>>Reading online, I see several discussions of ROM upgrades, as well as memory
upgrades. Does anyone have memory for this thing anymore? It only has the
stock 8 seconds.<<
the memory is hard to get now. lucky me, both of my band's units are 32 seconds. it's called "zip" memory, & you'd need four lumps of 8Mb.... the pins are staggered in-line, rather than two sides of a rectangle, if that makes sense. hence the "zip", I guess. it was expensive when it wasn't rare- I expect it's worse now.
>>I have been to Bob Sellon's site and read about the ROM upgrades- has anyone
done this yet? There is mention of a Beta ROM V0.6- has anyone tried this?<<
I have the bob sellon software that includes "melotron" (sic) mode, the stereo output, the multiple pages & so forth. the problem I've had with it is that it completely destroys the UI. I would be terrified of taking an updated jam-man on stage & trying to use it in semi-darkness, even with the front panel legend altered. & you really need all the footswitches; we manage to use the stock units with just three (reset, tap & select) but to get full use out of the sellon version would need at least four. that's too many for our guitarist. :-)
(bob has used one of the panel controls exclusively, I think, to drive the optional novram- stock jam-mans never had this fitted anyway, since there simply weren't enough things configurable to warrant it. there are just about enough configurable items in the upgrade to require the addition of this novram, but it's not a job for a non-engineer to attempt.)
simply, there's too much going on in the upgraded unit.
the stock jam-man, with or without the 32s of memory, is very easy to use & quite satisfying in most musical contexts. so my altered machine is going to be altered back down to stock. there are a couple of things that are worth keeping- the pannable stereo outputs & multiple simultaneous loops, but it all gets to be a bit of a headfuck in the context of a live improv.
one thing I would keep is being able to switch back & forth between loop & delay modes, though.
the thing it doesn't do very well (stock version, this is) is change tempo with a loop onboard- this applies whether you are using tap-tempo or the midi clock. also, if you are clocking it over midi, it carries on when the clock stops, & there doesn't seem to be anyway to either stop it or have it resync when the clock resumes. I got into some dialogue about this with the UK distributor back in 1996, but they couldn't help & I forgot about it by the time I got onto mr sellon- we just work around it.
>>Depending on the feasibility of upgrades, I may upgrade it, give it back and
show her what I did- or if she isn't interested in looping, I'd just buy it
from her.<<
I'd buy it anyway. give it a few days with the 8 seconds.... try using the clocked delay mode with infinite feedback instead of the loop modes.... um... that's the mode with the knob pointing straight up ("echo"). the select control alters the repeat depth with 16 being infinite.
has anyone stuck a manual up on the site? maybe I could scan one.....
duncan.
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