Concertmate 380 Aleatron

Concertmate 380 Aleatron - Like the Concertmate 350, this is a Casio clone (this time a Casio SA-5). There are 25 tones/patches, each with three variations (or tone edits) which make things interesting. There are also a swath of wacky rhythms and accompaniments, which become broken down and distorted in interesting ways via the mods.

I was disappointed that you can't pitch-mod this keyboard (without a timer circuit, anyway), but was pleased to discover it's one of Reed "father of circuit-bending" Ghazala's choice targets for creating Aleatrons, or chance-instruments. So, in no time at all (thanks to his book) I had my first dedicated Aleatron and have to say it's a lot more fun than I thought it would be! I've heard plenty of samples from these things, but never been really excited about them until now. The simple fact that you have no idea what you're going to get out of it is very appealing.

Modifications:
Adjustable chance trigger & chance body contacts, as layed out in Ghazala's "Circuit Bending" book from Extreme Tech. I find the body contacts are much more consistent, and create subtler changes in the loops for building song-type structures. It crashes, a lot, but has the potential to spew loops out perpetually with the right amount of prodding.

Sound clips:

Aphex Twinkle	How "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" might sound if Aphex Twin messed with it.
Loops 1	Some of the twisted industrial sounds to be had. Notice how the bass note drops out -- a good example of triggered variations.
Loops 2	Similar to the last one, but with quite a heavy buzz over the top.
Loops 3	An awesome sample-and-hold-style arpeggio amid grinding machine chaos.
Loops 4	It can be contemplative as well.
Gunner/Melody	The subtle juxtaposition of machine-gun percussion followed by a snatch of jaunty self-destructing melody.

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