Yes, you can upload the custom firmware to any MD model using any sysex transfer tool.
EDIT: sorry I replied to the wrong post @iostream, not sure how that happened. This post was meant to be a reply to your post above mine @ocmer
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thank you jw, much appreciated!
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Not sure why, but I went to startup menu, #5, “ready to receive midi upgrade” and then went into Librarian, pressed “play” button, but machinedrum is not sensing anything is coming in?
I have my scarlett interface connected from MIDI out to MIDi in of the Machinedrum. The cable does work because the MD reacted to MIDI sync via ableton, I tested that. What else could be going wrong?
Tough to say without it in front of me, I remember having to fiddle with some settings in Sysex Librarian to get everything working before I switched to C6 & a TM-1. Sorry I’m not more help.
I suggest skimming the Sysex Librarian manual & making sure the midi ports are configured correctly. Besides that, turn the delay up high (start with 10ms and go up) in the sysex menu and do some test transfers with the MD with a single kit or pattern. The firmware transfer will take 30 minutes or so so its best to make sure its all working before you try doing the firmware. If your delay is set too low, you can get errors.
Ahh my bad, it just took the MD a minute before it started recognizing that data was being sent to it! I’m simply used to the snappity fast new digitone and digitakt’s 
My pauses between messages is set to 152 milliseconds. Should be more than enough I suppose then?
Cheers and thanks for answering so quickly!
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yep that should work. hope you enjoy the custom firmware, it really is something special. While the firmware is transfering, I sugguest you read over the documentation on how to use the new NFX machines, they are very powerful but not quite as intuitive as the rest of the Machinedrum & take some trial and error to wrap your head around.
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Wow thanks! Remember, I’m coming from OS 1.20 from the stone age so I’ll have to read all the notes of what they ever improved to know what new feautures I have haha!
The unofficial one I take also has the official firmware improvements included in it or do I need to load on official OS 1.63 as well?
Yes, with the final OS release being in 2016 and the unofficial FW releasing in ~2020 I have to imagine they built the custom firmware on top of 1.63. You couldn’t load both at the same time anyways, you can only have one firmware loaded on the machine at a time.
Ahh makes sense! Thanks. Only 3 Trig steps left until completion, can’t wait to squeeze out a sawtooth bassline 
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We need a video of that super old monstrosity-machine banging beats 
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Hi! I just got a machinedrum mk2 with the x.04 installed. I would like to update to the latest OS but I only have Syntakt as an interface. Does anyone have experience updating the machinedrum with any of the takts or digitone? If yes could you please let me know how you connect via midi the machines? Thank you!
If you can send Sysex files to the Syntakt over USB You should be able to just use the MIDI Thru on the Syntakt connected to the MDs Input. Someone more experienced with MIDI may hopefully chime in here, I’m pretty new to the protocol but that sounds like it would work on paper
Thanks for the answer!
No you can’t use the digi style boxes and midi interfaces like this. You’ll need to just get a cheap usb to midi interface like the old m-audio duo or similar.
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Yes, buy an Uno and use it forever.
Does Transfer work for these firmware upgrades? I cannot get the send button to respond. It doesn’t indicate that the cursor is over it. In other words, it doesn’t even light up to be clicked on. All other ducks are in a row: the x.10 zip file has been dropped in the first
window and my TM-1 has been selected in the second window but just can’t send for some reason. Anyone know why?
Transfer doesn’t work with the older machines afaik, you need to use C6 to get TM1 speed boosts or Sysex Librarian. If windows has issues with the tm-1 plug it into a usb 2.0 hub.
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Thank you. They don’t explicitly say that it doesn’t work with the old machines afaik. I got it to work with C6 though. My second session of C6 attempts worked for some reason. Wish I knew what I did differently. Thank you again
Oh no one should buy this thing, I had it and it did had some kind of bad electrical influence on my PC which took me a while to trace back to this thing. I can’t remember exactely what it was, but it felt like an unsafe piece of blue cr_p.
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Ecch, that isn’t great.
The MIDIMan (pre M-Audio) Uno was one of my first synth purchases, 15-20 years ago and it’s been one of my best acquisitions, the longest-possessed tool in the arsenal.
It’s still rocking to where i use it over my RME interface whenever I want to update firmware. I did not have any hardware issues in whatever early generation (and drivers are still available/compatible with ones sold this year!)
Hopefully your experience was/is less common, appreciate the update on whatever more recent build quality.