Yamaha DX21 & TX81Z retore/upgrade projects - finished

A few photos of finished restoration/upgrade projects.
Both units are upgraded OLED displays. TX is completely repainted with EIC C13 socket, latest bios installed etc.

Yamaha DX21








Yamaha TX81Z


19 Likes

They look beautiful. Great work!

Sexy! What display is that? Might try the same thing with my DX-11.

Wow that TX81 looks delicious

Source of Oleds? Is it a straightforward job? I’ve upgraded akai samplers in the past and they were fairly easy - love to hear the process here.

I used Midas units. Don’t have part number in hand at the moment but shoot me a pm if interested and I will dig it out.

Well, it required quite a lot of dremel work to cut the frame and align mounting holes. Mainly because I wanted to fit the particular OLED module. I checked a few other modules and they were causing some noise in the audio circuit. Hence, it wasn’t straight forward. Finding and installation of a regular LCD is pretty easy exercise though. For that I would recommend East Rising brand as it is well documented and provides backlight from pin 1 & 2.

3 Likes

Brilliant! The DX has some great sounds on there. Classics!

:star_struck:

This is certified fantastic. Nice one!

Mazing!!!

The TX81Z looks great, the front panel, how did you create that, materials, colour, etc…

Very tidy work indeed.

well, it was a long process but in short it consisted of:

  • removing original paint,
  • priming the panel (U-Pol),
  • painting the panel (Rust-Oleum),
  • creating and apllying graphics (Lasertran Ink),
  • applying clear coat (U-Pol).
2 Likes

The TX81Z I have could do with being repainted, especially the front panel maybe, maybe we can talk away from here to go over how i can renovate mine?

No probs. Mind you it is a long and tedious process, depending what you want to achieve.

You should really make a business out of this. I imagine a lot of us on here would love to have our classic synths customized and upgraded on that level…

1 Like

Interested in some other upgrades and mods for dx21. Maybe something is possible besides circuit bending? Circuit bend in the meantime would be also nice.

Would love to breathe new life into this amazing little keyboard…

The display looks amazing of course

If I could, I would :slight_smile: That’s why I admire other guys who can do that stuff commercially.

There is a huge liability when you take someone’s 20-30 years old gear and start messing around.

For example I am still working on a project I started 2 years ago. The reason it takes so long (apart from limited spare time) is that I had to re-engineer button caps to match new tactile switches. I 3D printed them and they work well but look ugly as I dont have SLA printer. So I save up for a SLA printer to finish it off. Maybe this year…

Thanks guys for a kind word though.

3 Likes

Re DX21 I was thinking of putting in an encoder to compliment +/- buttons for faster editing. I breadboarded it and it worked pretty well. I also thought of inserting a filter. But the only solution I could come up with was a manual one at the end of the signal path. I am sure there are guys who could elevate this idea to a more sophisticated solution.

1 Like

Encoder is a cool idea

not sure about the filter, it’s pretty boring and easier to add it as a pedal or in daw

Much more interesting would be to mess with the digital nature of the synth

But having better control (like encoder ) is awesome