[Karl Engel]

I have a little keyboard, pretty much a toy, that I sometimes use for
working out a melody or a harmony, just because it's very small,
battery-powered & much easier to grab & switch on than my MIDI connected
keyboard - which might not be connected or hooked up to a
sampler/module/softsynth/monitors/music computer at any given time.

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on batteries
and AC - any realistic way to adjust this? There've been times when I've
used it to give me a pitching reference (starting note) when singing a
harmony - would be nice to know it's accurate even if I'm not! I've also
used it's cheap little 8 bit piano sound through distortion to give me a
great overdriven guitar-like sound in some projects, works better than my
"real" piano sounds for this, but I've always been aware it was a little out
of tune.

It's called a Concertmate 470, at least a decade old.

[Richard Crowley]

"Karl Engel" wrote ...
I have a little keyboard, pretty much a toy, that I sometimes use for
working out a melody or a harmony, just because it's very small,
battery-powered & much easier to grab & switch on than my MIDI connected
keyboard - which might not be connected or hooked up to a
sampler/module/softsynth/monitors/music computer at any given time.

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on
batteries and AC - any realistic way to adjust this? There've been times
when I've used it to give me a pitching reference (starting note) when
singing a harmony - would be nice to know it's accurate even if I'm not!
I've also used it's cheap little 8 bit piano sound through distortion to
give me a great overdriven guitar-like sound in some projects, works
better than my "real" piano sounds for this, but I've always been aware it
was a little out of tune.

It's called a Concertmate 470, at least a decade old.

The only likely method would be to locate the crystal that "times"
the electronic circuits, and experiment with putting very small-value
( 10 pF) capacitors (or a rotary trimmer capacitor) across the crystal
to "slow" it down slightly. However, I'd bet that the result wouldn't
come close to being worth the effort required.

[Richard Crowley]

"Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
"Richard Crowley" wrote ...
"Karl Engel" wrote ...
I have a little keyboard, pretty much a toy, that I sometimes use for
working out a melody or a harmony, just because it's very small,
battery-powered & much easier to grab & switch on than my MIDI connected
keyboard - which might not be connected or hooked up to a
sampler/module/softsynth/monitors/music computer at any given time.

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on
batteries and AC - any realistic way to adjust this? There've been
times when I've used it to give me a pitching reference (starting note)
when singing a harmony - would be nice to know it's accurate even if I'm
not! I've also used it's cheap little 8 bit piano sound through
distortion to give me a great overdriven guitar-like sound in some
projects, works better than my "real" piano sounds for this, but I've
always been aware it was a little out of tune.

It's called a Concertmate 470, at least a decade old.

The only likely method would be to locate the crystal that "times"
the electronic circuits, and experiment with putting very small-value
( 10 pF) capacitors (or a rotary trimmer capacitor) across the crystal
to "slow" it down slightly. However, I'd bet that the result wouldn't
come close to being worth the effort required.
I wonder if:

a. It uses a crystal at all.

If it doesn't use a crystal, then it uses a ceramic resonator
or an L/C resonant circuit or an R/C resonant circuit, etc.

In all cases, adding a slight amount of capacitance will
reduce the operating frequency (which presumably controls
the frequency of the various tempered scale pitches, etc.)

Or, if it uses a crystal,

b. whether Karl is comparing it to a tempered scale.

He didn't say whether all notes were uniformly sharp, or
if some notes were closer than others.

But in any case, the patient doesn't seem worthy of the
cure.

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:05:44 +1000, "Karl Engel"
wrote:

I have a little keyboard, pretty much a toy, that I sometimes use for
working out a melody or a harmony, just because it's very small,
battery-powered & much easier to grab & switch on than my MIDI connected
keyboard - which might not be connected or hooked up to a
sampler/module/softsynth/monitors/music computer at any given time.

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on batteries
and AC - any realistic way to adjust this? There've been times when I've
used it to give me a pitching reference (starting note) when singing a
harmony - would be nice to know it's accurate even if I'm not! I've also
used it's cheap little 8 bit piano sound through distortion to give me a
great overdriven guitar-like sound in some projects, works better than my
"real" piano sounds for this, but I've always been aware it was a little out
of tune.

It's called a Concertmate 470, at least a decade old.

Google comes up with quite a lot on this instrument, aparrantly a
re-badged Casio SA-35. But not instructions how to tune it :-)

I can only suggest you open it up and look for a preset. You might
even be lucky and find one labelled "tuning". Start looking in the
vicinity of the crystal - you know what that looks like?

[Mark]

On Jul 21, 5:16*am, Laurence Payne wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:05:44 +1000, "Karl Engel"





wrote:
I have a little keyboard, pretty much a toy, that I sometimes use for
working out a melody or a harmony, just because it's very small,
battery-powered & much easier to grab & switch on than my MIDI connected
keyboard - which might not be connected or hooked up to a
sampler/module/softsynth/monitors/music computer at any given time.

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on batteries
and AC - any realistic way to adjust this? *There've been times when I've
used it to give me a pitching reference (starting note) when singing a
harmony - would be nice to know it's accurate even if I'm not! I've also
used it's cheap little 8 bit piano sound through distortion to give me a
great overdriven guitar-like sound in some projects, works better than my
"real" piano sounds for this, but I've always been aware it was a little out
of tune.

It's called a Concertmate 470, at least a decade old.

Google comes up with quite a lot on this instrument, aparrantly a
re-badged Casio SA-35. *But not instructions how to tune it :-)

I can only suggest you open it up and look for a preset. *You might
even be lucky and find one labelled "tuning". *Start looking in the
vicinity of the crystal - you know what that looks like?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

even the cheapest quartz crystal will have a freq error so small that
you would not be able to hear it...

if you can hear the error, it is probably not a crystal and that is
good becasue then you have a good chance of retuning it... if you can
figure out what is controlling the timing, maybe an RC or LC circuit
or ceramic resonator...

Mark

[Scott Dorsey]

Karl Engel wrote:
I have a little keyboard, pretty much a toy, that I sometimes use for
working out a melody or a harmony, just because it's very small,
battery-powered & much easier to grab & switch on than my MIDI connected
keyboard - which might not be connected or hooked up to a
sampler/module/softsynth/monitors/music computer at any given time.

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on batteries
and AC - any realistic way to adjust this? There've been times when I've
used it to give me a pitching reference (starting note) when singing a
harmony - would be nice to know it's accurate even if I'm not! I've also
used it's cheap little 8 bit piano sound through distortion to give me a
great overdriven guitar-like sound in some projects, works better than my
"real" piano sounds for this, but I've always been aware it was a little out
of tune.

It's called a Concertmate 470, at least a decade old.

There's probably a crystal inside that controls the whole thing... by
adding a little shunt capacitance between each leg and ground you might
be able to shift the frequency down a little. Otherwise you can pull
the crystal, send it to International Crystal Manufacturing, and tell
them to make you a crystal so many percent flat. They'll only charge
about $25 for the service, too.

Or, you can just tune the rest of the band to match it, which is what
the pipe organ folks do.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Mark wrote:

even the cheapest quartz crystal will have a freq error so small that
you would not be able to hear it...

The Asian-made crystals are often very, very far off frequency, because
they can be. They don't cut them very precisely, because nobody demands it.

In addition, the load capacitance is often way off on these things.

if you can hear the error, it is probably not a crystal and that is
good becasue then you have a good chance of retuning it... if you can
figure out what is controlling the timing, maybe an RC or LC circuit
or ceramic resonator...

All of the cheapies I have taken apart have a "microprocessor grade"
crystal inside. Usually a colorburst crystal.

Note that the thing may be DESIGNED to be off-frequency, because they are
usually designed to get their reference clock using easy division from the
colorburst frequency. This limits the exact frequencies you can get.

The colorburst crystal is usually picked because it's the only crystal you
can get for less than a nickel.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

Karl Engel wrote:
I have a little keyboard, pretty much a toy,

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on batteries
and AC - any realistic way to adjust this?

Since you qualified it with "realistic," unless there's a menu item that
lets you adjust the pitch, I'd have to say no. You'd need to get inside
of it, find the master clock which is used as the pitch reference for
however the sound is generated, and adjust its frequency, which, chances
are, is not intended to be adjusted. Given it's Casio/Radio Shack
heritage, I'd say what you got is what you get.





--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[Richard Crowley]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
The colorburst crystal is usually picked because it's the only crystal you
can get for less than a nickel.

With the decline of analog TV, we won't have to worry about
that much longer.

[Scott Dorsey]

Richard Crowley wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
The colorburst crystal is usually picked because it's the only crystal you
can get for less than a nickel.

With the decline of analog TV, we won't have to worry about
that much longer.

No, we're stuck with it. Sadly, because the colorburst crystal was cheap,
everybody used it for all kinds of things, so it became even cheaper. Such
is the way mass production works.

Most of the colorburst crystals out there are in things completely unrelated
to video. It's a weird world.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Tobiah]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:05:44 +1000, Karl Engel wrote:

I have a little keyboard, pretty much a toy

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on batteries
and AC - any realistic way to adjust this?

Go to ebay and get $30 Yamaha or Casio keyboard for parts.
Take apart your keyboard and locate the crystal. Have
a soldering iron handy. Plug in the new keyboard and tune
it so that your electronic tuner is happy. Use the keys
on the new keyboard to peck out your melody. When the
transformation is complete, discard the original keyboard.


** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[jakdedert]

Tobiah wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:05:44 +1000, Karl Engel wrote:

I have a little keyboard, pretty much a toy

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on batteries
and AC - any realistic way to adjust this?

Go to ebay and get $30 Yamaha or Casio keyboard for parts.
Take apart your keyboard and locate the crystal. Have
a soldering iron handy. Plug in the new keyboard and tune
it so that your electronic tuner is happy. Use the keys
on the new keyboard to peck out your melody. When the
transformation is complete, discard the original keyboard.


** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

That made little, to no sense at all.....

jak

[Tobiah]

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on batteries
and AC - any realistic way to adjust this?

Go to ebay and get $30 Yamaha or Casio keyboard for parts.
Take apart your keyboard and locate the crystal. Have
a soldering iron handy. Plug in the new keyboard and tune
it so that your electronic tuner is happy. Use the keys
on the new keyboard to peck out your melody. When the
transformation is complete, discard the original keyboard.


That made little, to no sense at all.....

jak

That's why the call it a 'sense' of humor



** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[hank alrich]

jakdedert wrote:

Tobiah wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:05:44 +1000, Karl Engel wrote:

I have a little keyboard, pretty much a toy

According to my tuner it's pitch is a little sharp though, both on
batteries and AC - any realistic way to adjust this?

Go to ebay and get $30 Yamaha or Casio keyboard for parts.
Take apart your keyboard and locate the crystal. Have
a soldering iron handy. Plug in the new keyboard and tune
it so that your electronic tuner is happy. Use the keys
on the new keyboard to peck out your melody. When the
transformation is complete, discard the original keyboard.


** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

That made little, to no sense at all.....

jak

Read it again... it's hilarious.

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[Les Cargill]

Richard Crowley wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
The colorburst crystal is usually picked because it's the only crystal you
can get for less than a nickel.

With the decline of analog TV, we won't have to worry about
that much longer.



Railroad track width was determined by Roman cart ruts....

(not really true, but ....)

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

--
Les Cargill

[Richard Crowley]

"Les Cargill" wrote ...
Richard Crowley wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
The colorburst crystal is usually picked because it's the only crystal
you
can get for less than a nickel.

With the decline of analog TV, we won't have to worry about
that much longer.

Railroad track width was determined by Roman cart ruts....

(not really true, but ....)

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

Actually more true than false.
At least according to the Snopes article cited above.

[Chris Hornbeck]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:47:51 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

"Les Cargill" wrote ...
Railroad track width was determined by Roman cart ruts....

(not really true, but ....)

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

Actually more true than false.
At least according to the Snopes article cited above.

The rebuttal part of the article seemed pretty weak, fersure.
What's so heretical about standards evolving from precedents?
Beats me. What's their beef?

ISTR that some audio digital recording standards were
chosen to fit into easily divided fractions of the
3.58xxx MHz crystals, maybe for video tape based formats.
Goes round and round, and it comes out here.


Much thanks, as always,
Chris Hornbeck

[Les Cargill]

Richard Crowley wrote:
"Les Cargill" wrote ...
Richard Crowley wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
The colorburst crystal is usually picked because it's the only crystal
you
can get for less than a nickel.
With the decline of analog TV, we won't have to worry about
that much longer.
Railroad track width was determined by Roman cart ruts....

(not really true, but ....)

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

Actually more true than false.
At least according to the Snopes article cited above.



I couldn't really follow their objection. Too
much blogorreah.

--
Les Cargill