Web Simulation of the ZB-6
A virtual ZB-6 whose configuration you can change with just a click.
Try It Yourself
Here is a WebBoard that simulates how a Z-Board works. You can choose from a variety of tunings. (More about that below.) When you click a key, you will get a little popup window that tells you what note would play. The symbol ‘©’ marks the note middle C.
If your browser is advanced enough (currently, this means Apple Safari or Google Chrome), and you check the “Play sounds” button, you will hear actual notes.
Tunings
Each horizontal row of keys gives you the notes from a single string of a conventional stringed instrument. The musical interval between each row (“string”) can be a perfect fourth (like a bass), a perfect fifth (like a violin, viola, cello, or mandolin), or the pattern can follow that of a guitar.
- For guitar players, the standard guitar tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E) will be the most familiar. The musician can choose visual cues either of conventional dot-inlay pattern or the white-black of the piano (C major) scale.
- For bass players, one of the tunings in fourths will be the most familiar. The low string on a standard bass is tuned to E (41 Hz); for a 5-string or “extended” bass, it is usually tuned to B (31 Hz).
- A standard violin or mandolin is tuned G-D-A-E (low to high, G is one below middle C, at 196 Hz). Those would correspond to the middle four rows of keys on a ZB-6. This range is extended by one row below and one above, giving the wider tuning of C-G-D-A-E-B.
- For a viola player, the middle four rows can be tuned C-G-D-A; all six rows will extend that to F-C-G-D-A-E.
- A cello tuning would be the same as a viola tuning, but an octave lower.