My nephew showed up with one of these. I helped him take it apart and we probed all the connections, soldered a homemade breakout bay to it and now he has a neat little monophonic circuit-bent synth for under 10 bucks. I was so impressed with it that I bought one and removed all the plastic from the outside, bolted its guts to the fretboard of my homemade keytar and am halfway thru soldering the speaker leads to a 1/4" jack so I can patch it to the input on the rest of the keytar. I threw away the plastic and forgot what voltage it needs. Found your review....3 AA's is 4.5v, so thank you for that info.... You likely just saved me from piping 6v thru it and frying the unit. Need to figure out a convenient way to send/receive so I can pipe the 5 below keyboard guts thru some guitar pedals. I reckon a bit of distortion, reverb, and delay will make those dopey onboard voices sound somewhat professional.
That keyboard honestly sounds like bottom of the barrel as far as keyboards go, okay as a toy but not as a functional instrument beyond level 1 piano playing, those little 13-note Electron Echo micro keyboards about the size of a credit card they used to sell at the dollar store could do almost as much as that keyboard. Something else I noticed toy keyboards have done recently that's kind of a pet peeve of mine is transpose the notes oddly, like make it so the C is actually an F or a G so you have to retrain your brain to mentally transpose to the right key. The keyboards I composed on as a kid were about the size of that but much better. My little Concertmate 370 lets you play 2 notes at once, which is enough to be able to use sleight of hand to mask the fact you can't play chords, and has 25 different sounds (some more realistic than others) and has about 16 pre-programmed rhythms. The best part is I got it for Christmas in 1992. In fact, a song I composed in 1994 "Here's The Waw Voice" was recorded on the Concertmate 370 (it was also the first thing I uploaded to this channel). Before that I had a Casio VL-Tone but sadly I can't find any recordings of me playing anything on that. Anyways great video as always, sorry for the lengthy comment it's just as a pianist I'm semi-knowledgable about keyboards.
Lol, I just recently picked up a "lil kidz" 14 key keyboard for $3 at a thrift store. God awful thing. I also have the keyboard in the video and the five below special DESTROYS it. Ended up decapping the IC. Plan on cramming an arduino in it! I want another HMP-139 though. I accidentally grilled the IC on it by connecting it to an arduino ;( But holy shit, people on ebay want way too much! Fuck!
@@qwertykeyboard5901 I think the worst keyboard I've ever seen has to be this Frozen keyboard I got originally as a gift for my great-niece but it wasn't good enough even be a toy. It has 22 keys but the sharps and flats just play the whole tone, so it really has 13, despite being the size of some vintage keyboard that were once used as legitimate instruments. The keyboard is completely out of tune with itself and you can only play one note at a time. It has no sound options and when the battery gets low, press a key and it stays stuck until you tap it enough times.
@@AltoonaYourPiano Lol. The POS thrift store find ran on an internal RC oscillator that was EXTREMELY unstable. You could notice the wow and flutter on EVERYTHING. The black keys are fake, and the plastics are warped and don't fit together well. Not even good enough to be a toy. Didn't feel bad about sacrificing it... These five below keyboards make pretty good toys though! Their fairly well built and quite cheap.
My nephew showed up with one of these. I helped him take it apart and we probed all the connections, soldered a homemade breakout bay to it and now he has a neat little monophonic circuit-bent synth for under 10 bucks. I was so impressed with it that I bought one and removed all the plastic from the outside, bolted its guts to the fretboard of my homemade keytar and am halfway thru soldering the speaker leads to a 1/4" jack so I can patch it to the input on the rest of the keytar. I threw away the plastic and forgot what voltage it needs. Found your review....3 AA's is 4.5v, so thank you for that info.... You likely just saved me from piping 6v thru it and frying the unit. Need to figure out a convenient way to send/receive so I can pipe the 5 below keyboard guts thru some guitar pedals. I reckon a bit of distortion, reverb, and delay will make those dopey onboard voices sound somewhat professional.
I collect electronic musical toys and this is probably the grossest sounding one I have, I love it. Circuit bending it soon
Cheap Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews, plus it will drive my brothers and sisters crazy! 😈🤓
That keyboard honestly sounds like bottom of the barrel as far as keyboards go, okay as a toy but not as a functional instrument beyond level 1 piano playing, those little 13-note Electron Echo micro keyboards about the size of a credit card they used to sell at the dollar store could do almost as much as that keyboard. Something else I noticed toy keyboards have done recently that's kind of a pet peeve of mine is transpose the notes oddly, like make it so the C is actually an F or a G so you have to retrain your brain to mentally transpose to the right key. The keyboards I composed on as a kid were about the size of that but much better. My little Concertmate 370 lets you play 2 notes at once, which is enough to be able to use sleight of hand to mask the fact you can't play chords, and has 25 different sounds (some more realistic than others) and has about 16 pre-programmed rhythms. The best part is I got it for Christmas in 1992. In fact, a song I composed in 1994 "Here's The Waw Voice" was recorded on the Concertmate 370 (it was also the first thing I uploaded to this channel). Before that I had a Casio VL-Tone but sadly I can't find any recordings of me playing anything on that. Anyways great video as always, sorry for the lengthy comment it's just as a pianist I'm semi-knowledgable about keyboards.
Casio VL tone is a great instrument! I own one :)
Lol, I just recently picked up a "lil kidz" 14 key keyboard for $3 at a thrift store.
God awful thing. I also have the keyboard in the video and the five below special DESTROYS it.
Ended up decapping the IC. Plan on cramming an arduino in it!
I want another HMP-139 though. I accidentally grilled the IC on it by connecting it to an arduino ;(
But holy shit, people on ebay want way too much! Fuck!
@@qwertykeyboard5901 I think the worst keyboard I've ever seen has to be this Frozen keyboard I got originally as a gift for my great-niece but it wasn't good enough even be a toy. It has 22 keys but the sharps and flats just play the whole tone, so it really has 13, despite being the size of some vintage keyboard that were once used as legitimate instruments. The keyboard is completely out of tune with itself and you can only play one note at a time. It has no sound options and when the battery gets low, press a key and it stays stuck until you tap it enough times.
@@AltoonaYourPiano Lol. The POS thrift store find ran on an internal RC oscillator that was EXTREMELY unstable. You could notice the wow and flutter on EVERYTHING.
The black keys are fake, and the plastics are warped and don't fit together well. Not even good enough to be a toy. Didn't feel bad about sacrificing it...
These five below keyboards make pretty good toys though! Their fairly well built and quite cheap.
I have one !! It’s lot of fun !!
Can you note them with letters please
Can it go lower? Or just high
Nice singing!
It kinda sound like Ariel from the little mermaid
I have it and it works
i just got it for easter today, but it stopped working :(
i have that right now and i am going to get batteries
Great video 👍😎👍🎹🥁
Thank you!!
Just got one for my 3 year-old for Easter and it didn't work 😢
You need batteries
Nice one from five below.
This was...cool 😐
Luv this channel lol.
Thank you so much!! Appreciate it!
That’s the same keyboard that XP 40 has
You are pretty
Its just a gameboy keboard
I have one but it is kinda different
I know its a cheap toy, but its still so bad lol