casio pt-100, noir ed.

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This keyboard was a local $1.50 thrift find, and despite some rather unpleasant sticker residue above the right half of the keyboard, it was in great condition. In a fit of perfectionism, however, I wanted to get rid of the adhesive. I used some Goo-Gone, a sticker removal chemical, and learned a bit of a lesson. It worked removing the residue, but started reacting with the plastic of the Casio, removed some of the writing, and generally made an awful mess. One of those “solution creates a bigger problem than originally encountered” situations… For this reason, I decided to give this piece a paint job, something I normally avoid for a few philosophical reasons (for more of this, read here). I found a can of flat black spray paint in my garage and gave it a go. I decided I’d only tape the leftmost section (that reads “CASIO” and encases the speaker) to retain some semblance of the PT-100’s former self. So I sprayed away, white keys and all. Two coats and, seriously, two days of drying, and it looked reasonably attractive.

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But we should talk about bending it!! Here’s the section of circuit board I used for bends as well as the bends I found to be effective. (NOTE: I did not use the pitchbend [in green]…it worked well when I touched the board with my finger, but didn’t react to touch via wire/copper body contact.)

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I used ON/OFF spdt switches for all of the bends, as none reacted interestingly to variable resistors and mounted them on the right side of the case in two sections, three switches that control notes/keypresses and three that control drums. I did not label the PT’s original functions; I thought it looked cleaner to keep it dark. Lastly, I added an ultrabright blue LED, a reset switch, and a 1/4″ audio out on the left side of the instrument.

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