Hing Hon EK-001 square wave keyboard

This is the Hing Hon EK-001, a tiny musical keyboard from the '90s that looks like a toy, but has a very interesting sounding squarewave tone generator, making it sound very much like the sound chip in a Commodore 64 or Atari 8-bit computer. More info here:

http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/HingHon_EK001.html

My favorite sound on it is the "horn" sound, the last one shown in the video -- the intermodulation distortion between the two voices is really thick and massive sounding for such a small keyboard. The video I made was originally much longer, including me playing around instead of just running through the demo song, but my video capture card screwed it up. I'll have to record another video of it.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• yt:crop=16:9
• reencode
• hing
• hon
• ek001
• ek-001
• squarewave
• square
• wave
• keyboard
• musical
• piano
• electronic
• casio
• commodore
• 64
• c64
• sid
• atari
• pokey

[frankcastle123]

Do you know where can I find one? Do you have links or something?

[vwestlife]

@frankcastle123 Sorry, I don't know. I found this one in a thrift store.

[AburameFifox]

name of the song?

[vwestlife]

@AburameFifox "Greensleeves"

[BearorBust]

I have a broken one of these, If you hold down two instrument keys you can get a sort of glitch / circuit bent sound out of them.

[vwestlife]

That is the way they all work. It is noted in the review I have linked in the video description.

[Commodorian]

Sounds more like an Atari POKEY chip.

[RetroSoundsDA]

I like this a lot :)

It looks like a toy but sounds awesome.

PS: In case anyone is wondering, the demo song is "Greensleeves" (Since it doesn't appear to be listed in the description)

[wilkes85]

Oh wow! When I was a kid, I had a cassette recorder designed to look like a radio station console, and it played this exact same rendition of Greensleeves! Apparently the "insturment" at 1:16 is supposed to sound like a banjo haha... i forget what the other ones are.

[KaslarProductions]

@1ucasvb Cool. I didn't know that... Thank for the heads up.

[1ucasvb]

@KaslarProductions POKEY could also do 8 bit PCM audio.

[1ucasvb]

I found one of these at some woman's house here in Brazil. It's not labeled Hing Hon, but it's pretty much the same device.

This version of Greensleves with the organ sound, and the next lower tempo, below the one in this video, is easily my favorite version of the song ever. Hauntingly beautiful.

Sadly, my version of the Hing Hon is pretty wrecked. I'm gonna try to restore it somehow, but I'd really pay good money for an intact version.

[m1k30d]

Can you play your own music on this, because I have one and the keys don't work at all, just the buttons at the top...

[piper102206]

I used to have one of these but its gon now..

[earth12345]

I have one of this keyboard at my house. I bought from Mae Sai, Chiang Rai for about 8 years ago (Mae Sai is the place that sell a lot of stuff that import from China)

Too bad that the one that I have is labeled everything in Chinese.

[TheToploaderwasher]

Cam you tell me the instruments you press? :-)

[hulalo3]

I just realized that I used to play on the exact same keyboard as a kid. Guess I'll have to look in the attic if it is still here somewhere.