eBay of the day: The MIDI Sword Keytar

Who doesn't love keytars and martial arts, and wish the two things could work together better? Now, they do! eBay auction #7404008918 starts: "This unusual instrument began as two fine pieces of work that have become one: a beautiful, carved wooden Kung Fu sword and a fine little MIDI keyboard" As far as I can see, the sword doesn't actually do anything - it's not touch sensitive or rigged up as a huge pitchbend lever, but if you're insane and have the $249 starting bid, rejoice!


Comments:
Whoah... Swordkeytar... isn't that from a Strong Bad E-mail episode?
 
Nice, but I'd like to see two of them, with metal ridges on the blade. When you duel on-stage you get a nice crackle as you clah musically weaponry!
 
Strong Bad Mystical Keyswordtar
 
Minor correction - it's 249 dollars, not pounds.
 
the whole excercise is as pointless as teaching ravens to fly underwater.
surely one of the highlights of using a keytar (if any) is to do mad guitar bends and squeals with the pitch/mod wheels - of which this has none.
also, you're gonna be fairly limited by the fact that it needs to be plugged in to the mains...
he should just sell the sword on it's own.
no accounting for some people.
 
I think the "point" of a Keytar (pardon the pun) is that you can wear it like a guitar - it's a much more physical performance instrument - that is, it looks cooler - and I think this does look very cool.
 
Here's an interesting phenomenon that maybe someone else can explain... if you go to http://www.keytars.com it's a parked page with context generated ads - only the ads are all about swords...? Other than this instrument, what's the connection? Why would the parkingsite algorithm connect "keytars" with "swords"? It's worth noting that it was like that before this thing showed up on Ebay or musicthing...
 
My wife just pointed out something so obvious, I'm surprised no one else has brought it up (myself included.) If you squint your eyes at the bottom photo, it's a giant toothbrush.

Huh.

-CR
 
Proper Samurai-sword would have been so much cooler, instead of a boring wooden stick. Even Ice Hockey stick would be better than that thing.

However, I am sure all those LiveActionRolePlaying-crazies will love that. Play a nice celtic melody with general-midi sounds while casting spells and running round piles of some old rocks dressed as an elf with other nerds like you.
 
I'm thinking it wouldn't be that hard to put some strings on it and also make it a sword-guitar-keytar. And while they're at it, also make a violin plugin. Yuck.
 
PRICE UPDATE - It's $100 bucks with no buy-it-now.

And it's the other one that looks more like a toothbrush.
 
I think the proper nomer for this monstrosity is indeed the "key-sword-tar," found near the end of this episode: http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail139.html

The guy got it backwards though...
 
In case you don't want to sit through the whole Strong Bad episode, here's a screenshot of the Keyswordtar that appears at the end. You'll notice that it is the opposite of the MIDI Sword on ebay, which is keys for the handle, whereas Strong Bad's is keys for the blade. Hence, it's not named wrongly - it simple isn't a mystical keyswordtar. ;)
 
Ahhh...

I recognize the midi keyboard - I bought one for $2 at the swap meet - it's a Reveal Musicstar! I put a 9V battery in mine and was thinking about encasing it in wood and using with my modular, but... it spits out that midi-ping thing that old Yamahas spit out, the "you there? I'm here! you there? I'm here!" message. This seems to latch most of my equipment after a few minutes.

$250 - if he gets it let me know, and I'll start shaping an old 2x4 into a sword ASAP!

-gerald
 
Ahhh...

I recognize the midi keyboard - I bought one for $2 at the swap meet - it's a Reveal Musicstar! I put a 9V battery in mine and was thinking about encasing it in wood and using with my modular, but... it spits out that midi-ping thing that old Yamahas spit out, the "you there? I'm here! you there? I'm here!" message. This seems to latch most of my equipment after a few minutes.

If it sells for $250, I'll get to work on shaping a 2x4 and strapping it onto my worthless keyboard ASAP!

-gerald
 
Gerald - I'd love to know how you did the battery - a lot of people have requested that... please contact me either through the ebay auction or at info@waveformula.com. I reduced the price to $99. based on the general response. It's a surprisingly functional keyboard and it took a fair bit of work to get the sword mounted cleanly and with stability. It's actually more sturdy with the sword than without. Cheers - Josh
 
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