1 Introduction
Welcome to a fun new way of playing your Jen SX1000. As one satisfied customer put it so
aptly: “
It adds a whole new world of playing when you can bend the notes
”. This manual
guides you through the process of installing the Jen SX1000 MIDI Upgrade, and explains how
to use it.
1.1 Features
The MIDI Upgrade provides the following features:
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Receive MIDI messages on MIDI Channel 1
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Responds to all 128 MIDI Notes
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Responds to Pitch Bend with ±2 semitone range
●
Responds to Modulation Wheel (routed to filter cutoff)
1.2 A Short History
The JEN SX1000 was originally released in 1978, with production ending in 1982. The heart
of the SX1000 is a single voice organ chip, the M110 from SGS ATES. Unfortunately this
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chip is no longer made, and the design of the SX1000 lends itself to stressing the output
drivers of the M110 amongst other things.
As a result, together with age, the M110 often dies. And once it is dead there is little you can
do but replace it, since as well as generating the basic tone the M110 also scans the keyboard
and produces the glide (portamento) between notes.
The impetus for this MIDI Upgrade was when I bought a non working SX1000. The M110
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was dead, and finding a replacement proved very difficult. So in the end I decided to design a
replacement using modern components. A micro controller emulates the main functions of the
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M110, and adds a MIDI input so the SX1000 can be played by a sequencer.
Over the years the design of the MIDI Upgrade has been revised and refined. Some features
have been removed, others refined, and others added in response to requests.
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