Electri-fire's Site

My favorit bend. It deseves to become a classic.

 My first bending attempt was a keyboard similar to this one. It's discussed at "waranty void's Tablehooters" , the Hing Hon EK-001.  

 Waranty Void "Tablehooters" HingHon_EK001

It died after emanating demonic and angelic choirs tearing beats and vaste washes of noise. It got me  hooked to bending big time. This one gave me a second chance bending project with the same circuitry. Not too hard to find and  NEVER crashes. Two touch contacts: drawer handle and aluminium soccer shoe knob. The drawer handle has multiple layers of clear spraypaint getting thinner to the right side to modify response. There's a Arion stereo phaser inside crossbent with the keyboard. Nice filtering.

I would not have finished this page if it had not been for ~Khate  http://www.khate.org/ who presented her circuit bent Hing Hon EK-001 version she dubbed  "Ming the merciless" at the Yahoo benders group .

A nifty looking basterd indeed.Goes well with my mintgreen dental chair.

It  has two pitch knobs on the left,  both 1M in parallel,  replacing the original fixed clock resistor. Higher value potmeters can be used giving even bigger pitchbend range.

Using two parallel pots has the advantage of having  pitchbend range adjustable.

Swash pot at the corner, doing bias at the LM386 poweramp. Later I removed this,  as the sound was too overwhelming , obscuring the character of the keyboard.

 A  feature of this thing I like a lot is when holding down several sound select buttons the sounds modulate each other (I think).  I added 8 hold switches below the sound select buttons.

The Phaser section is above the rhythm select buttons. The crappy Arion phaser can be found dead cheap. Red phase on/off with LED. Black three original phaser pots, Two pots making connection between phaser and keyboard circuit.

Never mind the gaffa tape at the back, it's so full of wires it won't close. I've since found thinner wire.

All files uneffected , cut out of realtime play,  and normalised in Wavelab. Fades done by onboard decay pot. Sure is a downer not having the Kaoss Pad or Vortex behind this, but I think you prefer to have a unembellished soundimpression of just this one.

 Bart Smit drum Down Down mono.mp3  No comment

Bart Smit loop 2.mp3   I forgot what I did, but it has some phasing with another modulation, probably from the noise-swash inspired additions to the 386 amp.

Bart Smit piano touch phase off mono.mp3  The piano sound with opening decay , pitch change by LDR, some distorting moddulation by touch contact, Arion stereo phaser off.

Bart Smit gutar hold mono.mp3 The guitar sound, extreme pitch down, then other sound hold switches on and off.

Using he now removed Swash effect :

Bart Smit small swash mono.mp3 Snip of swashed stuff.

Bart Smit swash change one key pot pitched mono.mp3  attempt at melody by pitch pot obscured by NoiseSwashing.

The Swash mod was inspired by the Noiseswash, a 4ms pedals design http://www.4mspedals.com/  , by Dann Green.  Schematics are at the commonsound kits page http://www.commonsound.com/kits.html .

I feel this instrument will be one of those classics every bender will want to take the opportunity to bend .

But they come in disguise. With different names, cases, sometimes disabled features. So how to get one?

First of all if you know what to look for they can easily be found used and dirt cheap.  Never mind if it has a wining sound even when not playing. It can be fixed by replacing the on/off slider.

KEY FEATURES

8 sounds: piano, flute, violin, organ, horn, banjo, music-box, guitar.  

8 rhytms: pop, disco,march, rhumba, swing, tango, ballad, waltz.    Start, Stop Tempo up, tempo down.

4 drumpads, usually called "custom drummer"

Volume options:  seperate for Keys and Rhytm, Master and Mix, or just Master volume.

And if implemented:  Demo on/off,  vibrato on/off , External input, maybe even a microphone if you're lucky, on/off slider. 

One of it's incarnations is discussed at "waranty void's Tablehooters" , the Hing Hon EK-001.  

 http://users.informatik.haw-hamburg.de/~windle_c/TableHooters/HingHon_EK001.html   Including comprehensive bending instructions.

But don't use a 5V voltage regulator, use a 6 volt one .

This one not bent yet. It has these flashing LED's inside the colored globes I think will do nice things with LDR's.

And this one, 4 sound button hold switches , pitchpot and 1/4 inch jack output added:  The BARBie for girls   (dorky or not, who cares) .

You can find them new. Here's an example that might work. Do you recognise the features?

Spivkurl a.k.a. Pat Kammerer (www.wearerecords.com) and Phoebe Oktober71  have built one from a kit. 

 http://www.elexp.com/kit_k900.htm (last time I looked it was no longer available)

AMERIKIT
Electronic Keyboard
With Training Course
No Soldering Required!
Model AK900 (Kit Version)
Model EK-900 (Assembled)

INTERMEDIATE KIT: Some previous knowledge of electronics.

37 mini keys, 8 different tempos and timbers, 4 custom drummers. Demonstrates how musical instruments work. Uses 4 "AA" batteries (not included).

Part No.      Description                   Price
-------------------------------------------------
N32AK900     Kit - Electronic Keyboard     $26.95

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this one I found on ebay by Waterhed, who wrote:

This auction is for a cirucit bent mini keyboard that ive fit into a handbuilt housing. This little monster is chock full o' sounds. It makes great Atari type of sound effects. Ive added a pitch knob, pitch body contacts and pitch opto cell, radical bent glitch switch that causes the keys to play themselves, a 1/4" output jack as well as an LFO circuit, with on/off, rate and rate LED that modulates the sounds. Very cool, one of a kind circuit bent synthesizer for a great price.

Electri-fire comments: Though the waves are digital, the circuit has a very analog sound and feel. Unlike some other well known "archetypical" benders objects I've tried, it has a character of it's own, but you can totally make it yours. Just about anything making or modulating a sound or a voltage can be attached to the circuit. Now isn't that bender's heaven?

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