Today is a BIG day. Today my test Simmons SDS7 is back in one piece! SDS7 serial number 70320 was finally put back together after several months of doing exactly what I bought it for… to host the development of a small range of peripherals for one of my favourite electronic drum systems. 😊
Back in December last year, I found a really nice SDS7 up for sale and having wanted one of these ever since I sold mine back in 1987 to help fund the purchase of my first SDX, I just wanted to get another one.
My early Christmas present to myself got me all smitten again and I had ideas to design stuff that would help keep this legendary instrument going for another forty something years. The only problem was that I didn't really want to develop stuff on the SDS7 I'd just bought, as it was immaculate.
Then in May 2024, a friend pointed me in the direction of a SDS7 that was up for sale relatively locally (London). It had some faults but having an idea what the problems were, I grabbed it for a really good price.
Subsequently, SDS7 #70320 became the platform on which I developed Pleiades lithium battery conversion and uniPulse MIDI to trigger adapter, Dark Matter modular switched-mode power supply, AMEP advanced memory expansion pack and NC-7 noise cancelling snap-in, all of which will be launching very soon. Indeed, I’m delighted to announce that SDS7 #70320 is actually running Pleiades, Dark Matter and NC-7. AMEP will be here very shortly. In fact, the pre-production PCBs should arrive today.
You may have noticed that the top-case of my test SDS7 looks very 'black' and seems to have an acute absence of age-related scratches, dents and rust. Well, that's because I got it sand blasted and then re-powder-coated. I actually had a customer's SDS7 in at the same time so I got both top-cases done together.
It's been a heavy few months and there were a couple of points during that period when I thought I’d been a bit too ambitious. Ed Rose (aka The Simmons Guy), Michael Buchner, Patrice Jacquot and my close friend Guy Wilkinson (of Super Synth Projects) have however, been so incredibly supportive. Without their help and encouragement, things would have taken so much longer and perhaps might not even have happened.
My test Simmons SDS7 is back in one piece and #70320 looks and sounds amazing. I’m just so pleased that it all worked out. Pleiades, Dark Matter and AMEP will be launched at the same time and very soon, like within the next couple of weeks, hopefully so stay tuned. 🙂
UPDATE - 16:00, 1st October 2024
This is my very first post update that has the same date as the post itself! Yes, something happened a few hours after I published this post. My prototype AMEP PCBs arrived. 😮
