ROCK 'N' BOARD     tiny tekkno style toy keyboard with lo-fi samples & tribal rhythm

This unique looking toy tablehooter from 2003 (PCB date "03-11-03") shares concept similarities with My Music Center, but sounds very different and is only 2/3 of its size. The 2 note polyphonic main voice and percussion is made from nice lo-fi samples, and the 8 preset rhythms are interesting complex tribal tekkno patterns. Like Casio VL-1, the Rock 'N' Board is one of the few keyboards where the speaker can be muffled with the hollow hand to create trombone- like nice wahwah effects. E.g. the "string" sound this way transforms into a cheesy children choir voice; also the drums can be treated this way. Annoying is that the keyboard is detuned by 4 full notes (C is on G) and also fine tuning among preset sounds differs almost a semitone.

The keys are even narrower than with Casio SA-1 , have half the width of piano keys and need quite much force, which makes them fairly hard to play even for experienced mini keyboard players. The main voices are made from low resolution samples, those partly include sampled chorus effect and envelope, because there is no external envelope generator, which makes high notes decay faster. Decaying preset sounds (like "piano") ignore key press duration. There is a little DAC aliasing distortion and the DAC bit resolution is so low, that especially at low volume setting the sustain phase has an interesting grainy timbre, that e.g. gives the "xylophone" a panflute- like hiss. Generally the distorted sound has an own character - perhaps a bit like a Mellotron, and despite distortion the timbres are still relatively clear and well distinguishable. The 4 drumpads can be switched to animal voice mode. Unfortunately they can not be recorded in the simple sequencer, which here is even polyphonic. Many of the complex polyphonic demos sound extremely off, like played by a totally drunk Salvation Army band; apparently the accompaniment is transposed wrongly by some notes.

main features:

A CD for size compare.

notes:

The name, label and stylish case design of the Rock 'n' Board keyboard was apparently blatantly copied from Activision's historical C64 computer game "Rock 'n' Bolt". The unusual case has a pull-out handle, and only the left chamber contains a speaker; the right chamber is a mock-up. Be careful with the silver metallic paint; like with most sound toys it scratches easily. I don't know who made it, but by behaviour and design I expect it to be an early Potex work. All buttons play a blip noise, which disturbs live performance, and running rhythm is stopped by auto power-off when no keys or buttons are pressed for a while. Also the single button tempo control is awkward for this, and the OBS rhythm buttons always reset tempo to default.

Annoying is that the octave setting is detuned by 4 full notes (C is on G) and also the fine tuning among preset sounds differs. While {piano, violin, music box} is tuned from there about 30ct too high, {xylophone, string, organ, guitar, flute} are almost even a semitone higher. The 8 preset sound samples include sampled envelope and chorus effects, but have no external envelopes (nor split zones), thus decaying sounds ignore key press duration, and sustaining sounds stop immediately after key release. Despite low resolution and rather bright timbre they sound somehow warm and resemble Kawasaki Pro 37. Beside their low resolution the timbres are natural. The sample noise of the "xylophone" decay phase has a panflute- like timbre. The "piano" is grainy by the lack of split zones. "strings" has sampled chorus tremolo and slightly resemble a children chorus timbre (which can be strongly intensified by the hand muffle trick). "organ" is a Hammond organ (or metal pipe organ rank?) timbre with a dose of sampled Leslie. The "violin" is sampled with scratchy attack and a little flutter. "music box" resembles rather a vibraphone. The "guitar" shall likely be a bright metal string one, but by the lack of split zones low notes decay too slow and high one too fast; the timbre is also somewhat steeldrum- like. The "flute" sounds like a recorder flute and has characteristic wind noise during attack.

The 8 OBS preset rhythm buttons immediately start or restart a running rhythm at default tempo. The rhythm patterns are quite special and  remind to Simba - My Music World 683 3149; most have nothing common with what their name suggests. E.g. "fusion" sounds rather like a tango with drumroll. "world" is a long tribal pattern with many fill-ins. "rhyoo" is a nice clapping tekkno rhythm. "drum" is a complex latin bossanova variant. "tango" has nothing to do with its name but is a fast kind of hiphop groove. Unlike the keys, the drumpad buttons are nicely responsive and can be switched to animal voice mode.

The primitive sequencer is similarly bad like with My Music Center; it here even holds only 17 notes, however at least this one is 2 note polyphonic, although there is a polyphony bug; when 2 notes are held and any of them is released, the 2nd is also released in the recording. To use the sequencer, press record and play some notes. Press "play" to start or restart the sequence, however everything you play is still added to the sequence until the memory is full (record LED flashes). Unfortunately record mode disables drumpad events, and starting any rhythm or pressing "stop" deletes sequencer contents. Press "stop" to quit this mode.

The 19 demos of this instrument are:

  1. Spain Coffee* [like on My Music Center]
  2. Rondo Al Turca*
  3. Carmen opera theme* (?, = song 1 on Musical Centre)
  4. Santa Claus is Coming Down*
  5. Wiener Blut* [?, street organ, sounds very off]
  6. ? *
  7. Oh Christmas Tree
  8. Santa Lucia*
  9. Song of Joy
  10. Happy Birthday*
  11. Little Bee* [ = "Hänschen Klein"]
  12. Clap Your Hands
  13. Joy to the World*
  14. ? * [polka, very off]
  15. Song of Spring* [?, = "Komm in meine Liebeslaube"]
  16. Brother John
  17. ? [polka]
  18. ? *
  19. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
The demo button starts the demos, those will cycle through in a sequence. You can also select them individually with the white keys. The demos are arranged quite complex; unfortunately the accompaniment of many demos (marked here with *)  sounds extremely off  (possibly by wrongly tuned samples). You can also step through each demo by pressing "OKON" while it is running; unlike My Song Maker this unfortunately disables the accompaniment track completely, thus you get only the monophonic main voice.

A simpler designed (fairly boring) case variant of this instrument was made (white with pink sides and rounded corners, shape resembling My Song Maker, seen on flea market). Apparently there are several others, those can be recognized by their tiny size and button shapes. These include the Kiddy Partner (yellow with white panel, blue speakers) and the Electronic Player (black with green speakers). In Germany they apparently came in a black and red box with label "Mini-Keyboard" (all seen on eBay).
 

 removal of these screws voids warranty...    
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