quid beepy keyboard

[boneless]

( DISCLAIMER: I'm fairly new this - and I'm not saying it's a great bend or anything but I thought me posting might help inspire other newbies!)

I got one of these in a pound shop the other day. Mainly bought it coz I liked the look of it.

When I got it home I almost didn't bother bending it coz it sounded so monophonic beepy and awful but eht notes do have this interesting kinda fade out to them, so I did open it up and it became a bit of a project...

Found three bends. Pitch up, a kind of extend the note one,  and a shorten and make more beepy one. Put pots in and line out.

Then got really inspired by Silas's linked post about 555's and built my first triggger circuit!!  Put on/off switch for that  and routed the pulse through a spdt switch so it can trigger two different notes with a pleasant 4th interval.

Pretty chuffed that it works so thanks to all for encouragment!

Noticed a few things though...

Firstly the 555 doesn't trigger a completely even pulse. The timing sorta shifts on it. I wondered if that was normal? Of do I need to change values of compoinents on the 555 circuit?

Also

...whilst using the trigger circuit plus bends one time it started to totally spin out and kinda alternate a note up and down like a wave form- with crazy distortion - for quite a while. MAD. It kept doing it until I'd taken batteries out a few times and left it for a few minutes. Then it went back to normal. Something similar happend once when I was probing it.

Anyone any ideas what was happening?

Have been trying but haven't got it to happen again!!!

Also when I plug in line out and cut the signal to internal speaker it looses the fade out reverb of the sound and goes bippy.

I haven't put any resistors in teh line out - perhaps a 10k in the  line out ground would solve it? Anyone any ideas?

Thanks again for the forum. It's opening up a whole new world of musicality.

[boneless]

sorry about replying to an ancient post of my own but i just came across this...

an AMAZING re-interpretation of my crappy quid keyboard...

circuit bent mini keyboard

[stealthbopper]

Wow - thanks for posting that. Very inspring for one only recently getting into bending / DIY! What a (mini) beauty and love the 'wood effect'!

[boneless]

CHeers. I think I should just clarify that the film isn't by me though - it's by http://noystoise.blogspot.com/

Amazing work!

[phantompowers]

I've just bent a couple of these keyboards and seeing as there is a bit of a thread going I thought I'd post the vids.
I added a 'personal alarm' circuit to the 1st one which makes a sort of raygun noise. The second one has a circuit added from a cyberman keyring which makes a sort of LFO sound. The original sound from the keyring doesn't work anymore 'cos I damaged the circuit. Damn those SMD's! Ocasionally though it says, 'You will be assimilated!' which sounds well spooky.
They both have body contacts added and pitch dials and audio out and the obligatory LED!

Circuit Bent Mini-keyboard MK I.mp4

Circuit Bent Mini-keyboard MK II.mp4