has any one bent a Vtec music major ? grandstand major minor?

[Matt the Modulator]

ive just got a music major which looks the same as a grandstand major minor keyboard.

ive looked at the sailmounth site  (currently off line) which shows all the wiring and circuit layout but no bends has any one bent one of these things ? ive opend her up but i havent found any bends as yet but then ive only tried strieght wire jumpers and no caps which usally helps with cheeper toys.

It has analog drums sounds (kick, snare hi hat) ive found a constant white noise bend but i cant even find a resitor thet controlls the pitch of the analog drums ? still it has a singing voise tone that suits circuit bent stuff so well.

[Circuitbenders]

I've certainly seen bent ones but i've never done one myself as they are just way to expensive on ebay and i've never seen one in a charity shop or elsewhere 

[Matt the Modulator]

yeah i paid 66quid for this but ive always wanted one circuit bending seems to go in fashions as i #ve just got a
speak and write for £3.50 a talking teacher for £5 and a speak and maths for £6 of ebay ive seem alll of these go for much more only months ago anyway ive had  a good poke around the music major and ive found

1 gitch bend
1 speed up voice
1 extra output (same pitch as master out but differnt tone)
3 trigger inputs for the analog drums
a gate output that triggers my doepfer (no ampli needed) evey time a note is played
constant dull or bright white noise
that is so far well worth aving a go if you will pay the price

[Oceanus - XD515]

Hi,

I bent one of these and put it on youtube..

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=suSVYLvPxxQ.

I have a marked up picture of the main PCB I can mail you as it is just a bit to big to attach to this post.

Cheers

Oceanus

[Circuitbenders]

I know its been a while but did you ever get any further with this matt?

I'm working on one of these now and i've got a couple of vocal glitch bends, a pitch control via replacing the clock, on/off switches for the percussion by just cutting the trigger lines, percussion trigger inputs and a couple of switches that produce oscillation effects.

I can't help thinking that there must at least be decay controls for the percussion in there somewhere but i think i've tested just about every resistor and cap in the percussion sections, and i'll be buggered if i can find them. 

[Glitch Militia]

I'm very interested in this aswell. I've got one waiting. Their just too expensive to kill.

[Matt the Modulator]

I'm very interested in this aswell. I've got one waiting. Their just too expensive to kill.

Yeah i fried the cob chip on one and some transistors in another i ended up swapping the cob chip over and got a a working one ! pain in the arse
Well ive had a look about and i started to make notes at the time but there not understandable at all so i cant give a bend points sheet or out

I never found decay's for the drum just kill and feed back distortions and a white noise output (its a nice noise) i did find a bend that makes the keys say phases like "no try again" and so on someone sent me a bend sheet i think it was oceanus but im not sure i would say leave the bends alone just add one of pauls pitch controls (the precision oscillator type) as it uses a resonator thing for pitch top right of the rear of the circuit i think i might open mine as its in a right mess but not until next wk

ps be carefull near the big ic's they can easily be damaged

[Circuitbenders]

I'm completely baffled by the percussion section on this thing. I can't see any real reason for the ridiculous number of resistors on the percussion circuit half of the board. You could create those sounds in a far simpler manner.

Theres some halfway decent glitches and the shorts that assign the speech phrases to the keys, up on the connector for the black blob chip. As long as you stay away from the VCC pin 7 it should be alright.
I replaced the ceramic resonator on the black blob with an LTC1799 circuit. Ths controls the pitch of the speech and animal noises. The pitch of the normal keyboard sounds is controlled by another ceramic resonator on the biggest chip, but i didn't bother with this one as it also controls the tempo of the drum loops which i find really annoying.

Checkout the lcircuit layout on the sailormouth site http://www.sailormouth.org/vtmmold.html
He seems to have gone to a ridiculous amount of effort on this thing and then found very little of any use, which seems to have been everyone elses experience as well. 

[Matt the Modulator]

That's great i didn't realise the speech had a separate pitch control from the keyboard im gunner add a ltc thing to mine then ! makes it worth while i loved this when i got it but now hate it but low pitched animal noise do it for me 
is the drum triggers positive going?

[Circuitbenders]

the drum triggers are produced by pins 9,10,11 and 12 of the big chip where they are negative going pulses, but they all seem to go through a transistor inverter further into the drum section which turns them into positive pulses.

To be honest i don't think i'll bother with them as i couldn't get the drums to actually do anything more interesting than they normally do.