The Gakken SX-150 is one of the most popular kits in the Maker Shed, and we just got a fresh new supply! We have posted a lot of projects that involve hacking and modifying of the SX-150. We’ve see Arduino controlled versions, fooling around with plasma, incredible analog cassette hacks, button mods, and more! Collin did a really nice video review too! Did you hack and mod your SX-150? Are you planning on it? Let us know in the comments. Thanks!
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My lovely fiancee got my an SX-150 last year. It took about 5 minutes to assemble, a little too easy imho. But fun nonetheless… still, it sort of sat around gathering dust untill I was able to decipher a few of the japanese pages regarding mods of it. Most of the english pages refer mostly to adding MIDI capability to the SX-150, something that doesn’t interest me too much. I’m still in the process of modding it but a few simple circuit-bend mods I found increased my affection for the Gakken *enormously*!
So here are the links I found most helpful…
1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/matt_the_modulator/3375768994/#
This was the stuff that really worked for me. #’s 1,2 & 4 particularly affect they way this thing reacts. I’m going to add a photo-resistor (#5) eventually.
2. http://tinyurl.com/yjkj8yf
link goes to Google translation of a japanese site which has a slew of mods for the SX-150, most of which are amusingly mistranslated at best… but there’s good schematics mostly in english so it’s worth a look.
3. http://tinyurl.com/yzzylae
another translated japanese site with a bunch of stuff
4. http://tinyurl.com/ygowkvn
yet another site with lots of info badly translated from japanese… but I direct your attention to the lower portion where it says “External Signal Input” which is something I added as well. It allows you to pass an external audio signal through the SX-150 filters.
I’ve done some things like run an Atari Punk Console through the external trigger with some decent results.
If you care to listen to an example please check out my SoundCloud page: http://soundcloud.com/angrydroid/sx-150-mod-pdp2020
Cheers!