Fancy Lady Delay



Statement

The Fancy Lady Delay is a circuit-bent delay built from a karaoke machine. There are four feedback modes: soft, hard, static wave, and dump repeat. The speed can vary from a fraction of a second to over ten seconds, with awesome grain added as the delay increases. A hold and pulse button are also provided. Runs off batteries and has built-in speakers. Makes noise without anything running through it as well. It is made almost entirely from recycled materials. It sounds like garbage because it is made of mostly garbage. The focus is on making something unique out of things that would normally be discarded.

Process



Here is the unmodified karaoke machine. Note the echo button; this turns the echo effect on. This was bypassed by soldering the two contacts together on the main circuit board. The tape player was removed, while the amp/mixing board was reused. This project used the PCB packed black blob version of the chip. There is another revision of this toy with a DIP packaged chip. The pins should be similar, but the sound might be different.



Here are the traces which are reproduced on the above diagram. The central portion is the delay chip.



The delay is battery powered by 4 C batteries in a new holder. Double-sided tape was used for the speakers. The main board and delay chip are screwed down; the mixer board is affixed to the front panel. Much hot glue was used for reinforcement of connections. The volume limiter switch was retained. Zip ties keep the wires relatively neat and give the connections more strength. An assortment of recycled potentiometers and jacks were used for the front panel.