Pitch Keyboard Mod for a Speak and Spell
Pete from CasperElectronics has sent me this diagram explaining how to get a keyboard interface attached to the Speak and Spell for controlling the pitch. From the drawing it looks like the keys are pressing on tiny buttons allowing for resistance specified by the trimmer pots to be substituted. One thing to note is the fact that this device was build for Danny Elfman, the composer of Simpsons and other well known themes.
6 Comments:
At 2/08/2006 02:33:14 PM, Anonymous said…
Any chance you can publish a higher quality image for us? I would love to give it a try on an old speak and spell I have around here somewhere...
At 2/09/2006 12:17:00 AM, Master said…
Thats the image that I got and I'm not sure if Pete has another one either. So probably thats the best we can do for now. Sorry.
At 2/09/2006 05:08:46 AM, captainmarmalade said…
i remember seeing this a couple years ago and saying "aww man! thought i was original!". i did a keyboard mod in the same fashion on one of my very first bends. it was a cheap vtech toy (i think a phone but can't remember). i used a guitar tuner and tuned each individual key of one octave with small trimmer pots, same way. right now i'm getting around to this other speak & math i had on the shelf forever and i'm planning to make a breakout for it with the same mod. it's not hard if you have a cheap toy keyboard that you fried or something of the like laying around. it's actually easier than constructing the key area from scratch or scraps.
At 2/11/2006 05:26:36 PM, cemenTIMental said…
wow, really cool diagram!
At 2/13/2006 12:41:49 PM, SquelchBox said…
I love doing up talkers and keyboards. Got a couple that need paint but are pretty nice so far. Heres my Speak and Keys http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c185/squelchbox/SpeakandSpellandKeysMed.jpg
and My Coleco Talking Keyboard http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c185/squelchbox/a9ae1850.jpg.
Making this happen is really easy. Especially if you can track down keyboards that are the type with a resistor per key already.
I've been pondering a way to make and arpeggiator for one of these. I'm a real noobie with building circuits from scratch but I think this could be done with a counter chip somehow, or mabye a few 555's. I got a lot of reading to do. Anyways,
Have fun
Squelchbox
At 2/13/2006 12:52:03 PM, Squelchbox said…
Links are wierd, Sorry, dont fit or something. My site is a crappy free geocities one and shuts down a lot, but if you have any questions email me.
seanshameless@hotmail.com
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