just curious to see if any of y'all had tried / were interested in this. i've made a few things, mostly simple sweeps / howls hooked up to pots to affect the pitch. not the most complicated sounds but still nice strong waveforms for running through effects. plus replace the pot with a photocell and you can have a make shift theremin.

the weirdest thing i ever 'made' was this kid's keyboard. i opened it, closed it, did nothing else. now for some reason it generates random noise (key presses, jumps around the demo songs) whenever i wave my hand over it. fucking bizzare.

i checked up some bendings on youtube a while ago.. i think the idea is cool, but the result wasn't always so good.. so what i think could be cool is to combine it with a sp...

now you can use it more like an instrument an not just ass a noisemaker... plus putting some sounds through the sp-efx would been cool i think..

If some1 can circuit bend my 404 to have an old school pitch control on my samples I will give them my firstborn child.

duly noted.

iG9 - do you need a good understanding of electronics to do the sort of bending you're talking about? i'd love to throw have some potentiometers controlling sweeps on some old junky equipment, but really wouldn't know where to start

sounds interesting though, especially this photocell business...

nope that's the nice thing it's really mad easy. you basically open up a DC powered (batteries, not walll powered) thing that makes noise i.e. has a speaker. you push the button or put it into demo or whatever to get it making noise, or just turn it on, and connect test leads to different soldering points on the circuit bord until something makes a noise. you can make test leads by taking two jeweler's screwdrivers and connecting them with a piece of wire with alligator clamps on the end. then when you find two spots that make a cool noise when you connect them you solder a wire between them (on both points on the chip board) with a switch in the middle so you can turn the effect on and off. if you want to alter the noise add a pot (variable resistor - volume knob) to the wire and you can do sweeps. you could also add a photocell instead of the pot which has the same effect except instead of turning a knob you wave your hand in the air over the photocell. then you dremel out holes to mount the new switch / pot / photocell or whatever, mount them on the case, close 'er up and you're done. that's the basics of what i do anyway, but i'm just a novice.

a great book that explains things very clearly is _circuit_bending_ by reed ghazala. it's cheap and so worth it. you can basically start making sonic toys armed with about $30 of radio shack gear, old kids toys and this book. and you can rape old broken electronics for pots, resistors etc and feel like a mad scientist making them work in other devices. hours of fun and toxic soldering fumes, cheap!

sweet man, thanks for the info...that's really helpful

definitely gonna check out that book. this use of photocells you describe really interests me


incidentally, why can't you bend a wall-powered device? too dangerous?

yeah if you try to bend AC powered stuff you can get electrocuted / die. not worth it imo. it's really easy though. i barely know how to solder and i can make it work. really gives you a sense of accomplishment and impresses your friends even though it's easy. you definately should get the book though. it's a very easy read and by the end you understand it. one of my squealers started picking up radio frequencies for some reason. hours of fun...

dude that's fucking insane! imagine the possibilities...


just ordered that book from amazon...very keen to get bending.
glad to find someone who could answer my questions too

good move son. message me if you have ?s but really the book makes it cake . i devoured mine when it came and it still has a prominent place on my shelf. i'll try to get some video up so you can see it work, even though it's been through a couple moves so it's kinda on its last legs. the problem with the instruments is that a lot of the bends i find have kind of a limited lifespan, i.e. they work for a while then stop and you have to crack 'em open and find another bend. i've heard that's from testing the battery leads, but i go at it pretty chaotic so i don't know. i had this kb from the mid 80s that i had a switch on that when you flipped it would make everything sound fucked up and under watery. sweet effect 'till it died. if i'd had a 404 i could have grabbed the sounds for posterity. when will my %&^$ credit card get here???