SoundBlast
This is a series of cheap, small and simple sound toy instruments made
in China, those play some music samples of lousy quality. These things
also exist in other colour combinations and at least 1 different case variant.
Unusual is the pitch control by a clock frequency potentiometer.
 The
upper instrument plays 4 short, rhythmic jingles and a drum loop. Every
jingle ends with 10 repeats of the same drum pattern. The lower toy plays
6 guitar patterns those end in 5 repeats of the same loop. (There is a
3rd variant in a keyboard- shaped case, but it plays only the same guitar
pattern like the 2nd, thus I didn't buy it). |
main features:
-
small handheld case
-
5..6 OBS very low resolution samples those all end in the same loop
-
pitch control knob (clock frequency)
-
sound generator with awfully whistling pulse width modulated digital single
transistor power amp; due to low clock frequency the sound becomes really
ear tormenting at low pitch.
-
lousy plastic speaker
modifications:
-
50 kOhm pitch potentiometer replaced by a 500 kOhm one and the pre- resistor
replaced by a smaller one to increase the pitch/ clock frequency range.
This way the thing can be overclocked until the drum loops turn into a
steady purring - the sounds can be scratched well this way.
-
stop/ reset button added to short sounds
-
cinch sound output added + capacitor to reduce the whistling
The instrument with the drum sounds has 2 buttons wired parallel, thus
it has only 5 OBS sounds despite 6 buttons. Despite the low sample quality
the instrument makes respectable tekkno sounds when played through my tube
amplifier. Unfortunately the sounds always finish after few loops, thus
it can not be used like a drum computer. But the combination of OBS, stop
button and pitch knob permits quite versatile rhythmic scratch effects.
The guitar sound toy has likely the same sound CPU as various large
and expensive toy pseudo e-guitars. A flaw of my specimen is that some
buttons refuse to work when only slightly overclocked. (Possibly this may
be fixable by adding pull-up resistors or the like.) Generally this one
sounds way less interesting than the drum sound toy.
| removal
of these screws voids warranty... |
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The
upper instrument plays 4 short, rhythmic jingles and a drum loop. Every
jingle ends with 10 repeats of the same drum pattern. The lower toy plays
6 guitar patterns those end in 5 repeats of the same loop. (There is a
3rd variant in a keyboard- shaped case, but it plays only the same guitar
pattern like the 2nd, thus I didn't buy it).