Some people collect vintage synthesizers and try to keep them exactly as they left the factory. C.Y.KONG appears to look at an old synth and wonder where the MIDI socket should go.
The site is a sprawling workshop log covering analog synthesizers, drum machines, MIDI-to-CV interfaces, rack conversions, repairs, and modifications. The subject list includes machines from Korg, Roland, Moog/Realistic, Powertran, PAiA, Octave, Analogue Solutions, and others.
The word MIDI-fied appears a lot.
A Korg MS-20 gets an internal MIDI-to-CV converter with pitch, gate, aftertouch, and auxiliary control voltages. A Roland SH-09 gets its own internal converter. A Powertran Transcendent 2000 gets converted into a module and then given MIDI control. A Realistic Concertmate MG-1 gets its decaying internal foam removed before receiving filter-control and MIDI work.
These are not one-paragraph project summaries. The pages show where signals were tapped, which converter boards were chosen, what voltages were required, which sockets were altered, what holes were drilled, and what compromises appeared along the way.
There is also a recurring enemy: the captive mains cable.
C.Y. repeatedly replaces old flying leads with IEC sockets and explains the hardware used to cut the openings. After enough project pages, it starts to feel less like a modification and more like a personal campaign against cords permanently attached to synthesizers.
The mistakes and annoyances are part of the documentation
The useful thing about these pages is that they read like real bench work.
The author explains why a particular MIDI-to-CV converter is too expensive, why another lacks enough auxiliary outputs, why an MS-20’s Hz-per-volt behavior complicates a plan, or why a trigger input needs additional switching so the original keyboard still works.
That is often more useful than a clean finished schematic.
A repair manual tells you how the device was intended to work. A modification diary tells you what happens when somebody actually opens it, changes the design, discovers the first idea was awkward, and finds another route.
The site’s visual style belongs to the era too. Some sections warn that they are heavy on graphics and offer lighter index options. Navigation is mostly direct links between the instrument page, modification stages, sounds, manuals, and related projects. The result is a personal technical archive rather than a polished product database.
For synthesizer owners, old modification pages can be invaluable because the equipment outlives the commercial ecosystem around it. Parts disappear. Interfaces change. MIDI remains useful, but a 1970s control-voltage synth was not waiting for it.
For web historians, C.Y.KONG is the familiar independent-web formula again: one person’s workshop experience, documented carefully enough that strangers can still learn from it years later.
CacheRat’s 1,967 Ancient Web Domains research list is full of sites like this because obscure technical knowledge often survives where somebody bothered to photograph the mess before putting the screws back in.
Preferably all 35 of them.