Circuit Bending

[SneakyPope]

Hey,
Ive just started to get into Circuit Bending. Does anyone here have any experience with it, and could give me some tips and/or sound clips of things that you have made. I blew up my first two projects, but my latest one (a casio) is going pretty good. Thanks alot, happy Bending.

_Pearl.

[guitarjockey111]

hmmm never heard of it could you maybe go into some more detail about it?

[Griffon]

I've circuit bent a Dano Fab Metal to pretty good results. Pretty decent synth drones, all controllable from the guitar...check out www.experimentalistsanonymous.com for more circuit bending info. The guys on that board know a lot more than me.

[What5647]

so, bending is just slang for modding/altering? if so, i've got some stuff planned, but i haven't had the cash to make that initial investment. (in tools, parts, and the stuff i want to mod) i'm getting a degree in electrical engineering, so i do plan on doing at least a few mods of some sort.

[LWatford]

I did a casio one time...worked great. Don't have any tips, I used a test probe and just shorted different things together till I go what I wanted.

[Griffon]

Bending is modification of things, but not in the typical sense. The idea behind bending is generally to create an instrument out of things that were not instruments before, or to make instruments do things they never did before. A lot of 'benders' use body contacts and LDR's, as well as traditional pots to control the bends they've discovered. Very popular bending subjects are electronic childrens toys, like 'Speak and x' toys that can be got on ebay for a few bucks. Bends create feed back loops for synthy drones, pitch shifting, warping, etc. Guitar pedal bending is like the bastard child of true circuit bending. Other people bend cheap keyboards. Most circuits that make noise can be bent to some extent.

[What5647]

so is alot of this done through trial and error, or by findind schematics and figuring out waht to do? also, how much of the existing compnents are used? i guess i'm not getting it, i'm picturing adding alot to the item, not just a few pots or something. is this kinda like how i once got an old handheld game to sound like a siren by messing with a few wires when i was a little kid?

i'll add my line of thought is that it'd be easier to custom-design a circuit to do what i want to do, rather than ahve to mess with a pre-existing one.

[LWatford]

http://www.circuit-bent.net/

one site with examples.

[Griffon]

so is alot of this done through trial and error, or by findind schematics and figuring out waht to do? also, how much of the existing compnents are used? i guess i'm not getting it, i'm picturing adding alot to the item, not just a few pots or something. is this kinda like how i once got an old handheld game to sound like a siren by messing with a few wires when i was a little kid?

i'll add my line of thought is that it'd be easier to custom-design a circuit to do what i want to do, rather than ahve to mess with a pre-existing one.

yeah, you're getting it. Circuit bending is more about happy accidents than anything else.

[What5647]

ah, i gotcha now. sounds like it even might be fun if it fries, we all know how much fun it is to let the magic smoke out. :yep:
(if anyone from my electronics classes ever reads this, they'll know what i mean)

[Griffon]

yeah, I know what you mean.

[tht00]

ah, i gotcha now. sounds like it even might be fun if it fries, we all know how much fun it is to let the magic smoke out. :yep:
(if anyone from my electronics classes ever reads this, they'll know what i mean)

Yeah. Magic smoke. The EET profs at Purdue used that. :yep: :lol: