The Kawai R-50 playing some stock patterns through 10 different drum kits. (Apologies for the shaky video)
The original LCD display on my much loved Kawai R-50 was fading and almost unreadable. With a little searching I found an excellent site that showed how it can be replaced with an OLED display and also how you can make your own 4 x drum kit. Using this, I added an additional expansion board increasing the number of drum kits to 10. With four more switches (and plenty more wiring) the number of kits could go up to 16.
The drum kits;
Rotary position 1:
- R-50
- R-50e
- R-100
- Sequential Circuits TOM
Rotary position 2:
- Favourites kit 1
- Favourites kit 2
- Yamaha RY30
- Akai XR10
Rotary position 3:
- E-mu Drumulator
Rotary position 4:
- Cheetah MD16
Where this project all started: zine.r-massive.com/kawai-r50-custom-firmware