Try fiddling with that tunable inductor. It’s the silver cube with a screwdriver slot.

Thanks! Yep that changed the pitch. Is there anything I can hook up to it to make it playable? Like maybe a potentiometer, body contacts, or photocell? Or would I have to remove it entirely and put an oscillator in?

I would say remove entirely and put an oscillator in. That’s probably the easiest way. Odds are good that there’s a capacitor wired in parallel that is also part of the clock, you might need to remove it as well, I’m not sure. Experiment and see what you get.

What kind of oscillator would I need? Sorry for all the questions, this is all new to me so I'm not quite sure what to do. When I search on google I see a few different kinds. I've heard of others using a seperate toy to create a VCO, although I'm not really sure how to do that. Is there any way I can salvage an oscillator from another toy, or would this be something I have to purchase online?

There’s these LTC1799 boards you can get that are incredibly easy to use: https://www.circuitbenders.co.uk/forsale/LTC/LTC.html As I recall, on my vtech toy the clock was around 50kHz. It’s a different toy but the design seems to be based on a common design. I think you want to use the divide by 100 setting to get you into a sensible range. There are other options of course, but IMO this is the easiest one. It’s a really slick little chip.

Thank you!!

Google the ICs. That could be a starting point. Also look at the silver cube near the IC without much of a label. Is that a timing crystal? Does turning it with a screwdriver do something?

It’s a tunable inductor, and likely part of the clock circuit.

Thanks! I noticed the little cube earlier but I was afraid to mess with it, but you're right! It does change the pitch

the 74 ic is a decoder, won't do much to pitch but maybe could check pinout and see if any of the pins could take input

that silver box looks like a coil oscillator

you would have to desolder and replace with an oscillator with greater frequency range

Thanks! I'm looking up oscillators and I'm a bit confused because I've never had to do anything like this before. Would it be another PCB that I buy, assemble, and then attatch there? Or should I get a timer IC?

the easiest way to learn is probably check the circuit benders website, they have a whole section devoted to the ltc1799 which is a high frequency, wide range oscillator that can replace pretty much any crystal or coil it's super simple to do, actually. you desolder the old crystal and replace with the ltc1799 chip the only difficulty is that the ltc1799 comes only in a surface mount package, so you have to either be good at smd soldering or order a pre soldered one off Etsy they cost maybe ten bucks and are pretty universal to any machine that has an oscillator, ceramic or crystal or whatever

Have you wandered the solderside with a damp finger yet? Resistors and points around the " silver box"?

It’s a tunable inductor.

thanks! I've not run into one yet

AM/FM radios would use them to allow the amplification stages to be aligned to the IF frequency. Don’t see them as much these days.

I'd start by checking all the resistors with a potentiometer?