This sample based lo-fi toy tablehooter has 16 preset sounds, 8 preset rhythms and 7 chord buttons for single finger accompaniment. The main voice is 3 note polyphonic with simple pitchbend. There are 11 nicely arranged demo melodies, those patterns can be looped with "any key play", and pitchbend has a strange siren effect glitch (suitable for tekkno).

main features:

• 37 mini keys (wider than normal, black keys need a bit much force)
• 7 select buttons for direct selectable single finger chords
• main voice polyphony 3 notes
• 2 built-in speakers (stereo, sound bassless)
• 16 preset sounds {piano, bell, saxophone, flute, trumpet, banjo, violin, bass 1, e. piano, accordion, harmonica, organ, c. organ, string, bass 2, guitar} (selected through 4 cipher buttons {"0".."3"})
• 8 OBS preset rhythms {8 beat, 16 beat, rock, pops, disco, march, swing, waltz}
• volume +/- buttons (16 steps)
• separate microphone volume knob (switches amp on/ off)
• tempo +/- buttons (28 steps?)
• pitchbend up/down rubber button
• 4 animal sound pad buttons {dog, cat, frog, duck}
• fill-in & ending button
• single finger accompaniment (only with rhythm, no manual chord mode)
• useless sequencer (monophonic record/ play of 32 notes, no edit, contents is erased as soon anything else but "replay" is pressed)
• sound generator based on low and medium resolution samples with maximum 1 loop point and simple volume envelope. It has audible DAC aliasing distortion & zipper noise. Percussion samples sound thin and resemble My Music Center. The stereo sound pans main voice notes alternatingly left or right; apparently the polyphony channels are each statically assigned to the left or right speaker.
• CPU= "HP-29-3" (26 pin COB)
• 11 demo melodies (also used for "any key play" mode)
• auto power-off with jingle
• jacks for AC adapter & microphone

modifications:

• diode chain added to reduce supply voltage of overheating CPU.
• cinch sound output jacks with speaker mute switch added.

eastereggs:

• pitchbend bugs:

The pitchbend lever behaves very odd. It bends notes normally by 1 full note up or down within 0.25s or so, but it only bends notes those already sound before the lever is pressed. Notes played while the lever is held down are not affected at all, so far no other notes are still sounding. Playing a new note while bending an old note stops bending that old note further. Even worse,  the pitch of key 36 and 37 rises infinitely instead of only by 1 note when pitchbend up is held, i.e. with sustaining preset sounds ("organ" etc.) the pitch ascends higher and higher, causing plenty of DAC aliasing distortion (sounds like a whistling old shortwave radio) until after some minutes it warps around (apparently by internal numerical overflow) and turns into a very low tone which keeps ascending from there. When you release the pitchbend lever but keep the note held, it will howl all the way back down, which takes quite long and sounds like an US police car siren. Exactly the opposite happens when you bend down the note of key 5, it falls quickly to the lowest possible pitch (sounds a bit like a motorcycle) and than warps around to the highest possible pitch and keeps descending (with plenty of DAC aliasing distortion) from there. (Like with normal notes, the pitch stops bending further when any additional notes are played during this.)

notes:

The main voice preset sounds are made from low and medium resolution samples with maximum 1 loop point and simple volume envelope. High notes sound cold by DAC aliasing distortion, and the envelopes have audible zipper noise. The "piano" sounds fairly natural with high notes, but turns grainy in the bass range since like all sounds it is made from only 1 sample without key split zones. "bell" resembles a vibraphone without vibrato. The "flute" sounds a bit dull and too noisy by aliasing distortion; bass range has too slow attack. The "banjo" loop sample contains sampled mandolin ring, which tempo thus strongly varies with the note pitch; it continues ringing after key release with very long sustain (7s in the bass range). "violin" is just a static tooting loop sample without vibrato. "bass" 1 is a warm e-bass; 2 is duller. "e. piano" is a Rhodes or music box timbre with percussive attack. The "accordion" toots cold and rather harsh by aliasing distortion. "organ" is a plain pipe or Hammond organ tone with semi- percussive attack. "c. organ" means likely chord organ and sounds like a thinner "accordion" variant. "string" is a static tooting loop sample without any chorus or vibrato; ba harsh aliasing distortion it resembles rather an oboe. "guitar" is a bright one with metal strings.

The yellow rubber pitchbend "lever" behaves very odd. The pitch of key 36 and 37 rises infinitely (and finally warps around to low pitch) instead of only by 1 note when pitchbend up is held.  The pitch of key 5 falls infinitely (and warps around to high pitch) instead of only by 1 note when pitchbend down is held (see eastereggs). Pirchbend can not be used during rhythm or sequencer record mode.

The rhythms are started by pressing their OBS buttons; pressing any rhythm button during running rhythm stops it, which makes it awkward to quickly switch between rhythms. Rhythms generally start with enabled single finger accompaniment in key C at default tempo. You can mute the accompaniment with the "chord on/ off" button, but after pressing "fill-in" it always activates itself again. When accompaniment was on before pressing "fill-in", also the fill-in is accompanied. Pressing "fill-in stop" plays an ending pattern. Also pressing "fill-in" or "fill-in stop" without running rhythm plays a default drum kit pattern. The thin and cheesy accompaniment patterns are quite over- orchestrated (thus less versatile) and remind to Sankai 01870K or SoundWaves MG-1530.

The monophonic record/ playback sequencer is quite useless because it looses its contents when anything but "re-play" is pressed. (Playing any notes or rhythm overwrites the sequence.) At least you can immediately restart the sequence (make it rhythmically stutter) by pressing "re-play" again. You can also during playback switch the preset sound or tempo, but that's all. During recording always plays the "8 beat" rhythm (without accompaniment), which can be muted with "chord on/ off". During playback no rhythm can be used, but strange is that both fill-in buttons still work, however reaching the end of the fill-in patter deletes the sequence, which can be prevented by restarting the sequence (which stops the fill-in) before the fill-in pattern ends.

The 11 demo melodies are nicely arranged and quite long. The demo melodies are:

1. Stage-Coach
2. Turkey
3. For Elise [the entire classical piano piece including interlude etc.]
4. You Are My Sunshine
5. Green Sleeve
6. Goodbye Field
7. Auld Lang Syne
8. Jingle Bell
9. We Wish Your Merry X'Mas [starts nicely C64- like]
10. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
11. Happy Birthday

Another strange toy keyboard with imitated Casio SA-65 case design was the Jin Xin Toys JX-20165.
 

removal of these screws voids warranty...
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