I bought and built this unit in the early eighties and loved it! Construction was easy and a lot of fun. The instructions were precise, clear, and generous. Built on a top octave generator, it used frequency dividers to get the different octaves for each note.
The unit included a string section and a piano (the “things”) section. The strings sounded great but what really made them come alive was the built-in phlanger. Kicked in and tweaked, it changed the string sound from nice to lush. Absolutely beautiful!
The piano section was also nice though to a purist, it was probably a bit on the drab side. I remember that there were inputs and outputs where you could attach effects that might have changed the sound some. I seem to remember trigger and gate outputs that could interface with a modular.
Overall, I loved this little keyboard, but at the same time, "little" says it all. With only 37 notes, there was not a lot of room to do much. For me, that was not a big problem but to a real intense player, it probably would not do. Consider it a “one handed” keyboard.
I had a lot of fun building this kit and had not a single problem in the process. Somewhere my Strings and Things is floating around out there in keyboard world since I had to sell it with my other gear in the late eighties. Wish I still had it but will never pay those ridiculous prices I've seen it for on e-bay. If you can find one at a reasonable price, it is definitely worth it. Rock on PAIA!
Released: Early 80's | 
