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This extremely rare squarewave tablehooter is based on an odd monophonic variant of Hing Hon EK-001 sound generator. Interesting is that the preset sounds and the great impulsive POKEY percussion timbres are different. Unfortunately the instrument is detuned by 5 full notes(!) and the plastic is terribly fragile. Also the leftmost 2 keys and the 5th drumpad are fake.
warning: Never send a keyboard with this case through mail without
multiple centimeters(!) of padding (styrofoam, firmly crushed paper, fanfolded
cardboard or similar), because the plastic is brittle like glass and will
unavoidably shatter into a zillion of pieces as soon they toss it around
in the mail. (Older Yongmei keyboards original packaging contains no end
padding at all and thus is absolutely unsuited(!) for mail shipping.)
My Yongmei MS-210B arrived with its right end smashed to about 30 small debris because the vendor didn't pad the case end properly but despite warning only wrapped the original box in a thin layer of bubble wrap, which is in no way sufficient. A year before that I had ordered a MS-110A with identical case, that was shattered similarly, but when I reported that damage in a Deutsche Post post office, the spirt- nosed post office clerk smeared a few words across the damage report form (instead of filling out the entries), intentionally smashed the remains of the wrapped keyboard with a huge 20kg parcel on a trolley and sent it back to the sender despite I explicitly requested to sent it back to me after damage analysis. I never saw that keyboard again nor I got any money back. Thus I did not report the incident with the shattered MS-210B to a post office again, but puzzled it together with a lot of superglue, which took a full day. |
The case style of the MS-210B still looks very much like a Yongmei transistor
tooter (see Golden Camel-7A) despite
it already contains digital hardware. Interesting is that the letters "MS-"
on the control panel here suggests the abbreviation "Musical Source", while
they normally are associated with Miles, MeiKe, Meiker
or the genuine name of the manufactures Meisheng. Like with other Yongmeis,
also here the manual contains a lot of false claims, and this one is especially
ridiculous, thus I quote it here since the text proudly advertises this
tablehooter in the style of earliest 1980th ads for a Roland TB-303
("computer controlled"...) or similar:
Thank you for purchasing MS-210B Luxury Computed Electronic Keyboard.
Wish you to enjoy yourself with MS-210B and have a wonderful time forever.
MS-210B is a portable instrument with varieties of beautiful tones. Its multifunction is flexible and easy to operate. The following are the features:
With noise absorbing circuit, sustaining circuit, and dual channels of tone generator*, the MS-210B provides you with accurate pitch**, beautiful tone quality, sustain, vibrato, and excellent stereo effect***. There are 8 different instruments and 4 kinds of percussion. [...] The MS-210B can record 62 notes and can playback. If the keys are not touched within 5 minutes, the power of the computer will stop automatically. |
*) In fact it is completely monophonic.
**) It is genuinely detuned by 5 full notes (i.e. 500 cent; 'C' is on 'G')
instead of having "Tone Quality < 3CENTS"
like claimed in its feature list. ***) In reality the amplifier is completely
mono.
At least there are schematics on the back of the manual; unfortunately the CPU pin numbers are missing and also the amplifier IC seems to be different, which limits its use badly.
Apparently the batteries were early planned to the right, |
a lot of cable mess inside,... |
and what the fuck - an iron weight! |
The preset sounds employ the same multipulse squarewave sound generator with capacitor envelope like Hing Hon EK-001, but the timbres are programmed differently. The continuous tones (like flute) have all a slow attack phase and contain all at least 1 second of sustain (like a pipe organ). The sustain button adds a long 3 seconds sustain (or disables it where enabled) and the vibrato button adds a 6Hz vibrato. The "trumpet" has enabled sustain (3 seconds) and sounds rather like a bright metal pipe organ rank. The "ukulele" has a buzzy harsh timbre with 8Hz mandolin ring. The "piano" has enabled sustain and ignores key press duration. The "saxophone" corresponds to "organ" on EK-001 (the classic sonorous multipulse squarewave pipe organ timbre with enabled sustain). "music box" and "flute" sounds like intended. "oboe" corresponds to "violin" on EK-001 (another sonorous multipulse timbre). "church bell" is a metallic multipulse timbre with sustain.
The percussion has the same wonderful impulsive POKEY style like with Hing Hon EK-001, but the sounds are slightly different. The "bell" is a little lower, the "base" is a little lower and decays faster, the "snare" is more impulsive and decays much faster (i.e. more realistic). The close hihat is the same and also most rhythms of the MS-210B are the same; many are simply renamed. The "rock" corresponds to "pop" on EK-001, "8 beat" to "disco", "beguine" to "rhumba". Only "chacha" replaces here "tango".
The primitive sequencer is always in record mode and records all notes
until it runs out of memory. The recording can be played back with "playback"
button or note by note with the leftmost 2 fake piano keys (labelled "RECORD
TEST"). To enable these keys, the 2nd slide switch must be in the "on"
position. Although the sequencer is fairly useless since played notes always
append to its contents, it is impressive that it does not interfere at
all with rhythms, thus you can start, stop and change rhythm or tempo without
any effect on the playing sequence. The tempo setting has no effect on
the playback speed.
The 12 demos of this instrument are:
removal of these screws voids warranty... | ||
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