Music making made accessible to ALL students by just touching a key or pressing a switch!

This product is no longer available from Spectronics.

The SoundHouse Special Access Kit is made up of the Banana Keyboard and software for your computer allowing you to program the clever Banana Keyboard to be whatever your students need it to be!

• Play the sounds of any instrument your students choose to play
• Compose songs to sing and play along with
• Play back words and speech – for example, use one key or switch press to introduce the class concert with a recorded message and the next to set the concert performance in motion!
• Play back a series of recorded messages – using keys on the keyboard to activate the message sequence step-by-step
• Record your students’ own musical compositions

The Banana Keyboard has sixteen keys configured like an oversized piano, but curved to suit the radial movement of an arm. It may be placed on a wheelchair or a desktop and students need only to lightly touch the surface of the keyboard to activate any music, sounds or speech which have been programmed into each key of the Banana Keyboard.

The Banana Keyboard also has ports which allow for connection of up to eight switches for activation of keys on the keyboard. This means that students with severe physical disabilities are able to join in with more physically able students to make music and perform musical compositions together. Rather than having to press a key to make music, they simply press a switch and the Banana Keyboard makes the music for them!

The popular Big Buddy Hands-On and the Buddy Button Hands-On are great fun to use with the Banana Keyboard. These bright yellow coloured switches with black handprint design, team in perfectly with the colourful black and yellow keys of the Banana Keyboard.

The SoundHouse Special Access Kit’s development began at the Victorian Arts Centre in 1992, born out of a need to better support visitors with disabilities wishing to make music. The range of synthesisers and other related equipment available at the time sparked their interest in music making, but the difficulty they experienced in playing conventional keyboards of this type severely limited their ability to produce satisfying results.

The SoundHouse Special Access Kit is a unique system developed over the past nine years in direct response to that need. It is designed to allow people with disabilities to access to the wonderful world of music creation. The kit (developed by Peter Sych) consists of specialised software and the Banana Keyboard. Both components require connection to a computer to operate. The computer can be a laptop or a desktop model, but needs to be a Pentium 166 with 32MB RAM (or better) and requires a soundcard and speakers.

The SoundHouse Special Access Kit (SAK) is now being used across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Ireland and the United States of America. In response to requests from users and clients around the world, the SAK Version 2 software has just been developed which has many new features and functions.

Primarily, the SAK software was designed with the intention of being a simple way to construct music activities and experiences that use sounds in some way. Because of the wide variety of sounds, including everyday and environmental sounds, as well as the facility to record voice, the SAK software can also be used to enhance activities which involve drama and language. In school settings, it can be easily applied to enhance the whole school curriculum. In short, the application of the Special Access Kit is only limited by one’s drive, imagination and ingenuity which results in enhanced communication and experience in the performing arts for all.

The SoundHouse Software supplied in the Special Access Kit allows each note or key to play whatever instrument or sound you choose, simply and quickly. (Both MIDI and WAV sound files can be played through the Banana Keyboard.)

Features of the SAK software include:

• User friendly and easy to learn
• By arranging combinations of any sounds, which may be MIDI sounds or wave files, a vast array of musical activities and sounds can be created.
• Each of the keys and switches can be programmed simply and quickly to a MIDI file, wave file or CD command.
• Through the CD function, one can also program CD tracks to play simultaneously.
• Compositions from programs such as Super Duper Music Looper and Acid Music can be saved as wave files and simply programmed into one of the keys or adaptive switches.
• The recording feature enables real-life performances to be saved and voice and CD segments to be recorded.
• Arrangements can be printed off and formatted.
• A variety of global settings so that you do not have to individually program each key or switch eg instrument setting, volume (velocity setting), global transposition of keys

The latest software has “Banana Vision”. While a sound or composition is being played, the screen can be set to Banana Vision mode and there is a visual fireworks display corresponding to the soundscape.

Click here to visit the The Arts Centre website for sharing of activities and musical arrangements created for the Banana Keyboard.

To find out more about the SoundHouse Special Access Kit view this flash overview.

System Requirements for Windows

• Pentium 166 MHz with 32MB RAM or better
• Soundcard
• Speakers