies - Sounds a bit tinny to my ears.
In software, I'd LOVE to see a 3-3 stereo split, as well as 4-2, 2-4, 6-0 and 0-6. Just minor, but... Also, I found that the M-6 will NOT store envelope delays (ENV 3??) over "40"... Not a big deal, but if anybody's tweaking the software...
THANKS, Bob! This should keep an incredible and flexible machine around for a while longer.
All the best,
Dave Garfield - in the wilds of Colorado
On Tuesday, March 18, 2014 7:07 PM, Bob Grieb <bobgrieb@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi Dave and anyone else who has an interest in this,
I am willing to design a little interface from the Matrix display signals to some other type of display but I want to make sure it's what people want. First, let me say that I measured the space from the front of the display/switch pcb to the inside of the front panel on my M6R and it was pretty small. 0.56" IIRC. That is not enough height for
a simple, inexpensive backlit 16x1 LCD module. (A non-backlit one would fit, but
probably it's not what people want). I am looking into some other technologies that are thinner, at somewhat higher cost, like OLED.
The least expensive displays are so-called "character" displays, with a fixed Font of characters they
can display. The M6R VFD uses a scheme called "British Flag"
that has 14 segments and can show any number or upper case letter. But the characters have a very distinctive look to them, rather different from a typical LCD display, which
uses an array of 5x7 dots to make each character. So if I use a "character" display, the letters may look better than the original, but they won't look the same. Is that important?
Is it only function we are going for, or is it important that it look the same? Is the color important? I have found white on blue background, but so far not blue on white. Another approach would be to use a so-called "graphic" display, which is just an array of dots, maybe 128x32 or something. This would allow forming characters that look more like the M6 display. But the display will be more expensive. Maybe $35-40 instead of
$20. Is that important? What is a good target price for a replacement display? (A simple backlit LCD 16x1 could be maybe $10-15 if I can find one that will fit in there.
I am sure that not everyone will agree on the answers, but I would like to get some feedback anyway. I am still in an information-gathering phase on this project, as I am busy with some other things currently.
Happy keyboarding,
Bob
________________________________Show quoted textHide quoted text
From: Dave Garfield <daveogarf@...>
To: "oberheim@yahoogroups.com" <oberheim@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 4, 2014 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: [oberheim] Matrix-6 display replacement project?
YES! Thank you.
Dave Garfield
On Wednesday, February 26, 2014 7:17 PM, "eidorian@..." <eidorian@...> wrote:
On 2014-02-26 14:28, Bob Grieb wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Anyone still interested in the Matrix 6 display replacement project?
> Just trying to see how much interest there is. I have some time now.
> Thanks.
I have two Matrix-6Rs, both with fully functional displays but I'd
probably pick up a couple of displays as insurance regardless (unless
the price was prohibitive!)
Cheers,
A.
