At the first look this pink plastic tablehooter appears to be yet another of the many My Music Center successors. Possibly it is even older because in detail it behaves and sounds quite different.

main features:

• 37 midsize keys (those need a bit much force)
• 2 built-in speakers (very harsh and hissy, mono)
• main voice polyphony 2 notes (a keyboard matrix flaw prevents to play certain notes simultaneously, another flaw truncates held notes during fast play | only 1 note with chorus sounds)
• 16 semi- OBS preset sounds {piano, guitar, e.piano, trumpet, violin 1, saxophone, clarinet, brass | clavi, harp, banjo, organ, ban pipe, violin 2, reed organ, string} selected by individual buttons + select button.
• 16 semi- OBS preset rhythms {pops, latin, march, disco, bossa nova, waltz, 16 beat, rock | country, reggae, rumba, tango, beguine, swing, samba, cha-cha} selected by individual buttons + select button.
• volume knob
• tempo +/- buttons (24 steps)
• single finger accompaniment (only accompaniment made from 2 note polyphonic plain squarewave tones, no manual organ chord mode).
• sustain & vibrato button
• drum kit mode {base, snare, tom, low synth- tom, mid synth- tom, high synth- tom, hihat, open cymbal, closed cymbal, shaker, clap, clave, woodblock, cowbell}
• sound generator resembles My Music Center (see there) but has only 2 channels for main voice polyphony. Thus most preset sounds have no chorus effect and ones with chorus {reed organ, brass, string} can play only monophonic. Additionally there are 2(?) channels (squarewave organ tone) for accompaniment + 1 dedicated for percussion samples.
• CPU "SF, LC-8114C" (30 pin COB, "Holtek HT3378")
• primitive monophonic sequencer (record & play of 30 notes + accompaniment, no edit)
• battery backed- up memory (crashes often).
• reset button
• 22 demo melodies (nicely arranged)
• AC- adapter jack

modifications:

• cinch sound outputs with speaker mute switch added.
• AC- adapter jack polarity changed to standard
• polyphony bug fixed (matrix diodes added)

notes:

Despite the hardware is 2 note polyphonic, in unmodified state some key combinations don't work due to a keyboard matrix flaw. The matrix consists of 3 output and 14 input lines (quite odd combination); to fix the flaw, solder a diode into each of the 3 output lines. (To prevent crosstalk problems I also soldered an 18 kOhm pull-up resistor from each input line against the +5V line at the zener diode that supplies the CPU. With this fix all key combinations work, but there is still a design flaw that makes notes cancel each other during fast play. The keys also respond a bit slow. I haven't fully analyzed the keyboard matrix yet, but there seem to be no higher note keys addable because function buttons share the same row with the highest keys.

The preset sounds are quite bright and some even really harsh (which partly may be a loudspeaker problem). They are made from static waveforms with volume envelope. Like with My Music Center they include quite strong and creaky digital distortion. The "piano" resembles a harpsichord; the "clavi" is a bit duller. Also the "guitar" sounds similar and has a bit more sustain. The "harp" is too harsh (rather an e-guitar) and the note with held keys is shorter than without. The "e.piano" has a harsh distorted metal organ pipe timbre and resembles more a vibraphone. The "banjo" is short and harsh (like expected), but note is shorter with held key. The "trumpet" is rather a harsh reed organ or accordion (with a dose of oboe?). The "organ" fades louder and a bit quieter again and also is rather a harsh reed organ. The "violin 2" sounds almost the same but an octave higher. The "violin 1" sounds like a very harsh oboe (or bagpipes?) The "ban pipe" is a bright metal pipe organ timbre (same waveform like "e.piano") which especially in the bass range has a strong purring aliasing(?) distortion. The "saxophone" timbre is fairly realistic. The "clarinet" sounds rather like a dull saxophone. The "reed organ" has the same timbre with chorus effect. Also "brass" has chorus and resembles more a harsh accordion or reed organ. Also "string" has chorus; it fades louder at the beginning and sounds too bright and glassy and resembles more an accordion (or the My Music Center "violin"). All sounds with chorus play only monophonic. The "sustain" button adds a longer release phase to the sounds (like intended), while the "vibrato" button adds a quite strong and fast (square?) vibrato that has about 6Hz and gives the sounds a similar appearance like the famous "fantasy" preset sound of Casio VL-Tone 1. The vibrato button works also with held notes and thus works also well as a realtime sound control. The semi- OBS preset sound buttons don't change held notes but only affect new ones.

The rhythms employ quite a lot of different low- res percussion samples and sound rather thin. The single finger accompaniment sounds cute and cheesy and can be switched on and off with its OBS button without stopping the rhythm (no matter of course with such keyboards). The accompaniment is made from 2 note polyphonic squarewave(?) organ tones and resembles much the ones on Elite MC2200. It knows only 4 different standard chords and there is no manual organ chord mode (without rhythm).

With the "percu" button the keyboard can be switched into drum kit mode, in which the left keyboard section stays mute (or plays single finger accompaniment when enabled). Very bizarre is that also in the right half as well some of the black as of the white keys are mute (play no percussion samples). Also the demo melodies are selected through keyboard keys with the same inactive keys in between. Apparently the CPU was originally designed to have a keyboard beginning on the "F" key instead of "C", and the here inactive keys were intended to be only black ones. Remarkable is that the misalligned note letter strip above the keys of my Jin Xin Toys JX-20165 also begins with an "F" instead of "C". Thus perhaps the MusicZone keyboard also sounds too thin (most noticeable with percussion) because its pitch was tuned up by half an octave using a wrong CPU clock resistor to make the pitch match a given keyboard assembly. It would be mechanically quite easy to modify the keyboard back like the CPU designer intended it.

Unlike with other similar keyboards,  the primitive sequencer here does not loose its data when anything else is selected, and the instrument even often holds its data when switched off. When you start a rhythm or demo music and power the instrument off, you can hear its pitch falling down, and when you switch it on again, the instrument normally continues where it was switched off. But often it also crashes (especially when buttons were pressed with power off) when powered on again, which was likely a known bug, since it has a dedicated "reset" button on its control panel. (Also my Chicco - Sing 'n' Dance Orchestra has such a button, despite it anyway resets when powered on.)

The 22 demo melodies are nicely arranged, although many of them are very short. Unlike other such keyboards there is no "one key play" mode, but the keys always (re-) start their corresponding demo melodies. Many of the tunes are classical musics those English names I didn't know. I could later identify these by the "Holtek HT3378" datasheet.

The 22 demo melodies of this instrument are:

1. Little Short Man in the Woods ["Ein Männlein steht im Walde"]
2. Canon ["Utopia" theme, Brahms?]
3. Last Rose of Summer ["Kleine Rose, Wie Blühst Du Einsam"]
4. Symphony No. 9 ["Ode to Joy"]
5. Turkish march ["Mr.Do!" bonus tune]
6. Go Go Bach [Minuet (J. S. Bach)]
7. Fly Me to the Moon
8. Marche Royal Du Lion [slow oriental tune]
9. Romanize
10. Peter and the Wolf
11. Valse lente
12. Allegro ["Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" (Mozart)]
13. Le Cygne ["Swan Lake"]
14. Long Live Love
15. Etude OP.10 No.3
16. Yong Prince and Princess [waltz from C64 "Tales of Arabian Nights"]
17. Copacabana
18. Skip to my Lou ["Ten Little Indians"]
19. Song of India [waltz]
20. Humoresque ["Eine Kleine Liebesweise"]
21. London Bridge Is Falling Down
22. Waltz of the Flowers

removal of these screws voids warranty...
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