Creatoy - 64 Keys (touchpad)

Creatoy - 64 Keys (touchpad sound toy)

This is a sound toy from 1994 that looks a bit like one of these modern "webpad" computers. The case frame is white, the backside red and the front consists of a large touchpad with a cardboard picture that shows various vehicles and animals. By pressing on them, you hear their noise and then their name is spoken in German trough a speaker. When circuit bent, it becomes a really fantastic controllable tekkno sound instrument that makes no random chaos noises but stays always deterministic and thus is ideal for live play.

main features:

printed cardboard touchpad with 64 touchable elements ("buttons") those work by a clear plastic foil with silver contact traces underneath, those form a normal 8x8 keyboard matrix.
8 OBS vehicle sounds with spoken name {steam ship, train, fire engine, ambulance, bike, police car, bus, helicopter}
8 animal sounds with spoken name {cow, tiger, duck, cock, dog, bird, cat, elephant}
24 OBS dual voiced squarewave melodies
8 OBS squarewave "piano" tones (consisting of 2 voices?, only monophonic playable)
8 OBS percussion sounds (those repeat in a loop when held down)
8 OBS rhythms {disco, tango, waltz, rhumba, 4-beat, swing, beguine, march} The rhythms use the same great POKEY sound like the Creatoy keyboard; unfortunately they neither run in a loop (they play only 1 bar when not held down), nor there is a tempo control nor they can be played simultaneously with the "piano" sounds.
The sounds seem to be mainly samples, but the police and ambulance sirens and the bird are synthesized with well audible pitch envelope steps/ zipper noise. The melodies and piano are squarewave and the rhythms use POKEY- style shift register noises.

modifications:

Voltage regulator, cinch sound output and speaker mute switch added.
volume control, distortion and pitch (clock speed) pot added.
stop button added (interrupts CPU supply connection when pressed).
pitchbend sensor contact (with "+" and "-"(GND) electrode) connected to the DC controlled clock input. (I verified by scope that it is indeed DC.) I added 3 silver wires for the sensors below the handle and the stop button at the left inner rim of the handle, which provides excellent playability.

notes:

The sound CPU can be ridiculously overclocked without crashing, until the rhythms turn into a continuous beep. Due to also the percussions repeat in a drumroll- like way, by overclocking they turn into very "acid house"- like chirping and purring noises. The great thing is that all buttons are OBS without any distracting mode switch stuff or other handicaps. Though this thing can make really lots of funny and weird tekkno sounds and scratchy growls those nobody would expect from a so cheesy looking children toy. Theoretically also DIP switches or similar could be added to hold the rhythms, but since I also own the Creatoy keyboard with even tempo control buttons, for me this is not worth the effort.

Unlike the famous talking Texas Instrument touchpad toys (Touch'n'Tell/ Tipp&Sprich, Speak'n'Spell, Teddy Touch'n'Tell, etc.), those are the most common circuit bending candidates and make lots of semi- random bizarre crash noise mess, this Creatoy instrument never behaves in any way unpredictable or randomly or locks up, but always stays perfectly OBS controllable (even in extremely overclocked state) like an electronic drum kit. Thus IMO this is one of the most interesting things for circuit bending, because this is really a live playable instrument and not just a sound experimentation kit or sound sample source.

This is an eBay photo of the original box of this toy, with the writing "64 KEYS" and the German product name(?) "SEHEN- HÖREN- LERNEN".

This is an eBay photo of a different version with the name "Talking'n'Melody - My Sweet Family" (German name is "Sprechende Melodie"?) that was apparently sold by the German mail order shop "Quelle". Instead of animals and vehicles, its touchpad depicts a family in a living room. I don't own this, but I guess that besides different sound samples and words this one plays identical with my version.

*removal of these screws voids warranty...*

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