Adding digital outs to a device...

[guittarzzan]

I have a Roland TD20 drum kit, which due to Roland's lack of thinking, only has a stereo spdif out. I'm curious how complicated, if possible at all, it would be to have an electronics wiz somehow add something like an optical 8 channel digital out.
I'd love to be able to just record the kit without sending it through another conversion.
...so...is this something that can be done for less than the cost of beach front property or is there too much involved to even entertain the idea?

thanks.

[LapTop006]

Probably the best thing to do would be to pop the case and find out what chip(s) are driving the analog output's, it might be possible to steal the signal there.

[Matt Syson]

Hi
You have many questions rolled into one.
What do you want?
SP/DIF turned into optical (not too difficult).
8 channels worth of different outputs from various analogue outputs brought out as an optical signal. (possible but not particularly practical UNLESS Roland have a version which does this in which case part of the work may be done on the boards but no chips are fitted).
Alesis do chipsets for some of these functions but whether it is worth risking mods to your unit is rather questionable. Accept it for what it is, if it is any good a newer better version will be available sometime.
Matt S