Zoom MS-70CDR, EHX 720, Ambient Toy Piano Jam

Published on Dec 28, 2019 Waveformer

"So... My wife gave me a toy piano for Christmas. The kind with cute animals on.

My second thought was that it must be possible to create some kind of listen-worthy music with this.

The piano sound is sample-based, with three different samples spaced over a two octave keyboard. For some reason, the sample is looped for the last half of the sound duration, and the loop length is slightly off, so the second half of the sound is slightly detuned. The keyboard itself is monophonic, only one key press is detected at a time. But a sample will keep playing to the end, even when a new key is pressed, so it's possible to "strum" a chord, sort of. Closer inspection also revealed that this marvelous instrument has a built-in sequencer.

It's battery powered with one speaker, but no line out. So I did a small mod and mounted a volume control, a minijack output, and an on-off switch for the built-in speaker.

I decided to go for the ambient genre, and to get some help from three Zoom MS-70CDR effect pedals, and a Electro Harmonix 720 looper.

The internal sequencer is used in the second half of the jam, and I throw in some subtle animal noises for good measure.

Enjoy :-).

Patches:
The three Zoom MS-70CDR patches are included below. To load a patch into the MS-70, connect your MS-70 to your computer using a USB cable, go to https://g200kg.github.io/zoom-ms-util..., right-click an available patch slot, select "Import Patch from text", and paste in this text.

Piano with delays and reverb:
f0520061284a6003006c043c0000194026030000000000000000110000086c01600035500100000000000000000400610000302a2840011670004006000000000000002100080070385c001440004006000000000001000011000050750869001020104006000000000000001106000052040c012440102305000000000000000000180f4300697263426e742000205400f7

Filter bleeps:
f0520061284c010200706d6001201410230100000000000000006101004b440018001920200040060000000000070011000050744d5000222010400600000000000000210328001205100100500004000000000000000000010000000000000000000000000000000000000001000000000000000000000000000000000800000040100f4300697263426e742000205400f7

Bit-crushed strings:
f052006128082100006e00100000326040060000000400000000010000000200000044000000000000000000002700610000307a4804002d6040064006000000000000210101004c0060001c200007000000000000030000110000507408390018201040060000000000000021040300120010010040000400000000000000000000190f4300697263426e742000205400f7

Gear:
- Toy piano (unknown brand)
- 3 x Zoom MS-70CDR
- Electro Harmonix 720
- Korg Mini Kaoss Pad 2S (for recording)
- Art SplitMix passive mixer
- Homemade passive mintobox mixer

Connections:
- Toy Piano - SplitMix
- SplitMix channel 1 L - MS-70CDR #1 L- Mintbox Mixer
- SplitMix channel 1 R - EHX 720 L - MS-70CDR #1 R - Mintbox Mixer
- SplitMix channel 2 L - MS-70CDR #2 L- Mintbox Mixer
- SplitMix channel 2 R - EHX 720 R - MS-70CDR #2 R - Mintbox Mixer
- SplitMix channel 3 - MS-70CDR #3 - Mintbox Mixer
- Mintbox mixer - KP2S

Misc:
- Chords: Fmaj7 - Amsus2"