Hollow Sun Stylophone KONTAKT

The Dubreq Stylophone was a runaway success in the '70s, not so much within musical circles (although they have been used by such luminaries as David Bowie, Kraftwerk and Pulp) but as a gimmick, a toy, a marketing success story.
The Hollow Sun Stylophone's samples come from an original Stylophone a friend found in his attic, something he had as a lad and had almost forgotten about.
The UI is very simple with a simple level and tone control.
Dubreq was founded in 1967 by three British workmates: Brian Jarvis (inventor of the Stylophone), his brother Ted and Burt Coleman. They worked in the Broadcast / Film industry, dubbing and recording film sound tracks, hence the company name, 'Dubreq' (presumably, the 'q' was used to add an air of European mystique)!



In their time, Dubreq marketed three models of the Stylophone (see above) which Rolf (left) tirelessly promoted.
The Stylophone was a fad... a gimmick... a toy.... initially very attractive but ultimately destined for the dustbin!
Dubreq tried to follow up on their success with the 350S Stylophone that offered more sound variations but that was not to be either... they had their moment with the original.

The tone control allows you to coax more sounds out of it than the original (and goes some way to emulating the primitive volume control of putting your hand over the speaker which, of course, changed the tone). Use your modwheel to add the irritating vibrato.

There's also a Master section for setting up velocity parameters (OFF by default ... obviously), pitch bend, etc..

It's only fair to mention that the Stylophone is alive and well and available to buy because it was recently revived by Brian Jarvis' son and a quick Google of 'Stylophone' will no doubt yield a ton of links where you can buy the real thing for some serious Stylophonic fun.

FEATURES:
пїЅ An original Stylophone
пїЅ 44.1kHz/24-bit (to capture the Stylophone's full on/off dynamic range!)
пїЅ Comprehensively multi-sampled (well... I captured the notes that worked!)
пїЅ Sounds authentically irritating!
пїЅ Polyphonic - play chords with that annoying sound!
пїЅ Allows you to express your inner musical self through the medium of cheese!
пїЅ Enormous fun if nothing else!