In school our music teacher had a classroom sized batch of these, used as a low cost option to teach the basics. We'd all have to check the pitch was correct first, and then at some point in the lesson we'd all be trying to play the same tune in sync! Great fun once, very annoying after a while :-). Commonest problem was a flat battery, quite a few had that split in the cable. I found a schematic on the web, it's very simple - just a single transistor oscillator fed by that stack of series resistors and a single transistor amp. I'd keep the power switch off while changing the battery, it looks like the amp would be damaged if you accidentally reversed the connections.
I noticed your keyboard was no longer one scale in tune with the deviated resistor. The first four notes where in one key, then jumped to a slightly different key for the rest of the scale. I waited to listen with resistor restored and sure enough the entire key board was one smooth scale. So your alteration did change things, just not what was expected. Cool gadget. edit: just reached the end of the video, yep it all makes sense. Neat. I bet the key jump was exactly where you changed resistance.
Interesting. I find it very hard to notice differences unless they are quite extreme changes. I wouldn't have noticed that at all. Thanks for letting me know :-)
Vince has a 1968 first generation model here - note that there was no picture of Rolf on the box - He only got involved in the marketing from Gen 2 (the most common) onwards
Hey Vince that's a genuine collector's item - that particular Stylophone is a first generation model that was only produced in 1968, so a bit older than the 1970's listing description. You can easily spot a first gen model by the black squares on the keyboard - these were not on later models. Also, when you take the back off, the tuning resistor bank is made up of individual discrete resistors, whereas the gen 2 models onwards used a pair of monolithic resistor modules instead (though some very early Gen 2's did also have discrete resistors). The later Gen 3 versions used a classic 555 timer IC as the tone generator rather than the unijunction transistor (now unobtanium), making them easier to repair since the 555 is still easily available. Gen 3 models also included a volume control for the first time, which was a huge improvement as the earlier models tend to be loud and obnoxious :) A common mod for earlier models was to add a switch on the side of the case that put a resistor inline with the speaker to reduce the volume a bit - not an ideal solution and not hugely effective but it was a very popular mod back in the day, but it's really nice to see that your Gen 1 doesn't have this, so it is in perfectly original condition which is very cool as so many of them have the speaker mod which does kind of reduce their appeal to collectors. I don't want to say that your Gen 1 Stylophone is particularly rare, but it is nowhere near as common as the all-white (probably turned yellow by now) Gen 2 Treble model - in Gen 2 there were three models - the Standard model which had a black case like your Gen 1, the white Treble model, which was pitched one octave higher than the standard one, and the Bass model, pitched an octave below the standard one. The Bass model had a light brown case (similar to the lower octave on some electric organs of the period) and is VERY hard to find these days - I don't think it was particularly popular when it was released and most of the Stylophones on the second hard market today are the white Gen 2 Treble version. I had a white Gen 2 Treble Stylophone back in the late 70s
Top bloke, I've just found the instructions along with a 1970 star trek sweet cigarette box in the same place. I think the sweet box is worth a lot more than my stylophone 😄👍
The resistors are all in series and the keys connect between resistors. Each note adds an additional resistor, so adding one more in the middle just shifts all the later notes up a bit.
The resistors are indeed in series as you mentioned. They form an LCR circuit pretty much as the buzzer circuit in your latest designer clock video. The resistors define how long the capacitor needs to charge and discharge. This creates a waveform which is amplified and directed to the speaker.
I'm not an expert, but in my experience bakelite is usually associated with older pieces ('10s-'40s), but by the '70s bakelite was largely being phased out (by phenolics) unless in smaller components.
I really like the look of the old electronics. And I really like to see the cleaning process; it's always my favorite part of the videos. I don't know why, haha
the resistor you soldered DID something. it changed the key "F" and all following keys. listen again, you can hear it in the video ;) maybe check with a digital guitar tuner if you dont hear it
IKR? It's a weird thing to get annoyed over, but hey, Vince needs content that's interesting, so can you blame the ex-telecoms dude for being sad over items not being broken enough? Not really haha
@@konijnenkop1177 Agreed, and at least he found a positive ending to that video in the form of educating his way towards working out how the portable organ worked, via trial and error
Mystical Ninja so long as it's own didgeridoo and not some poor innocent child's, well hopefully he's still in prison and unable to fiddle about with anyone else........
The reason that the keyboard resistors are all different values and seemingly random is because the relationship between the keyboard voltage and the oscillator frequency is not linear. In our western musical scale, the pitch of each note rises exponentially as you move up the keyboard, requiring various technical solutions to getting the scale in tune. The simplest approach, as used in the Stylophone, is to use a resistor chain where each resistor is a different value, carefully chosen to make the oscillator run at the correct frequency. The big innovation in electronic music was when Robert Moog developed the 1 volt per octave relationship which massively simplified the design of monophonic keyboards by allowing all the resistors to have the same value - the downside of this is that the oscillator has to be much more complicatedm, relegating it only to professional instruments of the era. The simplest method for DIY hobbyists like myself, was to use a preset potentiometer for each key then they could be tuned individually (starting at the highest note and working downwards). One negative of this approach was that if one key drifted out of tune, all the keys below it would also be out of tune, since the keyboard is essentially a series voltage divider. Ahh, the good old days before digital oscillators and MIDI :)
You're right that the resistors are what determine the pitch, but rather than each key going through one individual resistor, it goes through the whole stack of them down to one end, so when you change one resistor you change all of the keys to one side of it.
If you learn what the resistor colour codes mean, then when you test them with a multimeter you can see if the actual value is the same as the intended one. This will help reduce guesswork.
You are correct about how the pitch change works due to the series resistance. You've just had a taste of what we used to call "circuit bending" back in the day. It was mostly about changing values of components (usually on an electronic musical instrument) in order to "create" or "discover" interesting new sounds, all the while learning about electronics in the process. You could hook up your scope to it (pretty uncommon back then, as they were so expensive) and see these waveforms in action. BTW, that smaller variable potentiometer possibly changes the vibrato speed or its pitch width. If you decide to vary this from its original setting, it would be a good idea to record its original position using a marker or recording the resistance values between its contacts, in case you want to return it to its "factory spec". I saw three separate transistors on the board. My guess is one is wired as an oscillator, which creates the main waveform, one is for the vibrato (which is a second oscillator that modulates the previous waveform) and the third is probably wired as an amplifier to power the speaker. There's tons of fun to be had tinkering about these simple circuits, especially with an oscilloscope and you can learn some valuable electronics concepts this way. Good video, Vince, and happy circuit bending!
Somebody mentioned circuit bending on this channel before around a year ago on another video. Previous to that I had never heard of it before. Using the scope on this is a great idea, I will give it a go. Thank you, nice one :-)
I believe the new stylophones only have 2 pots. The one for vibrato adjustment has been eliminated from looking at the circuit diagram/watching other videos.
All the resistors are in series and have outputs from different points to keys, imagine this as potentiometer and stylus is the wiper of it so when you change one resistor you change total resistance of it (all keys are misaligned and shifted on octave) and the stylus is in parallel on them. If the stylus was in series with resistors it would make a difference. You can desolder one resistor of each end and solder two ends of potentiometer there and its wiper to stylus and it will work as smoothly adjustable tone generator ;)
Its funny that as a kid I coveted one of these but now its just a really annoying noise! Rolf Harris promoted them heavily in the early 70's. I believe they are still made. Love the videos Vince! :o) xx
ANDREW HUANG the music producer here on TH-cam would probably enjoy this as he loves weird things like this and could probably make some fantastic music with it. I'd recommend giving him a watch. Also nice job Vince things like this should be kept alive .
All the resistors are in series. You just tap into one of the resistors in the series of resistors. By tapping into the next resistor in the series of resistors, you just increase the total resistance in the oscillator circuit. So, by increasing one resistor on your pcb all the tones after that one resistor shift. So, you keep the same direction. Ah, I saw that you found it at the end of the video.
David Bowie - Space Oddity Kraftwerk - Pocket Calculator Pulp - Pink Glove The White Stripes - Icky Thump Manic Street Preachers - Why So Sad Pulp - Styloroc (Nites of Suburbia) David Bowie - Slip Away Erasure - Don't Say Your Love Is Killing Me Marilyn Manson - You and Me and the Devil Makes Three They Might Be Giants have used it on several songs.
As a former housewife i could say i feel exhilarated watching any man cleaning anything. great thingy btw. we weren't to spoiled when it came to entertainment back in the days. I remember being overextatic when i got a musicbox. a simple red box with a thread to pull. i took it a part to look inside it was utterly fascinating all the little wheels and things that moved around inside it. a bit sad you didn't clean the speaker, fix the wire and crack though. a white (shrinking stocking?) (Directly translated from Norwegian) on the wire and and some superglue on the crack. would have gone a long way. But we cant have it all i guess. A fun little piece anyway. :)
Vince, you may not have noticed, but where you added a resistor, a note in the musical scale was missed out. It appears that every note to the right of your resistor was pitched-shifted up by exactly one semitone. After you removed the resistor, the musical scale was restored and the missing note was back to its usual place. As a musician, I noticed the missing note immediately.
22:50 - yeah I can see why too LMAO. Talk about the 20th Century equivalent to the vuvuzela, not to mention how that comment also pokes fun at TH-cam noobs with their horrible intro music choices LMAO. Just messing with ya Vince. LOL sorry.
Hey Vince, for the break, you could just desolder the wire from the board, feed some shrink tubing down and heat that over the break, since the stylus can't be opened.
I mentioned placing a protection diode in between one of the a battery leads and the PCB Err-"somewhere else in response to someone else's Comment" I remember having a similar one of these, but the one I had was even smaller, it had Gold plated keys as well a the Probe or Tip was also gold plated which had worn away causing all sorts of grief..
Vince: I could do this as my music so I don't get copyrighted Me: oh no please no Vince: I could see how quick I could lose my subscribers Me: hahahaha That was so funny just the way you said it. Thanks mate
Oh, OK that makes sense. I thought it may have been plastic welded around the wire or something. Of course, it is obvious now that you have mentioned it. Thank you :-)
I think the circuit accumulates the resistors and adding one to the chain just changed the pitch from thereon. So the "tuning" pot is at the end and therefore changes all keys.
Well if you are short of a fix it video, pre-load ones children with cheap Lidl's cola, when children are suitably pinging off the walls, let them loose at a device with tools and hey presto, you will have a full on fix it video worthy of the name ;) Just think of the possibilities and all that for 15p for a 2 litre bottle of fun :D
Hi Vince. Scotchbrite would have been good for cleaning the metal pip on the end of the stylus with little chance of scratching the plastic. It’s excellent for jack plugs too.
Didn't even attempt to play Silent Night. It is not copyright and can't be DMCA. Son, I am disappoint! Please thumbs up to get Vince to show of his musical ability with the stylophone ;)
Good video great. I like the vibrato speed on this I changed one of my capacitors on my mine so it was a faster sounding vibrato similar to this as it was very slow
The resistance of a single key is the total resistance up to that point. by pressing a key, you are essentially shorting the circuit up to that point. you changed the tone of all keys but not really their relative difference.
Sounded to me that you've changed the pitch of the upper half of the keyboard as the resistors are wired in series. Also that small variable resistor could be for the vibrato speed.
@27:32 this really rings a bell with me, as had a stylophone as a kid. and the ink smudges says that it is a left handed person which I am. 1979 would have been too early for me though, as I was 3 back then. but might have had it 2nd hand about early to mid 80's off the back of a lorry as my grandfather always used to say!! when it was actually off his company partners kids as they grew up. and I know my parents are having a bit of a de-clutter, so might have gone to a charity shop and then been sold on, I wouldn't know without talking to my parents, but be interesting to find out, not that I played with it that much if it was mine, due to the annoying sound that it made.
The hairline crack goes all the way up the pins on the switch, it is a prehistoric crack and lasted 30 something years like it, so surprised to see this again after so long. My mother recognizes the pictures and everything as shown parents today. As for the stylus my father thinks he replaced the wire, but I always remember it being like that
What you could do is desolder the stylus from the main board, undo the knot and slip some heat shink down to the break in the wire, and then glue both ends of the heat shrink to make it water tight.
as for the damage to the wire, from what I remember was me, and my brother had a toy box sort of 3 foot by 3 foot square, and all our toys used to be kept in it, and the stylus would keep falling down under our cars, and a dycast artic-lorry with mud flaps and the stylus wire would always get trapped in the mud guart of the trailer, as the stylophone was never kept in it's box, as my father taken the box off us when he seen what I had been doing to the box. surprised it actually left my parents house actually, as my father was a television engineer so things like this was never passed on to my cousins after we outgrown things like this. the only thing my father can think of is when they hired a skip was it was put in the skip about 10 years ago, or recently, but doesn't remember getting rid of it recently. but I know for definate that I had it back in 87/88 after we moved to where they live now. so it must have lived in the attic for 20-30 years.
I remember as a kiddy Rolf Harris at Liberty's in Oxford Street promo'ing these, I only had eyes for Hamley's down the road and wasn't paying attention much as Hamley's had them awesome train set layouts and Rolf could stick his prong where the sun shineth not I was thinking back then hehe
I'm pretty sure the plastic is ABS, which is usually very durable. But after about 50 years it can become quite brittle. In the very long term it will breakdown completely and turn to dust.
You must have a bunch of random stuff you have fixed (or not) it would be cool to see you modify some stuff. I thought one of these would be a cool Bluetooth speaker if you could turn it on and off with the old switch. I'm sure you would come up with some awesome stuff. I loved the switch XL
to improve the look of the stylus cable, i would have desoldered it from the resistor end and slipped a heat shrink sleeve over the break, right up to the stylus - then reassemble it - no visible break on the cable
Yes, I may do that if I have a small enough white heat shrink. It is a good idea. Apparently the whole wire can be replaced as the brass end is just glued into the stylus. I have only just read this in the comments section :-)
If you are suggesting a long piece of heat shrink on the whole wire, instead of a small piece over the break, remember that heat shrink tubing is rather stiff, and this could make the unit tough to play.
For some reason I've repaired a few of these over the years. Always pretty much the same problem. You've got an earlier model there with the black keys and separate resistors, later ones used resistor arrays instead.........I'm boring myself here. 😂 Either way of it's the originals of the modern ones, they sound bloody awful. 😂
I paid 20 for one of those, broken with no box in Dublin about 15 years ago. It had the wood effect where this is black, I'd no box either It was an easy fix, dirty contacts and leaked battery clean up.
Those brown circuit boards from the seventies was made from compressed yak dung. Haven't seen one of these before. Probably weren't distributed in the U.S. Cheers mate!
Yeah... when i see a brown circuit board i also get reminded of being a kid. Where on the other hand, the same sight reminds my father of being angry at his kid for dismantling his electronics.
I wonder if the sound could be changed to make it more appealing? Like add some sort of digitizer so it produces more of a piano sound? I think this is a really interesting electronic. Also curious if there is a way to play two notes at the same time.
Changing a resistor, changes the one you modified, and then the values of every one after it also.... there was a larger step from the one before to the one you changed, but then it sounded right after that as they were all using the modified resistor :)
Apparently it can....Rob Titheridge mentioned above in the comments that the brass bit that I sanded can be pulled out and then the wire replaced. It is just glued in. Good to know :-)
I found the schematic at www.waitingforfriday.com/?p=334 The active components are 2 diodes, a PUT transistor, and 2 generic NPN transistors. the stylus is directly connected to the battery and the keys are a simple voltage divider circuit.
Excellent, thanks for finding this. I am going to test out my scope on it for a bit of practice so I might be able to get it to read the same as this write up. Thank you :-)
I had a similar Stylophone and it was working till I sold it in 2018. When I put it on Auktion at Ebay, some guy paid 420€ for it with 32€ shipping to the US :P
The original box is likely a huge factor for ludicrous prices to collectors. Nobody kept the boxes! eta: The childhood sums and doodles are "patina" and provide an interesting history as auctioneers would say. LOL.
Hi Vince i love all your videos , ive just bought a stylophone thats not working , i just wondered can you clean the contacts with a fibre pen or will that damage it many thanks Darryl
Coincidentally I came across a video of Little Boots only recently where she plays one of these (search "Meddle [Live @ the Interface] - Little Boots" on TH-cam in case you want to watch it). Don't think I had ever heard of such a device before.
***ADDENDUM*** I suspect a few Caps may need replacing as the sound is a little on the harsh side, also I suspect that variable resistor "The one you stated you wouldn't touch" may have been messed with as I feel the tone is a little off, ergo the notes are rather harsh.. Just note the setting and move it a little and see if the notes sweeten up..
My white stylophone is dead. It has always worked but just tried it with new batteries and it just won't sound. On off switch clicks as normal. Nothing from the phono output, which eliminates the speaker being dead. Opened up and can't see anything odd. Unscrewed the board but can't get it to come out like you do in this video so I am stumped.
![ถามตรงๆ กับ อาจตุพร ทำไม ประเทศไทย ใครเป็นนายก ก็โดนด่า พอออกเเล้วคนคิดถึง!!?? l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3YFLMXxBGAs/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Watch Party] RoV Pro League 2024 Winter | with Moowan ( Bacon Time Vs Talon )](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CCEDhu6dPN8/mqdefault.jpg)
Fascinating to see that old Stylophone! The perfect gift to annoy people nearby!
Especially your neighbours when hooked up to the Amplifier Output :-)
In school our music teacher had a classroom sized batch of these, used as a low cost option to teach the basics. We'd all have to check the pitch was correct first, and then at some point in the lesson we'd all be trying to play the same tune in sync! Great fun once, very annoying after a while :-). Commonest problem was a flat battery, quite a few had that split in the cable. I found a schematic on the web, it's very simple - just a single transistor oscillator fed by that stack of series resistors and a single transistor amp. I'd keep the power switch off while changing the battery, it looks like the amp would be damaged if you accidentally reversed the connections.
Good advice Nigel, and I would go one better and insert a protection diode to one of the battery leads..
Thanks Nigel :-)
Great video Vince. Great to see you doing older electronics again. I much prefer these type of videos and old toys rather than modern electronics!
I noticed your keyboard was no longer one scale in tune with the deviated resistor. The first four notes where in one key, then jumped to a slightly different key for the rest of the scale. I waited to listen with resistor restored and sure enough the entire key board was one smooth scale. So your alteration did change things, just not what was expected. Cool gadget. edit: just reached the end of the video, yep it all makes sense. Neat. I bet the key jump was exactly where you changed resistance.
Interesting. I find it very hard to notice differences unless they are quite extreme changes. I wouldn't have noticed that at all. Thanks for letting me know :-)
I love the inside of it. So simple and pretty.
"It says tuning, what's this do?" It makes it go from sounding like a dying cow to sounding like an incontinent cow, Vince.
Hahahahaha. I gotta turn off that thermal paste. LOL
I remember these were so scientific when I was a child. It sounded annoying then and sounds more so now lol
OMG, the first xmas present I remember getting. Promoted by Rolf Harris. Nuff said.
I wonder what happened to him lmao
@@SiAnon he spent too much time playing with his 'digeridoo' with kids lol
Vince has a 1968 first generation model here - note that there was no picture of Rolf on the box - He only got involved in the marketing from Gen 2 (the most common) onwards
Hey Vince that's a genuine collector's item - that particular Stylophone is a first generation model that was only produced in 1968, so a bit older than the 1970's listing description. You can easily spot a first gen model by the black squares on the keyboard - these were not on later models. Also, when you take the back off, the tuning resistor bank is made up of individual discrete resistors, whereas the gen 2 models onwards used a pair of monolithic resistor modules instead (though some very early Gen 2's did also have discrete resistors). The later Gen 3 versions used a classic 555 timer IC as the tone generator rather than the unijunction transistor (now unobtanium), making them easier to repair since the 555 is still easily available.
Gen 3 models also included a volume control for the first time, which was a huge improvement as the earlier models tend to be loud and obnoxious :)
A common mod for earlier models was to add a switch on the side of the case that put a resistor inline with the speaker to reduce the volume a bit - not an ideal solution and not hugely effective but it was a very popular mod back in the day, but it's really nice to see that your Gen 1 doesn't have this, so it is in perfectly original condition which is very cool as so many of them have the speaker mod which does kind of reduce their appeal to collectors.
I don't want to say that your Gen 1 Stylophone is particularly rare, but it is nowhere near as common as the all-white (probably turned yellow by now) Gen 2 Treble model - in Gen 2 there were three models - the Standard model which had a black case like your Gen 1, the white Treble model, which was pitched one octave higher than the standard one, and the Bass model, pitched an octave below the standard one. The Bass model had a light brown case (similar to the lower octave on some electric organs of the period) and is VERY hard to find these days - I don't think it was particularly popular when it was released and most of the Stylophones on the second hard market today are the white Gen 2 Treble version.
I had a white Gen 2 Treble Stylophone back in the late 70s
Top bloke, I've just found the instructions along with a 1970 star trek sweet cigarette box in the same place. I think the sweet box is worth a lot more than my stylophone 😄👍
The resistors are all in series and the keys connect between resistors. Each note adds an additional resistor, so adding one more in the middle just shifts all the later notes up a bit.
Ha! I should have watched until the end before commenting.
The resistors are indeed in series as you mentioned. They form an LCR circuit pretty much as the buzzer circuit in your latest designer clock video. The resistors define how long the capacitor needs to charge and discharge. This creates a waveform which is amplified and directed to the speaker.
I'm not an expert, but in my experience bakelite is usually associated with older pieces ('10s-'40s), but by the '70s bakelite was largely being phased out (by phenolics) unless in smaller components.
I really like the look of the old electronics. And I really like to see the cleaning process; it's always my favorite part of the videos. I don't know why, haha
I love all the variety you put into your videos! This was another cool one!
Look at this old hand soldered board.. a true beauty :)
the resistor you soldered DID something. it changed the key "F" and all following keys. listen again, you can hear it in the video ;) maybe check with a digital guitar tuner if you dont hear it
I came down into the comments hoping somebody would have noticed. Indeed, it pushed the F up around a semitone to sound as something close to F-sharp.
Shhhhhhh! Don't mention Rolf Harris!
A little cool trivia for you. The metal grill on the front was used on the ANH Darth Vader’s belt boxes.
And
The only guy that is annoyed when something is not broken 🤣
IKR? It's a weird thing to get annoyed over, but hey, Vince needs content that's interesting, so can you blame the ex-telecoms dude for being sad over items not being broken enough? Not really haha
@@abzhuofficial lol i understood that, made me proper laugh though.. Even not broken still good content :)
@@konijnenkop1177 Agreed, and at least he found a positive ending to that video in the form of educating his way towards working out how the portable organ worked, via trial and error
"Wait a minute this thing works just fine, That eBay seller lied to me."
Hahaha true story
Rolf will be playing with his didgery doo after watching this !
Yeah he used to fiddle with these as well.
Neil W Rolf used to fiddle with a lot of people, now he's in prison paying for his crimes.......
Mystical Ninja so long as it's own didgeridoo and not some poor innocent child's, well hopefully he's still in prison and unable to fiddle about with anyone else........
@@shaunlenton8865 no he's not in prison now, he's a free man
@@BlazingMediic maybe out of jail, but he's on the Sex Offenders Register
The reason that the keyboard resistors are all different values and seemingly random is because the relationship between the keyboard voltage and the oscillator frequency is not linear. In our western musical scale, the pitch of each note rises exponentially as you move up the keyboard, requiring various technical solutions to getting the scale in tune. The simplest approach, as used in the Stylophone, is to use a resistor chain where each resistor is a different value, carefully chosen to make the oscillator run at the correct frequency.
The big innovation in electronic music was when Robert Moog developed the 1 volt per octave relationship which massively simplified the design of monophonic keyboards by allowing all the resistors to have the same value - the downside of this is that the oscillator has to be much more complicatedm, relegating it only to professional instruments of the era.
The simplest method for DIY hobbyists like myself, was to use a preset potentiometer for each key then they could be tuned individually (starting at the highest note and working downwards). One negative of this approach was that if one key drifted out of tune, all the keys below it would also be out of tune, since the keyboard is essentially a series voltage divider.
Ahh, the good old days before digital oscillators and MIDI :)
You're right that the resistors are what determine the pitch, but rather than each key going through one individual resistor, it goes through the whole stack of them down to one end, so when you change one resistor you change all of the keys to one side of it.
If you learn what the resistor colour codes mean, then when you test them with a multimeter you can see if the actual value is the same as the intended one. This will help reduce guesswork.
You are correct about how the pitch change works due to the series resistance. You've just had a taste of what we used to call "circuit bending" back in the day. It was mostly about changing values of components (usually on an electronic musical instrument) in order to "create" or "discover" interesting new sounds, all the while learning about electronics in the process. You could hook up your scope to it (pretty uncommon back then, as they were so expensive) and see these waveforms in action.
BTW, that smaller variable potentiometer possibly changes the vibrato speed or its pitch width. If you decide to vary this from its original setting, it would be a good idea to record its original position using a marker or recording the resistance values between its contacts, in case you want to return it to its "factory spec".
I saw three separate transistors on the board. My guess is one is wired as an oscillator, which creates the main waveform, one is for the vibrato (which is a second oscillator that modulates the previous waveform) and the third is probably wired as an amplifier to power the speaker.
There's tons of fun to be had tinkering about these simple circuits, especially with an oscilloscope and you can learn some valuable electronics concepts this way.
Good video, Vince, and happy circuit bending!
Somebody mentioned circuit bending on this channel before around a year ago on another video. Previous to that I had never heard of it before. Using the scope on this is a great idea, I will give it a go. Thank you, nice one :-)
I believe the new stylophones only have 2 pots. The one for vibrato adjustment has been eliminated from looking at the circuit diagram/watching other videos.
All the resistors are in series and have outputs from different points to keys, imagine this as potentiometer and stylus is the wiper of it so when you change one resistor you change total resistance of it (all keys are misaligned and shifted on octave) and the stylus is in parallel on them. If the stylus was in series with resistors it would make a difference. You can desolder one resistor of each end and solder two ends of potentiometer there and its wiper to stylus and it will work as smoothly adjustable tone generator ;)
Never heard of one of these before, pretty damn cool that it still works.
They still make them
Its funny that as a kid I coveted one of these but now its just a really annoying noise! Rolf Harris promoted them heavily in the early 70's. I believe they are still made. Love the videos Vince! :o) xx
ANDREW HUANG the music producer here on TH-cam would probably enjoy this as he loves weird things like this and could probably make some fantastic music with it. I'd recommend giving him a watch. Also nice job Vince things like this should be kept alive .
All the resistors are in series. You just tap into one of the resistors in the series of resistors. By tapping into the next resistor in the series of resistors, you just increase the total resistance in the oscillator circuit. So, by increasing one resistor on your pcb all the tones after that one resistor shift. So, you keep the same direction. Ah, I saw that you found it at the end of the video.
I mum has 2 of these. I took one and restored it. Pity, the pen separated from the wire so soldering it back on is kind of ugly. Works though.
David Bowie - Space Oddity
Kraftwerk - Pocket Calculator
Pulp - Pink Glove
The White Stripes - Icky Thump
Manic Street Preachers - Why So Sad
Pulp - Styloroc (Nites of Suburbia)
David Bowie - Slip Away
Erasure - Don't Say Your Love Is Killing Me
Marilyn Manson - You and Me and the Devil Makes Three
They Might Be Giants have used it on several songs.
As a former housewife i could say i feel exhilarated watching any man cleaning anything. great thingy btw. we weren't to spoiled when it came to entertainment back in the days. I remember being overextatic when i got a musicbox. a simple red box with a thread to pull. i took it a part to look inside it was utterly fascinating all the little wheels and things that moved around inside it. a bit sad you didn't clean the speaker, fix the wire and crack though. a white (shrinking stocking?) (Directly translated from Norwegian) on the wire and and some superglue on the crack. would have gone a long way. But we cant have it all i guess. A fun little piece anyway. :)
Vince, you may not have noticed, but where you added a resistor, a note in the musical scale was missed out. It appears that every note to the right of your resistor was pitched-shifted up by exactly one semitone. After you removed the resistor, the musical scale was restored and the missing note was back to its usual place. As a musician, I noticed the missing note immediately.
I have never seen one of those before. I would have loved to have one as a kid.
You can still buy new ones
"I can see how quickly I'll lose all mysubcribers" not sure why but this made me laugh far too much for far too long
22:50 - yeah I can see why too LMAO. Talk about the 20th Century equivalent to the vuvuzela, not to mention how that comment also pokes fun at TH-cam noobs with their horrible intro music choices LMAO.
Just messing with ya Vince. LOL sorry.
_My_ mind went straight to Rolf Harris...
im 41 and that toy is before my time. id say they would be early to mid 50's
Hey Vince, for the break, you could just desolder the wire from the board, feed some shrink tubing down and heat that over the break, since the stylus can't be opened.
Good idea. Thank you :-)
I mentioned placing a protection diode in between one of the a battery leads and the PCB Err-"somewhere else in response to someone else's Comment"
I remember having a similar one of these, but the one I had was even smaller, it had Gold plated keys as well a the Probe or Tip was also gold plated which had worn away causing all sorts of grief..
That would make a great doorbell for your brother if his breaks again. Lol.
Vince: I could do this as my music so I don't get copyrighted
Me: oh no please no
Vince: I could see how quick I could lose my subscribers
Me: hahahaha
That was so funny just the way you said it.
Thanks mate
Thanks Vince
My dad has a Stylophone, I used to play around with it (badly) when I was a kid.
Good to learn oscillator circuits
hi vince the brass bit on the end of the sylus is just glued in and can be pulled out letting you change the wire ps enjoyed the video.
Oh, OK that makes sense. I thought it may have been plastic welded around the wire or something. Of course, it is obvious now that you have mentioned it. Thank you :-)
David Bowie. 2001 Space Oddity. Nuff said.
I think the circuit accumulates the resistors and adding one to the chain just changed the pitch from thereon. So the "tuning" pot is at the end and therefore changes all keys.
Entertaining as always! Thank you
Well if you are short of a fix it video, pre-load ones children with cheap Lidl's cola, when children are suitably pinging off the walls, let them loose at a device with tools and hey presto, you will have a full on fix it video worthy of the name ;) Just think of the possibilities and all that for 15p for a 2 litre bottle of fun :D
Hi Vince. Scotchbrite would have been good for cleaning the metal pip on the end of the stylus with little chance of scratching the plastic. It’s excellent for jack plugs too.
Bloody hell he can play rhubarb and custard on it 😂😂😂
Didn't even attempt to play Silent Night. It is not copyright and can't be DMCA. Son, I am disappoint!
Please thumbs up to get Vince to show of his musical ability with the stylophone ;)
Good video great. I like the vibrato speed on this I changed one of my capacitors on my mine so it was a faster sounding vibrato similar to this as it was very slow
Hi, this is a good learning electronic’s circuit for you. Try to draw the circuit and learn from it, It’s a simple oscillator with voltage dividers.
You should get you some spray electronics lubrication for switches and knobs it helps with that crackling noise when turning knobs and switches.
The resistance of a single key is the total resistance up to that point. by pressing a key, you are essentially shorting the circuit up to that point. you changed the tone of all keys but not really their relative difference.
Interesting video, but I much preferred the relative silence of the Jenson alarm clock video.
I dare you to play that at 3.00am.
Sounded to me that you've changed the pitch of the upper half of the keyboard as the resistors are wired in series. Also that small variable resistor could be for the vibrato speed.
That thing sounds like Wall-E
LOL sounds like my arse of a morning :D
Can you play Dallas on your ar$e🔥
@@derekstorey5889 sadly no. Only Dynasty.
@27:32 this really rings a bell with me, as had a stylophone as a kid. and the ink smudges says that it is a left handed person which I am. 1979 would have been too early for me though, as I was 3 back then. but might have had it 2nd hand about early to mid 80's off the back of a lorry as my grandfather always used to say!! when it was actually off his company partners kids as they grew up. and I know my parents are having a bit of a de-clutter, so might have gone to a charity shop and then been sold on, I wouldn't know without talking to my parents, but be interesting to find out, not that I played with it that much if it was mine, due to the annoying sound that it made.
The hairline crack goes all the way up the pins on the switch, it is a prehistoric crack and lasted 30 something years like it, so surprised to see this again after so long. My mother recognizes the pictures and everything as shown parents today. As for the stylus my father thinks he replaced the wire, but I always remember it being like that
What you could do is desolder the stylus from the main board, undo the knot and slip some heat shink down to the break in the wire, and then glue both ends of the heat shrink to make it water tight.
as for the damage to the wire, from what I remember was me, and my brother had a toy box sort of 3 foot by 3 foot square, and all our toys used to be kept in it, and the stylus would keep falling down under our cars, and a dycast artic-lorry with mud flaps and the stylus wire would always get trapped in the mud guart of the trailer, as the stylophone was never kept in it's box, as my father taken the box off us when he seen what I had been doing to the box. surprised it actually left my parents house actually, as my father was a television engineer so things like this was never passed on to my cousins after we outgrown things like this. the only thing my father can think of is when they hired a skip was it was put in the skip about 10 years ago, or recently, but doesn't remember getting rid of it recently. but I know for definate that I had it back in 87/88 after we moved to where they live now. so it must have lived in the attic for 20-30 years.
I remember as a kiddy Rolf Harris at Liberty's in Oxford Street promo'ing these, I only had eyes for Hamley's down the road and wasn't paying attention much as Hamley's had them awesome train set layouts and Rolf could stick his prong where the sun shineth not I was thinking back then hehe
For many this made the mistery sound in David Bowie's Space Oddity.
With those Maths, you've tripled the value of the Stylophone!!! It's a definite keeper.
I'm pretty sure the plastic is ABS, which is usually very durable. But after about 50 years it can become quite brittle. In the very long term it will breakdown completely and turn to dust.
that's teach people to properly tests products and common fault. So the video is still interresting. Also, i did not know this product.
Enjoyed that
You must have a bunch of random stuff you have fixed (or not) it would be cool to see you modify some stuff.
I thought one of these would be a cool Bluetooth speaker if you could turn it on and off with the old switch. I'm sure you would come up with some awesome stuff.
I loved the switch XL
David Bowie's Space Oddity was played on a Stylophone, why not have a go at it
to improve the look of the stylus cable, i would have desoldered it from the resistor end and slipped a heat shrink sleeve over the break, right up to the stylus - then reassemble it - no visible break on the cable
I concur.
Yes, I may do that if I have a small enough white heat shrink. It is a good idea. Apparently the whole wire can be replaced as the brass end is just glued into the stylus. I have only just read this in the comments section :-)
If you are suggesting a long piece of heat shrink on the whole wire, instead of a small piece over the break, remember that heat shrink tubing is rather stiff, and this could make the unit tough to play.
I used to remember using when it goes in my school in the uk
For some reason I've repaired a few of these over the years. Always pretty much the same problem. You've got an earlier model there with the black keys and separate resistors, later ones used resistor arrays instead.........I'm boring myself here. 😂
Either way of it's the originals of the modern ones, they sound bloody awful. 😂
Excuse the typos... 😜
If you want more info there's quite a few sites on the net that give you the complete history.
I paid 20 for one of those, broken with no box in Dublin about 15 years ago.
It had the wood effect where this is black, I'd no box either
It was an easy fix, dirty contacts and leaked battery clean up.
Your "coil" is a potentiometer, like a volume knob or temp control on a soldering iron...
Those brown circuit boards from the seventies was made from compressed yak dung. Haven't seen one of these before. Probably weren't distributed in the U.S. Cheers mate!
Yeah... when i see a brown circuit board i also get reminded of being a kid. Where on the other hand, the same sight reminds my father of being angry at his kid for dismantling his electronics.
Haha, yeah same here, my mum always used to say "don't take it apart" whenever I had something new :-)
maybe the resisters are accumulative so moving one from one position to the other does not change the pitch. it just changes where the tones start.
"Trying to fix a 1970's Stylophone, or, Vince tries his hand at circuit-bending". Narrator: "It doesn't go well."
Bloodyhell.. I remember having one of these when i was a kid
I wonder if the sound could be changed to make it more appealing? Like add some sort of digitizer so it produces more of a piano sound? I think this is a really interesting electronic. Also curious if there is a way to play two notes at the same time.
Well, I found this... th-cam.com/video/XojJMNCY8d4/w-d-xo.html
Changing a resistor, changes the one you modified, and then the values of every one after it also.... there was a larger step from the one before to the one you changed, but then it sounded right after that as they were all using the modified resistor :)
... Ah, you figured it out later ;)
sure that tune was a bit of rhubarb & custard the cartoon at 23:07 now that shows my age lol
I used to love Rhubarb and Custard, that is a blast from the past. I can hear the theme tune in my head right now without even 'YouTubing' it :-)
Found a broken one in a carboot sale for a euro, hopefully I can get around to fixing it up eventually. Probably some money in it lol
A little disappointed that the wire couldn't be replaced.
Apparently it can....Rob Titheridge mentioned above in the comments that the brass bit that I sanded can be pulled out and then the wire replaced. It is just glued in. Good to know :-)
God, my sister got one of those for Christmas about 50 years ago
I found the schematic at www.waitingforfriday.com/?p=334 The active components are 2 diodes, a PUT transistor, and 2 generic NPN transistors. the stylus is directly connected to the battery and the keys are a simple voltage divider circuit.
Excellent, thanks for finding this. I am going to test out my scope on it for a bit of practice so I might be able to get it to read the same as this write up. Thank you :-)
Remember my Mam bought my Dad one for his birthday, he took 30 minutes and could play any tune after that lol
I had a similar Stylophone and it was working till I sold it in 2018.
When I put it on Auktion at Ebay, some guy paid 420€ for it with 32€ shipping to the US :P
The original box is likely a huge factor for ludicrous prices to collectors. Nobody kept the boxes!
eta: The childhood sums and doodles are "patina" and provide an interesting history as auctioneers would say. LOL.
Hi Vince i love all your videos , ive just bought a stylophone thats not working , i just wondered can you clean the contacts with a fibre pen or will that damage it many thanks Darryl
Need to find some Deoxit spray for those hard to reach components.
around the world around the world!
that red wire on the front of the board above keys was pinched by screw mount
Resistors are in series, that's why your mod didn't work as you thought.
Go on the Dubreq website and see the Stylophone S2.
Its NOT what you`d think it would be!
Coincidentally I came across a video of Little Boots only recently where she plays one of these (search "Meddle [Live @ the Interface] - Little Boots" on TH-cam in case you want to watch it). Don't think I had ever heard of such a device before.
Trying to... figure out how things work?
***ADDENDUM***
I suspect a few Caps may need replacing as the sound is a little on the harsh side, also I suspect that variable resistor "The one you stated you wouldn't touch" may have been messed with as I feel the tone is a little off, ergo the notes are rather harsh..
Just note the setting and move it a little and see if the notes sweeten up..
27:07 -- The London Derrière :P
My white stylophone is dead. It has always worked but just tried it with new batteries and it just won't sound. On off switch clicks as normal. Nothing from the phono output, which eliminates the speaker being dead. Opened up and can't see anything odd. Unscrewed the board but can't get it to come out like you do in this video so I am stumped.