How to Modify Electronic Musical Keyboards

The keyboard can be a great addition to any existing music group or band. Once the new sounds start to get old and lose their novel feel, it's time to open up the little guy and start poking around the circuit board. This sounds difficult at first, but can be fun and a challenging project. Retail and second-hand shops are the best places to pick up used keyboards and the cheaper or lower the complexity of the toy, the easier it will be for you to modify and "bend" it. This article will give you a step-by-step guide on how to modify your electronic musical keyboard.

Things You'll Need

• 500K or 100K Pots (Potentiometers)
• Electronic Keyboard
• 2 - 5 Potentiometers
• Permanent Marker
• Alligator Clips x 2
• Soldering Iron
• Wire Strippers
• Screwdriver
• Wire Snips
• Batteries
• Partner
• Solder

Instructions

1. Turn the keyboard over and remove all the screws holding it together. Place them in a small cup so you can reuse them. Take off the cover and place it so it's mirroring the back side of the keyboard.

2. 

   Place the batteries in the keyboard and make sure they work. You have to make the toy make sound while you're poking around to see where those sounds are coming from.

3. 

   Find the "Circuit Board" and look for the trace side with the graphic lines. On some boards, you might have to flip, uncover or unscrew the board to get to the graphic side.

4. Make the keyboard make sound. This is where your partner comes in. They can do this consistently while you poke around on the circuit board.

5. Lick your fingers (yes, you are safe) and test the board for changes in sound. Whenever you move over a spot on the board that changes the sound, that is the bend point. This point is reacting to your body which is also a "ground."

6. Mark this spot with the black permanent marker. These can be modified in a few ways.

7. Connect one end of the "Alligator Clips" to the solder joint and the other end to the two prongs - either two left or two right - on one of the pots.

8. Connect the remaining prong from the pot with another alligator clip and attach it to the battery. If everything is connected, rotate the pot to make the modified sound from earlier to make sure it still works.

9. Replace the alligator clips with hook-up wires and using the soldering iron to solder them where they were connected to the alligator cables. While soldering, tell your partner to stop making sound. You don't need fingers getting burned by the iron.

10. Now place the potentiometer in a spot where it can be adjusted into the casing of the top part of the keyboard itself. Close the keyboard, replace all the screws and start to make music/noise with your new toy.

Tips & Warnings

• You may want to have a multi-meter handy to check the ground wires on your circuit board.

• It's a lot more fun to hook up the speaker to an amp while you're playing around with it. If you have one handy, sever the wires attached to the speaker, strip the tips and re-solder it to a 1/4 inch jack. Now plug it in and move on to step 4.

• Have your partner be conscious of when its time to solder. Be careful with the soldering iron. It's extremely hot and can give you 2nd or 3rd degree burns.

• Only use keyboard that have a battery source. Circuit bending is for battery powered instruments only, and don't use AC adapters or wall plugs.

References

• Electri-fire
• Anti-theory
• Get Lo-Fi
• Odd Music

Resources

• Hack a day
• Cementimental
• Sound on Sound