Circuit Bending

JVC KB-700

The KB-700 by JVC is the fully developed version of the keyboard series KB-300/303/500, holding the greatest range of functions of them all. Like the KB-300 it has full-size keys, an analog drum section, a poly and a solo section.

In contrast to the KB-300, the auto accompaniment is highly polished and offers, besides many adjustment possibilities per beat preset (pan + volume), a load of functions like 3 arpeggio modes, 2 chord modes, 3 bass sequences and strings. These are partly even quite modern in terms of programming and minimally arranged. The solo and poly sections are also interesting while some sounds are internally processed with an analog filter.

The machine's architecture is very open, with a lot of space, making modifications very comfortable. I built the following elements into mine so far:

• Mute switch for all individual drum sounds
• 2 drum FX switches for hihats and toms
• Tempo fine controller
• 4 switches for spheric effects in the auto accompaniment section
• 1 cutoff controller for the analog filter (takes effect on some sounds)

Sound example