Stylophones

I must say I’m very fond of Stylophones!

The Stylophone, if you’ve never encountered one, is a small, hand-held monophonic instrument played by touching a stylus to a row of metal pads – the edge of a large printed circuit board – laid out like the keys of a piano. It was invented and first marketed in the 1960s, and is sometimes described as the world’s first mass-produced synthesizer.

In my view the Stylophone is an indispensable element in the arsenal of the electronic musician – it’s simple, distinctive-sounding, and most types are available at a reasonable price, with patience, from charity shops or on eBay. It’s also possible to make a number of straightforward – and some not-so-straightforward – modifications to it. I have described elsewhere in the blog some of the ones I’ve done.

Although largely the brainchild of engineer Brian Jarvis, accounts of its genesis in 1967 suggest that the Stylophone would never have seen the light of day without the encouragement and input of brothers Burt and Ted Coleman who, together with Jarvis, ran a company called Dübreq. Dübreq produced equipment for the film and broadcasting industry and their name is said to derive from their specialities of DUBbing and RECording, with the umlaut and the ‘q’ added to give the firm more of an international air (or perhaps, like Motörhead or Mötley Crüe, just to look cool!)

The marketing masterstroke which ensured the eternal popularity of the Stylophone was the engagement of the multi-talented London-based, but Australian-born entertainer, Rolf Harris. Even before production began, the Stylophone was introduced to the world on Harris’s popular Saturday TV show on the BBC, and, it is said, became an instant hit – despite at first being available only by mail-order from Dübreq at the frightening cost of 8 pounds 18 shillings and sixpence, around ninety-five pounds in today’s money!

Over the following decade a number of different versions of the Stylophone were produced. I have a treble – which is all white – a standard black, and a bass – also black. This latter wasn’t a production model, but the circuit diagram that came with the standard showed different component values for all these three types, so I modified a standard to produce the bass register, an octave below. I’ve subsequently modified this to produce a further octave below that – I call it ‘The Double Bass’ – but this is not a modification suggested by Dübreq themselves.

This is a circuit diagram of an early Stylophone. Note the details of alternative components: resistors in the top left and capacitors in the bottom left.

There is also a later 1970’s version (the ‘New Sound’) with a fake wood fascia in place of the familiar metal grille. This latter has a feature noticeably absent from the earlier models – a volume control, a useful feature in the days before the ubiquitous earphones. Here is the component layout and schematic/circuit diagram from the booklet which came with it.

It was not long after this, in 1975 or thereabouts, when production of the original Stylophone ceased; and this might have been the end of the Stylophone story, had Brian Jarvis’s son Ben not had the idea in the early 2000s of bringing it back. By 2007 the new Stylophone S1 was on sale, sufficiently similar to the original to be instantly recognisable, but with some updated features, including built-in input and output sockets and a three-way tone control.

It’s possible to do modifications on all these variations on the Stylophone design, even the S1. Despite the fact that the chip that does all the work in the S1 is very tiny and inaccessible, parts of the pitch and vibrato circuits are available, and the output stage is on a separate PCB. I was able to do some mods on a couple of these.

The ‘New Sound’, based on the very common 555 chip is easier to deal with, and I was able to do a lot with mine (see http://wp.me/p25FoK-10). There are many circuits for 555-based oscillators in books and on the internet, and the 555 in the ‘New Sound’ is easily accessible for modding.

I haven’t done much with the original Stylophones – but these should be even easier, as the resistors which fix the pitches of the notes are exposed, and it should be possible to do things to these without too much trouble.

The biggest problem with the original and ‘New Sound’ Stylophones is likely to be the cost. Since these are sought after by collectors, they can fetch rather higher prices than you might want to pay for something which you intend to experiment on!

Many stars – other than Rolf Harris himself – have been publicly associated with the Stylophone. You can read about these on the Stylophone page in the Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylophone, and see pictures of them on Stylophonica, ‘the official home of the Stylophone’ at www.stylophonica.com. You can also learn more of the history of the Stylophone at www.stylophone.ws (or www.stylophone.fsnet.co.uk), the Stylophone Collectors Information Site; buy a vintage Stylophone at www.stylophone.com, the Stylophone Sales Center; or even make your own Stylophone at www.instructables.com/id/A-Stylophone!

You will also find out about the mighty Stylophone 350S, much larger than the ordinary Stylophone, with two styluses (styli?), more notes, more tones and a cunning light-sensitive filter/vibrato control. This also went out of production in the 1970s and has not so far been revived.

These machines – wonderful thought they are, as you can see – can be seriously expensive, and you would probably want to think twice about having a go at the electronics in it without knowing what you were doing. Having said that, like the conventional Stylophones of the period, the electronics will be relatively straightforward compared to modern devices. A bit like cars, really – in the old days it was much easier for the amateur home mechanic to sort out engine problems: nowadays, there’s very little you can do. The 350S has many different ‘voices’ and that intriguing photocell circuit . . . there’s got to be some scope there.

A new type of Stylophone that has appeared in recent years is the Stylophone Beatbox: a drum machine playable – of course! – by means of a stylus, including percussion, vocal percussion and bass sounds, and able to record and replay sequences. I have some functioning ones, which may also be good for circuit-bending, and some non-functioning ones from which the attractive circular playing surface should be useful for other projects.

I used the case and the keyboard PCB of one of these for a Stylophone project, but not the sound-producing electronics as there were faults with the ones I acquired which I couldn’t fix.

Dübreq’s website at www.dubreq.com suggests there are more Stylophone products in the pipeline, but none, at the time of writing have appeared. Some other websites have been advertising the imminent arrival of the ‘Stylophone Remixxer’, but I’m not aware of any genuine sighting of such an object.