Bontempi T 100, owned from January 2004 to present, bought for $26
Needing to get some other small keyboards besides those made by Yamaha and Casio, I began looking on ebay for something made by Bontempi. I passed up a lot of different models, until I came upon this one, at the same time the zither was on there...I paid a bit much for it, but I don't really mind overpaying for things like this as they're fun, they don't come along very often, and they're still not particularly expensive.
Anyway this model is indeed a nice change from the typical Casio and Yamaha keyboards. The model number sticker was missing from the bottom so I didn't actually know the name of it until I saw another for sale on ebay with the manual (consequently the files are misnamed). The case is surprisingly solid, with a two-octave keyboard and LCD display that shows that selected sounds/modes and the notes pressed. It's 4 voice polyphonic, and I'm guessing the sounds are square/pulse waves that are passed through analog filters and envelopes. There are 6 sounds to choose from, with a nice variety of bright and mellow sounds. There are buttons to transpose the keyboard and to add sustain (longer release time). There are also 5 rhythms that are mostly not great- a lot simpler than I would like but still better than the ones in the PSS-130. The drum sounds somewhat resemble the Roland TR-606. There's also a chord sequencer, I'm guessing because there's not enough room for a split keyboard like some keyboards use. It's possible to select major, minor, 7th, or diminished (I think?) chords, for either half a bar or a whole bar, and when the chords are played back there is an added bassline (the chords and bass don't subtract from the 4-voice polyphony of the main sound). The process isn't really intuitive but once a sequence is finished it's easier to play along to it than playing all of the chords. There are also 5 games that involve guessing 1/2/3 notes, or keeping up with a rhythm.
The sound is nice despite the fact that there's only one oscillator per voice and no chorus or anything like that. The sounds have varying degrees of delayed vibrato, and the sustain button is definately a nice touch. It also makes wonderfully chaotic distorted sounds when run from ~3 volts.
Inside, it's fairly simple. There's one main chip and some other miscellaneous logic chips/op amps, but the majority of the circuitry is analog, I'm guessing for the filters, drum sounds, etc. There are several trimmers, for tuning, vibrato speed/depth, and some that I haven't figured out.
pictures:
sounds: two mp3s can be found here
links:
There's a page about a similar model here:Bontempi MRS 52/D
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