Micro C.O.S.M.

Micro C.O.S.M. - Formerly a Hal-Leonard "Piano Fun." These come bundled with books such as "learn to play songs from Disney's Aladdin," etc... It's actually a pretty cool toy on its own. It has a membrane keyboard, and a very cool "note slider" which shifts the pitch by an octave and makes wiggly noises.

About the name. When I bought it the batteries were low, and it made little pingy out-of-tune noises which reminded me of an old Genesis song "The Colony Of Slippermen." I've built that feature in, hence: C.O.S.M.

Modifications:
- Voltage regulator knob. Lowers the amount of power the circuit-board receives. Results in pitiful out-of-tune noises.
- Pitch down knob. Produces some very nice clean bass tones.
- Frequency mod switch. Changes the nature of the sound, adding some interesting whistle-like harmonics.
- Pizzicato switch. Shortens the sound to a very abrupt blip which reminds me a lot of the lead melody in "Popcorn."
- Low-pass filter/glitch with on/off switch. In theory a perfectly good low-pass filter, but it also makes unpredictable bubbles in the sound.
- 1/8" output.

Sound clips:

Piano	The unmodified piano sound.
Flute	Unmodified flute, with a hint of note slider at the end.
Voltage drop	The sound that gave the instrument its name, courtesy of the voltage control.
Bass 1	Piano sound pitched down for a nice bass tone.
Bass 2	The flute's bass tone.
Frequency mod	The ringing, squeaky tone from the Freq. mod, plus some pitch bends.
Low-pass filter	The low-pass filter, and its eccentricities.
Popcorn!	A badly-played riff from the synth-pop classic "Popcorn," showcasing the joys of the pizzicato switch.

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