Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

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Dubersive
 
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Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2010 12:14 pm

Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by Dubersive »

Here is their x0xb0x page: http://www.touched-by-sound.com/de/TBS- ... ksbox.html

I just bought a used x0xb0x off of their page on eBay ( http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... TQ:DE:1123 ) and am just a little anxious about the quality of the product I'll be receiving. It hasn't arrived yet, and I'm currently on vacation, so I won't be able to see it for about another week if it arrives before I get back.

I mean, they seem pretty legit. The CY posting has me a little concerned though, because they use a similar picture on their page. But at least TBS seems to give credit to the original creators.

I'm probably just over-thinking all of this. But knowing that someone else has had a positive experience with them would help put my mind at ease!

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substyler
 
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Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by substyler »

hi,
I know this guy for more than 20 years. (I mean the owner of that company)
he's a nice guy, so just wait for you x0xb0x and then you will state that you've wasted too many thoughts.
as you said you get this little b0x for a good price, so relax and see what you'll get.
I'm sure everything's going well.

cheers
christian

Dubersive
 
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Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2010 12:14 pm

Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by Dubersive »

Thank you SubStyler.

I'm glad somebody has something positive to say about them. I'm very confused by the whole "CY" thing everybody keeps mentioning when they see TBS' x0xen. I guess some people dislike TT due to their supposed dishonesty? Either way, it looks like on their website that they actually do assemble them at their business in Germany. Maybe the x0x-parts are just provided by TT.

Either way, I'm going to pay for it today and hopefully I'll receive it sometime this week.

CheesyPuff
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 6:59 am

Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by CheesyPuff »

Hi
I´ve bought one of this units and its sounds crappier like a mc303. Its awful. The Chips are the same, they write in their advertisment.
But the sound is not right. If this is an right xox, I don´t like em. But I´m 100 percent sure, this is not right for a real xoxbox.
I´ve gave this unit to a professional Xox-repair-shop to repair that xöxböx to sound like a real unit.
Sorry for my bad english, i came from germany....
Please check the unit first and then buy a box from this seller if You want a real good groovy 303 sound experience.
I have some pics from the box inside. In the next reply... have to upload..
I did not record that sound, now its to late. sorry for that !

Edit:
http://img714.imageshack.us/g/dsc00105q.jpg/
short link:
http://yfrog.com/judsc00105qjx

I don´t know if it is worth to show these pics...

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hamburgers
 
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Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by hamburgers »

CheesyPuff wrote:Hi
I´ve bought one of this units and its sounds crappier like a mc303. Its awful. The Chips are the same, they write in their advertisment.
But the sound is not right.
can you please post sounds of this?

CheesyPuff
 
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Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 6:59 am

Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by CheesyPuff »

sorry, i was deeply disappointed from that unit and gave it to a specialist.
I´ve listen to the most of all available sound-test-mp3s, videos all that stuff.
Sorry all I have are these photos. Maybe someone want a look inside.
If you are not happy with this unit dont try any mods. Send it back and get another from the same seller.
Or locate another Seller. All other items which I bought from TBS were cheap and in good/mint condition.
My mistake was to modify the unit and dont return it.

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rv0
 
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Joined: Tue Jul 14, 2009 4:50 pm

Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by rv0 »

Those are very brute statements without any evidence

why did you not come to this forum first?

what did the "specialist" do with it?

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substyler
 
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Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 6:29 pm

Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by substyler »

"the specialist" :wink: exchanged some parts.
the whole thing seems to be constructed pretty cheap... and imho not really "hand made".
no SK30A-O in the machine (there were a part I've never seen before) and all the pots and the hex switches look rather wobbly.
they say that the frontpanels are laser engraved... but that's not true, it's just silkscreened.
anyway, after changing some things this machine is running fine now and sounds MUCH better than before.

cheers
SubStyler

JoergSaunder
 
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Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:45 pm

Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by JoergSaunder »

I got a used x0xb0x from TBS yesterday and it seems that - really without wanting to accuse TBS of doing anything fishy - I can confirm at least some of the things that have been written in this thread.

It is true that there are some part substitutions. I have only checked the "rare parts" so far, and the substitutions are as follows:

Q13, Q14, Q15, Q16, Q17, Q23 => C1815 instead of 2SC536F
Q28 => K118O instead of 2SK30AO (?)

Then, the sound. I programmed the test pattern suggested by buddax a while ago and recorded it at roughly the same tempo, slowly increasing cutoff then closing the filter again: Test Clip

It seems that there is less resonance - or somehow the filter doesn't really "come to life" as in the clip posted by buddax.

What could be the reason for this less than optimal sound? What could be done to improve it? I don't want to give up on this unit yet. I have limited experience with building and repairing electronics (not quite enough to build a x0xb0x from a kit I would say) and could probably implement smaller modifications myself.

Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

JoergSaunder
 
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Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:45 pm

Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by JoergSaunder »

Hm, OK, just did some more reading in this forum. The unit I have seems to be one of the CY/TT ones. The main PCB says "XOX MBLO ROLLIN-MOSS" in the lower left corner, which was mentioned in the Cy thread. Also, the transistor substitions in the filter section seem to be what Cy describes in an email also posted in that thread. So, that might be an explanation for the difference in filter response. I'm probably going to do a resonance boost mod and see where that takes me with this box...

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e:pp:ik
 
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Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by e:pp:ik »

You could try the boost mod but I would start by just swapping out these subsitutions for the parts that we all know and agree will work properly. Ebay is always an option but there a some goold reputable people on here supplying the real parts too.

I wouldn't give up on it either. There are some critical components to get that sound but it I think you a good shot at getting it there.

Get the 2SC536Fs, the 2SK30AO and 2SK30AY in there. Check Q11. You could drop an inexpensive 945P in there and likely hear an audible difference.

JoergSaunder
 
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Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:45 pm

Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by JoergSaunder »

Q11 is an 2SC536F, so that seems to be OK. If I interpret the statements from the Cy thread correctly, the 2SC536F => 2SC1815 substitutions in some places were made not to cut corners but deliberately to "improve" the circuit: "2sc1815 throughout moog ladder for best transistional phase response per final Roland revisions in the TB-303." Of course, I'm highly doubtful that there is substance to this claim. After all, the unit doesn't seem to sound quite right.

OTOH, the box does get a lot squelchier when other parameters such as ENVMOD are tweaked. Also, an original TB-303 I tried in a friend's studio yesterday didn't really resonate that much in a similar test scenario either. *shrug*

At any rate, the the Q28 substitution (2SK118O instead of 2SK30AO) does look fishy. This seems to be an important part. How does it affect sound? Does anyone know something about the 2SK118O?

Maybe fixing this substitution is the first thing I should try....

Edit:
BTW, the 2SK30AY is there (Q39). It's just the 2SK30AO missing at Q28.

Another edit:
Tweaking TM3 brought the sound if my unit a bit closer to the reference clip, ie my filter just wasn't opening up as much. Still a lack of resonance though. I think I'll replace R97 with a pot plus resistor (range 6K to 10K or so) and put that somewhere on the plastic part of the enclosure (don't want to mess with the plate) to give me an adjustable amount of extra resonance.
Last edited by JoergSaunder on Sat Jul 10, 2010 7:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

Luap
 
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Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by Luap »

Hi Joerg, Thats the first I have seen of a C1815 being used in x0xb0x's. There is a C1685 that has been used in some 303's, instead of the more common 536/945's though.
The test clip sounds good.. Maybe not the best, but really not bad at all either. Keep in mind a lot of 303's and x0xb0x's vary some though..

If the worst comes to the worst, I guess you could get yourself a rare parts kit from someone like Gaetano on here. It's not that costly, and you'd have a whole set of authentic replacements to try out. I think this would be easier than trying to get a selection of 2 or 3 different transistors from multiple suppliers.

bcbox
 
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Joined: Thu May 25, 2006 1:30 am

Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by bcbox »

2SC1815's were used in some TB-303's. From all the units I've worked on I've found it was used in earlier units, along with the 1st revision PCB (there were several revisions of the PCB. As far as sound it pretty much sounds the same to me, definitely not any worse than the ones with the 2SC536F.

Image
Last edited by bcbox on Tue Jun 12, 2012 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

JoergSaunder
 
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Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:45 pm

Re: Touched-By-Sound: Anyone have any experience with them?

Post by JoergSaunder »

Interesting! Thanks for all this feedback so far. I'm thinking of socketing some of the components that have been identified as important for sound and then trying out a few combinations. But before I do that I might just focus on making some actual music with the x0x and stop worrying too much... ;)

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