Kosmic Shade

Kosmic Shade - Formerly a "Kool Shades" keyboard (Hing Hon variant). It has a very nice sound to begin with, as well as some cool features such as built-in vibrato and a separate volume switch for the percussion.

Modifications:
- Pitch down knob. Gives the patches an exceptional spacey bass tone, and turns the rhythms into bursts of harsh alien static.
- Vibrato body-contacts. During bend-testing, these also affected the pitch and tempo considerably. They turned out much less responsive in the final build, allowing for manual vibrato control. Go figure.
- Sustain & note re-trigger momentary switch. Pressing this re-triggers the last note played (& sometimes a random note on the first press); holding it down sustains the note until you let go.
- Attack/envelope knob. This is a simple potentiometer connected to the sustain switch. It removes the harsh attack of retriggered notes, and further turning adjusts the sustain volume. These two controls combined give the Kosmic Shade some interesting harmonic possibilities. For reasons unknown to me, the sustained note is not always predictable. You may play two notes in succession, and the first one drones on while the second plays normally.
- 1/8" output.

Sound clips:

Piano pitch	Playing a piano note and turning the pitch dial all the way down.
Piano sustain	A random melody with the sustain button pressed down.
Piano sustain, envelope	With the attack/envelope turned down a bit, playing both the keys and the retrigger button.
Banjo pitch	The banjo sound basically repeats a note in quick succession. Thus, when it's pitched down you get variations in tempo.
Banjo pitch, sustain	Some noodling with the banjo pitched down and the sustain switch.
Drum pads pitched	Warping the pitch of the drum pads as I hit them.
When The Saints Go Barking Mad	Messing about with the pitch, sustain, and vibrato contacts on the demo tune.

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