From ISO-8859-1 Sent Sat, Feb 4th 2006, 18:59
Hi Rachel, congratulations to your MC8 - it definitely is a dinosaur ;-) - as well as an challenge :-). I try to give you some answers to your questions. > 1) Looks like the cable is missing. I believe there was a source > mentioned in the AH archives, but I can find no relevant info > on the net. Does anyone have a lead (sic) on where I might get a > cable? I fear that you have to build your own one. The connector itself is a HIROSE connector (see http://www.hirose.co.jp/cataloge_hp/e21600015.pdf). See picture on the second page of the PDF. I do not exactly know the type of the connector since it is not printed on the connector itself but I will send you off list some pictures of the connector. To build the cable, I expect that it is a 1 to 1 connection (if you need more information, I can do some measurements for you). > 2) I've been given the pinouts and Service Manual, so I am going to > get it checked out when it arrives and hopefully the cable will > be easy to prepare, if I cannot source one, but since I haven't seen > one, > what kind of connectors does it use? > I heard it was a bit like a 60pin SCSI I adaptor? See above. > > 3) The MC8 has FSK sync input, ostensibly for tape sync. > I want to sync with my computer as Master. I assume that there > are MIDI to FSK convertors out there? Most of the info I have seen > seems to refer to FSK->MIDI, whereas I want MIDI->FSK. What do I > need to do this? Do most converters sync both ways? I think e.g. an MSY2 of doepfer (www.doepfer.de) should do it. Or a 2nd hand Korg KMS-30 might serve as well. I did not try it. > 4) I assume mine is going to get a service. Is there any difficulty > with getting these done wrt rare spares? > Any mods I should do while it is opened up? In my opinion, the parts difficult to find will be CPU, RAM and DAC. But maybe there are other components hard to find. I do not know about any mods. > 5) Is there anything else special I should know about these? Well, just a general comment: Compared with todays sequencers, the MC-8 is a sequencer very, very hard to program. Any error is a nightmare. I never managed to work with it without the manual - which means, I wrote down notes as a quick reference. And also the MC-8 lose the memory when it is switched off. So it is important to set up a tape connection to store your daily work and reload it when continuing next day. This means, be prepared for a hard work ;-). This is the main reason why I stopped to use the MC-8 for now... Cheers Werner