|
A Kidspirit Electronic Guitar, given both
the standard circuitbending set of pitch-and-speed bends, with a
potentiometer, body contacts and a LDR (photocell), plus the addition
of two independent LFOs that serve multitrigger and modulation duties.
The name Polydactyle, meaning "with many fingers" refers
to the LFO-multitrigger function, that works as the players "extra
fingers".
Basic functions:
The basic functions of the guitar include four different modes of
operation where you can either play single notes, strumming the
red bars like the strings of a guitar, with or without rhythm, or
you can select an accompagnment pattern that you can play with different
cords, or a 'demo' mode where each button plays a guitar-solo-like
phrase.
There is a Timbre button that cycles between five different timbres,
a volume control slider, two buttons to control the speed of rhythms,
arpeggios or phrases, a headphone output and a tiny socket that
I think is an input for a microphone.
Circuit bends:
Pitch/speed potentiometer - controls pitch/speed (clock
rate of cpu).
Pitch/speed photo cell - varies the pitch/speed by
changing the amount of light that reaches the LDR. By shading with
a hand or moving the guitar between light or shadow, this is quite
a playable and expressive controller. A switch toggles the photo
cell on /off.
Body Contacts - Bend pitch/speed upwards by touching
the two brass knobs with fingers or palm. Touching the frontmost
button alone adds harsh noise when playing through the output.
LFO1 og LFO2 - two independent
squarewave modulation-oscillators, each with a rate potentiometer
and a LED indicating rate. Modulation sources for multi-triggering
(both) and vibrato (LFO2)
Modulation select - a five
position switch that routes the trigger signals from the LFOs to
the destinations strum (equals rockin one of the red strumming
bars) and change timbre (pushing the Timbre button)
pos.1: LFO1 -> strum
pos.2: LFO1 -> change timbre
pos.3: LFO1 -> strum + change timbre
pos 4: LFO1 -> strum, LFO2 -> change timbre
pos.5: no multi-trigger.
Vibrato - modulation of pitch/speed.
The modulation source is LFO2. The Vibrato on/off switch
toggles the effect on/off and the Vibrato depth potentiometer
controls the intensity of the modulation.
|
