Instruments

The list in the table below includes 21 instruments plus two add-ons to a keyboard. Certainly, Mr Tian Jinqin has created more instruments, prototypes, unfinished tests, etc. Here we are only listing the ones Tian Jinqin considered to be of considerable importance.

YEAR	NAME	DESCRIPTION	LINK TO PHOTO	NOTES
1958	Electric Guzheng (modified DaZhengQin)	“In 1958, I bought a second-hand DaZhengQin with the intention of modifying it into a small guzheng. To address the low volume, I used a homemade electronic tube amplifier to amplify the sound. However, after amplifying the sound, there were significant distortions in both sound quality and timbre. To correct this, I started using various filters. It was at this point that I discovered: using different forms of filters could greatly alter the sound and timbre of the guzheng, making it delicate like “spider silk” or deep and resonant like a grand bell!	N/A	It has not been conserved
1958-1978	Electronic Keyboard Instruments (self made)	Self made electronic keyboards with tubes, metal keys, very primitive made of iron and springs. Because the sounds they produced could not imitate the traditional Chinese musical instruments, Tian Jinqin decided to create the string controlled instruments. In any case, he used these keyboards from 1960 to 1964  as accompaniment in several stage performances of traditional Chinese music.		It has not been conserved. We only have photos.
1971	Singing-Playing Electronic Instruments	Tian Jinqin tried to develop an electronic musical instrument controlled by voice. Due to the difficulties. The process is explained in the publication “Singing-Playing Electronic Instruments” [June 3, 1987]		Tian Jinqin first thought that he had developed this in the decade of the 80s, but after revising his records and notebooks after our inquiry he conformed that he worked between June and September 1971 on this project.
1978	XK Ancestor (Prototype)	Prototype of the XK instrument.		The instrument was created for himself but it was the one he showed to the authorities in Beijing, allowing him to receive support to develop the XK instrument. After our visit in 2024 he decided to work again on the instrument and he remodelled various parts from the circuit and from the interface. We have photos from the original and from the new version.
1979	XK-1	Four electronic ribbon strings with independent continuous control of pitch and volume. The instrument was polyphonic, with one tone generator per string control. The XK instruments did not incorporate any type of effects like reverb, delays, distorsion, etc. It was only the tone generators, filters, dividers, voltage controlled amplifiers, etc. The performer could control a dynamic filter with the right knee.		At least 21 units were sold but none has been discovered.
1980	电子音声合成器Electronic Sound Synthesizer	Modular and patchable synthetizer without keyboard. It could synthesize a variety of realistic scenes and natural sound effects, such as wind, rain, thunder, vehicles, honking, airplanes, guns, explosions, factory noise, crickets, birds, cows, horses and so on. It can also synthesize a variety of unnatural sound effects, such as “through time and space”, “cosmic chorus”, “interstellar travel” and so on.		It was used as a workbench synthetizer to experiment and prototype sounds
1981	DH-CC1电子音声合成器 DH-CC1 Electronic Sound Compress Synthesizer	This is the same electronic sound synthesizer as 电子音声合成器 (1980), and the reasons for the different times may be as follows: 1980 is the time when the synthesizer was developed. 1981 was his defining moment. The identification time is stated in the article “Sound Palette – Electronic Synthesizer” in the magazine “Scientific Experiments” in March 1982.13.		It was used as a workbench synthetizer to experiment and prototype sounds
1982	XK-2	Extended and improved XK-1		Never went into production
1982	战地电子声模器 Electronic Battlefield Acoustic Simulators (1982.6)	An instrument which can simulate the sound effects of a variety of battlefield equipment and guns. For military training.	Because this is for the artillery unit, there are no public photos.	It was produced and tested by the Chinese Army.
1984.9	PD-1型普及多功能键盘电子琴  PD1 Universal Multifunctional Electronic Instrument	It is a popular multi-functional keyboard electronic keyboard developed based on the M208 chip produced in Italy. It has a variety of musical instrument sound effects simulation and automatic rhythm accompaniment (percussion accompaniment and chord accompaniment) functions.		It went into production
1984.12.3	二音色电子胡琴 Two-tone Electronic Huqin	This electronic huqin has two sounds, one is the (ordinary) erhu and the other is the gaohu (treble erhu). There are two independent electric strings that can play two-note harmonies.		Never went into production
1986.5.24)	3D1多音色多功能电子琴 3D1 multi-timbre multi-function electronic instrument	Children and amateur electronic keyboard. Use filter combinations to produce a variety of dynamic sounds. It is easy to arouse children’s interest in playing piano.		It went into production and it was sold in different countries
1986.10.20	. 3D-2型多种动态音色少儿琴 3D-2 Multiple Dynamic Tone Children’s Piano	Using the Chinese patented technology to produce a variety of dynamic tones of theprevious children’s electronic piano, so that the monophonic electronic piano can play magnificent musical effects. Adopts an integrated flat membrane keyboard to realize easy scratch playing.		It went into production
1990.2.15	DSP1型动态声效处理器 DSP1 Dynamic Sound Processing Unit (Electronic Music Processing Unit)	An automated analog effects pedal that allows any music input (whether from tape, CDs, microphones, or electronic instruments) to automatically produce strange rhythmic timbral variations.
1990 –	力敏电子钢琴 Force-sensitive electronic piano	It’s an 88-key electronic piano, featuring a key strength response that is continuously and infinitely layered (as opposed to the kind that usually only plays about 7-12 layers).		It never went into production
199x	自动报时钟音乐发生器 Automatic clock music generator	This is a chime music generator add-on. It is designed to produce a preset musical chime when a chime pulse signal is received from the host computer. There are no photos available as this is an add-on for the organ, not a whole unit.
199x	自动打击乐节奏器 Automatic Percussion Rhythmizer	It consists of a rhythmic beat point generator, a rhythmic content programming matrix, and various percussion unit circuits. More than ten typical rhythms such as tango, rumba, waltz, etc. can be generated. Again, since this is the unit mounted in the organ, there are no separate photos.
1986.6.16	便携式弦控电子琴  Portable string-controlled electronic instrument	Portable string-controlled piano is one of my amateur design and production of electronic musical instruments. It is designed to be easy to carry around for performance or personal entertainment, so whether in terms of form factor or circuit conceptualization, it adopts the design principle of being light and small, beautiful and taking into account the performance of the instrument. The shape of the instrument is like a pentatonic note, and there is only one electric string for playing, but it can be used as four strings (GDAE), and it can also have the ability to harmonize in fifths. Therefore, it can be played like a violin instrument. This instrument has been continously updated and upgraded by Mr Tian, with new sensors and the fingerboard, a bow add-on, and a battery.
1987.5.4	HT-22弦控琴 Chord Control Instrument	HT-22 was the name of a small chip that Tian Jinqin wanted to use for developing a miniature simple string-controlled instrument. But it was never finished.	Never finished
1989.1.9	电子吉他 Electronic guitar	It is a kind of Hawaiian electronic guitar, later changed to force sensitive resistor diaphragm to replace the original electric string after the structure of practicality there are some problems to be overcome to improve.
1991	电子扬琴  Electronic dulcimer	Electronic dulcimer by circuit bending the interface of an existing Yamaha keyboard
1992.1	波形存储式弦控琴  Waveform Memory String Controlled Piano	This is a program that was started in 1994. The aim was to use the method of recording and storing the sound of an instrument as a sound source for performance in order to obtain a very realistic sound effect. Some results were achieved, but the research was discontinued because the “Mickey Mouse effect” (i.e., the resonance peak problem) could not be solved.
1996-2001	电脑民乐琴（华琴） （软件）  Computer Chinese Musical Instrument (Hua Qin) (Software)	The Computer Folk Music Piano, also known as Huaqin, is a musical instrument software that can be played on Windows systems. It can colorfully play the musical effects of five traditional Chinese folk instruments: flute, erhu, pipa, guzheng and guqin using the computer keyboard. Simple ensemble effects can also be played with optional midi accompaniment. Developed during Tian’s period in Shenzhen when he approached digital technologies.
2015 –	电子古筝 Electronic Guzheng	Sample-based instrument.1. Pentatonic scale rows (12356), with 4 or 7 obtainable with additional lifting keys.2. With a slice-playing keyboard.3. The main timbre is the guzheng (quadruple polyphony).4. There are eight non-guzheng timbres (e.g., guzheng shaking fingers, erhu, dongxiao, flute, violin, guqin, etc.) that can be used for soloing or ensemble work with the guzheng.5. The volume of the lead instrument guzheng and concertina instruments can be used for playing on any scale with a minor second, a major second, or a minor The volume of the lead instrument guzheng and the concertina can be controlled continuously with the left hand.7. It can be played by scraping the strings quickly in the pentatonic scale.8. When the guzheng is scraped, the slide is realized only in the last scale, so it will not produce the undesirable sound of the group slides.9. One of the particularly valuable ways of playing is that it can be realized by using the right wrist or the thumb to easily play slides or vibrato, the right wrist to play the upper slide, the right thumb to play the upper slide, the right thumb to play the lower slide, and the right wrist to play the upper slide, the right thumb to play the upper slide, and the right wrist to play the upper slide. The right wrist plays the upper slides and the right thumb plays the lower slides. This not only facilitates playing, but also frees up the left hand for more auxiliary operations, such as volume control, switching timbres, and so on.
2016	Electronic Ukelele	Sample-based instrument in the form of a one-string ukelele. It has one metallic string connected to a physical mechanism controlling the envelope. Pitches are picked pressing the string between metallic self-made frets, which serve as a button array to decide the notes.

Other Inventions

YEAR	NAME	REFERENCE ARCHIVE	PREVIEW	NOTES
1991.6.29	一人合唱团  One Man Choir	This is a design intended to transform a person’s singing into a choir effect by means of electronic processing. An article entitled “A Choir Test Circuit” was published in the journal Practical Electronics Digest, but no prototype was made.
1992	电子混响器  Electronic reverb	This is an electronic reverb realized with an electronic bucket chain BBD integrated circuit, successfully used in a portable string-controlled piano.
1993	无线话筒混响器 Wireless Microphone Reverberator	It is the addition of a wireless transmitter circuit to the Bucket Chain Reverberator, which transmits a frequency that can be picked up by a receiver next to the mixing console.
1994	手绘波形产生器  Hand-drawn waveform generator	This is an experimental device developed to quickly study the dependence of timbre on waveform. Any waveform can be drawn manually and then immediately pronounced while listening to its timbre effect. The waveform is stored in an EEPROM, which can be written and erased many times
1995.7.10	电子节拍器  Electronic metronome	This is an electronic metronome with sound and light indicators to train players or singers to recognize the isochronous nature of the beat. The metronome offers the most commonly used types of beats: 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, and can be used for training with the sound indicator on, and for recording with the light indicator to ensure that the metronome sound is not recorded.
2009.3	二胡扩律器Mechanical Tranformation of Erhu	The erhu expander is a method of expanding the erhu without changing its original structure and form by attaching external parts, so as to increase the interval of a pure fourth in the direction of the lowest note on the original basis. The result is equivalent to adding a bass string. The erhu expander is this attachment. It is purely a mechanical design.