Just curious if anyone has tried to modify one of their unit’s firmware to add or change features.
No. Someone would have to have the appropriate dev tools and to reverse engineer the existing firmware.
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Fair enough.
This is a topic which is interesting, there are people with the skills to do that but they are often really busy. It is a skillset I’d like to acquire but don’t have much experience in assembly nor embedded hardware.
The DSP I believe are coldfire chips, which is commonplace and similar to motorola 68000 architecture. I’ve noticed the machinedrum has a 14 pins port, which is most probably a debug port enabling full control of CPU (taking memory dump, poking memory etc.), I guess the monomachine has the same.
Some guy is working on reverse engineering the OS for Andromeda A6 and there is a lot of prior art in reverse engineering matters 
only we lack people interested in elektron hardware.
Where’s the ROI? People have skills, but have better things to do with their time…
And he’s been at that for well over a year now…
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My experience in these matters is less than zero, however having been a gamer since the late 70’s I’ve always been on top of consoles.
I digress…
When the ps3 was hacked a few years back, the EULA was cited as being broken and that the reverse engineering was going to be a case for the courts.
With regard to the type of RE being discussed here, and with this being discussed on the official Elektron forums, where do people that do try this stand, legally?
I know that opening up the box voids the warranty in most cases, but with RE synths and the like, are you open to legal action as the IP is at risk?
This comes from a place of curiosity, and interest. Cheers.
3 posts were split to a new topic: Off topic
Where’s the ROI?
What is the ROI for someone to buy machines to make sound? What is my ROI to dabble with software in my free time? etc.
I believe people do things for hobby outside of their daily duties, and it can intersect with skillset required to dig into firmware and hardware architecture of sound producing device, this is visible in DIY or opensource synth scene with some amazing projects. There are even more examples of companies doing opensource platforms and will continue.
And he’s been at that for well over a year now…
I believe he is making consistent progress, that all which matter to that person. What if it took 4 years to reverse engineer the machinedrum firmware? if people are willing to contribute their time to this endeavour without other ROI expected than to contribute to a open project?
where do people that do try this stand, legally?
IANAL but I believe for people standing in Europe it shouldn’t be a concern, it is allowed to reverse engineer anything for personal purpose, especially if this is not a commercial project, on platform which is not being developed anymore.
That is as long as no protected IP material is used for the reverse engineering (black box reverse engineering), if that work was based on leaked document/information, that would be different matter.
Cool. Thanks for that.
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I’ve considered this many times. The best target is the monomachine firmware. If the monomachine stores the bbox samples in the firmware they could be replaced. Problems would be any required checksum or other integrity check the mm looks for and the testing phase which could brick the test device.
Or it may be the bbox samples are all in rom.
Has anyone shared this unofficial elektron-firmware-tool here yet?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Elektron/comments/1v4a1ro/i_made_a_little_tool_to_inspect_and_rebuild/
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