I think a lot of this Circuit Bending business is just an excuse some adults are using to allow them to keep playing with kiddie toys. It’s a good excuse! This Chinese Animal Apple was bent by Freeform Delusion. You can buy some of their bent stuff on ebay: click here
“English & Chinese Speaking Animals Apple. Switched mono mini jack output. Rainbow LED. On/Off Toggle Switch. Pitch Up/Down Control.” – eecouk
via Matrixsynth
This entry was written by , posted on May 22, 2011 at 8:35 am, filed under circuit bending and tagged Chinese, circuit bending, circuit bent. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
If your in Chicago on June 4 be sure to go to the 4th Annual Experimental Garage Sale. I think it’s a good chance to pick up a unique “musical” instrument and talk with some top benders. Head to the official Facebook Event page to see a list of sellers: link
“12 sellers who will have plenty circuit bent devices, un-bent toys, electronic parts, kits, experimental instruments, contact microphones, guitar pedals, art, and more. The sale will begin rain or shine at 12:00 PM and last until 6:00 PM.” – getlofi.com
For more info: facebook.com/event.php?eid=108002909231786
This entry was written by , posted on May 7, 2011 at 8:39 am, filed under circuit bending and tagged circuit bending, circuit bent, Experimental Garage Sale. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Perth Australian band The Gizzards get on television rocking a NES Guitar and other bent toys. Their facebook page stats the bands influences are, “Sheds, pools, cats and casios.”. I was wondering if they would make a worthy blog post then I saw his cape: posted!
“The Gizzards performed on WTV’s FNL (Friday Night Live) show.” – ohmissjane
For more info: facebook.com/pages/The-Gizzards
via GetLoFi
This entry was written by , posted on March 19, 2011 at 4:50 pm, filed under circuit bending and tagged circuit bending, GetLoFi, guitar, Nintendo, Super Nintendo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The Sound Builders series continues with a visit to Cincinnati and Reed Ghazala. He’s got some great looking toys!
“Reed takes us into his workshop where we get a glimpse into his world of circuit bending, exploring the history and evolution of this art. Reed bends our minds by walking us through the struggles and triumphs he endured while establishing the art of circuit bending. We tinker with several of Reed’s machines, manipulating sound and opening our minds to this fascinating art form. He works on a project for Motherboard while explaining the method to this music madness, his process, his teachings, as well as the different inventions he has created over the years.” – motherboard.tv
For more episodes: motherboard.tv
This entry was written by , posted on June 6, 2010 at 5:02 am, filed under circuit bending and tagged circuit bending, motherboard tv, Reed Ghazala, Sound Builders. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Check out these modified Korg Kaoss Pad’s featured on the circuit bending blog GetLoFi. I don’t know if it’s a requirement to use vintage tv/film images but I like the effect! Here’s the two articles that tell you more about the mods and people behind them:
Modifying Kaossilator Touch Pad Area: click here
Kaoss Pad Pitch Modification w/Internal Controls: click here
Via: getlofi.com
This entry was written by , posted on May 20, 2010 at 5:06 am, filed under hardware and tagged circuit, circuit bending, GetLoFi, Kaoss, Kaoss Pad, Korg, mod, modification. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I went to the Bent Festival a few years ago. I remember walking into The Tank and immediately playing with a typewriter that was hacked/tuned to play music. This year’s Bent Festival continues to bring New York’s live Circuit Bending concerts, installations, workshops and lectures. The festival is this weekend April 22-24, 2010 at 81 Front Street in Dumbo (Brooklyn).
“The Bent Festival is an annual art and music festival celebrating DIY electronics, hardware hacking, and circuit bending. Each year we invite artists from across the country and around the globe to perform music with their home-made or circuit bent instruments, teach workshops to adults and children alike, create beautiful art installations and to generally come together, face to face, and showcase the state of the art in DIY electronics and circuit bending culture.” – bentfestival.org
For a lineup of artists and things to do: bentfestival.org
This entry was written by , posted on April 21, 2010 at 5:27 am, filed under Uncategorized and tagged Bent Festival, Brooklyn, circuit bending, circuit bent, New York. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
circuit bent Talking Computron from ::vtol:: on Vimeo.
Every time I hear a bent speech synthesizer I think of the movie THX-1138 or 2001: A Space Odyssey. This circuit bent Computron from Moskow really puts me in that 80s future mindset.
“It is similar to Speak and Math and looks cool, but it is not so interesting for circuit bending like the Texas Instruments devices.” – ::vtol::
via: Matrixsynth
This entry was written by , posted on September 30, 2009 at 4:10 am, filed under hardware and tagged circuit bending, Computron, Moskow, Speech Synthesis. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzzwsWrnvpc
Here’s a Keytar with “testículos de acero”… I will let you do the Spanish to English translation. The man behind this creation is a Circuit Bending pro who works under the project name ASMO (Anti Social Musik Order). For more info on ASMO: http://asmo23.wordpress.com/
“A friend found this in a skip, broken with wires hanging out. I fixed it, made a few modifications and gave it a nice black paint job.” – eddie23a
I wonder if he would sell me this one. I could use this on stage for sure.
This entry was written by , posted on February 15, 2009 at 7:50 am, filed under hardware, synthesizer and tagged ASMO, circuit bending, keytar, video. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The Bent Festival is a traveling roadshow where people display and perform with their Circuit Bent instruments. We all know what circuit bending is right? If you live in a city hosting one of the shows I recommend going. It’s one of those things your girlfriend will laugh at you for but it will make you a better person. Enjoy some truly interesting home brew creations ranging from the starter mod “Speak N Spell hack” to a Furbee gone berserk.
The Bent Festival is an annual art and music festival celebrating DIY electronics, hardware hacking, and circuit bending. Each year we invite artists from across the country and around the globe to perform music with their home-made or circuit bent instruments, teach workshops to adults and children alike, create beautiful art installations and to generally come together, face to face, and showcase the state of the art in DIY electronics and circuit bending culture. – www.bentfestival.org
As I mentioned in this post I went a few years ago and really enjoyed myself. Each year the festival grows and is now associated with Make Magazine which is one of my favorite reads. I saw the following video on the mighty Matrixsynth blog today:
New York – April 24-26
LA – April 17-19
Minneapolis – May 1-3
This entry was written by , posted on April 22, 2008 at 4:19 am, filed under hardware, live performance and tagged circuit bending, Make Magazine, The Bent Festival. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here is an interesting plug-in. It’s been available for PC for a few months but now that I can use it on my Mac it’s worth a post here. It’s a four channel drum machine plug-in that uses samples (PCM) and analog modeling. What’s unique is the fact that this virtual machine has been “virtually” circuit bent!
You get four pads and individual outputs. Each pad allows the usual stuff like pitch, decay, tone, pain and volume. You also have chaos and chance sliders. Chaos sets is the amount of bending and chance sets how often chaos occurs.
Inspired by a combination of several old school beat boxes and the circuit-bending culture that revolves around cheap, and old, hardware musical instruments (such as the “toy†Casio and Yamaha keyboards of the 80s), Broken Drum Machine brings the lively, “ever changing”, circuit-bent drum machine sounds to your DAW. – NUsoftting.com
You can use your own samples and even alter the GUI. When you do so you can save your changes in what NUsofting calls “Modpaks”.
Here’s a few audio samples of BDM in action from the NUsofting website:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
This plug-in is 35 euros/about $50. There’s more audio samples, demo songs and a demo version of BDM at the NUsofting website: click here
This entry was written by , posted on March 11, 2008 at 12:53 am, filed under plug-ins, sounds and tagged BDM, circuit bending, drum machine, NUSofting. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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