| bEnds |
A Spasm of Prime Audio Torture (for less than $5 a day) From the shop desk of Ephrom Recker, Mighty 90 workhorse. "Circuit bending" is Q. Reed Ghazala's term for the creative short circuiting of sound-making digital appliances, a field of inventive electronics Ghazala has been (im)perfecting and teaching since the late 1960s. Instruments of audio destruction can be made from almost any scavenged digital instrument (Casio keyboards, dinky drum machines, effects pedals) or toys (Speak & Spells, Veggietales toys, Furbys, Alfies, etc.). A DIY approach to electronic music, lo-fi, lo-cost, lo-learning-curve; technology without technology. The detritus of late-1980s, early-1990s mass market electronic culture, the nostalagia for pretty playthings, the desire to inflict grievous damage to the hearing of others. The utter disregard for properly complete sentences. These are a few of the items I have bent (and some toys I liked as is), almost all coming from Goodwill, Salvation Army, or other thrift stores. If it costs less than $5, takes batteries, and make a sound, it's fair game. If you are interested in learning to bend crap into better crap, check out the link to Ghazala's Anti-Theory web page on the links page. It's all you need to get started. Concertmaim-380: a slightly modified Radio Shack Realistic Concertmate-380 keyboard. One switch that sends the keyboard into random fun zones, from static to fully formed self-generating compositions. The entire first Tweeter Blower disc was recorded using only this keyboard and effects. May recently have gone to it's death. Glitchtar: a Toy 200 guitar-type toy that plays demo songs in piano, violin, and brass voices (no guitar?). Strange things happen, man. One switch turns the demo songs into clicks + static, another turns the speaker on/off. The output jack doesn't disable the internal speaker, but instead makes it into a rather powerful mic, thus the need for the additional switch. Great feedback machine, especially when run through distortion. Like a CD skipping through "European Son". Nacho Cheese Pedal: so named for its ugly fromagesque color, and the Taco Bell sticker afixed to the shell. Formerly a DOD compressor, bought second-hand for $15. Sucked for the bass guitar, sucked worse for the Concertmate, so it deserved to die. Fortunately, I didn't kill it in my surgery, and now it is a crunch-fart-atomic-bomb-blown-speaker effect. Alec Empire in a box. Currently going through a vivisection, needs some switches. Might be put to use in a grindcore band in the near future. Pianomouth: a Kidtunes keyboard my mom gave me for X-mas. A pitchbend knob, from regular tones on up to overload, Emergency Broadcast Network tones. Can turn it up to a certain level where the pitch knob reacts like a electromagnetic theremin thing. Proximity of a hand bends static tones and white noise. Added an output jack with an additional switch to turn the internal speaker/mic on/off, for feedbackiness. Wear earplugs, run in terror. Biomechanical Circus Train: a Creatoys animal/train sounds toy. Put in a series of four body contacts (wired thumbtacks) to pitch bend down. The rooster can be made to sound like a werewolf, the bells on the train make weird wobbly noises. My first successful bend, still the most simple thing. I like to make sheep noises at people. The Toe-Cutter: a Piano Fun that I broke to pieces. Not really a bent thing, just demolished. The assembly was weird and I broke off the keyboard and speaker opening the bastard. I thought it was dead until I accidentally dropped a tea spoon on it and it made a little bleep. I found that I could play it with a pair of toenail clippers, spitting out random chunks of tones. A casio bleep Arto Lindsay impersonator. Squeltchbot: okay, unbent, but eccentric. It is a Tiger Toys 2-XL tape playing robot, but doesn't quite work properly. It has a squiggly tape speed, and (the reason it keep it) plays tapes backwards. Have you ever heard the Beach Boys "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" played backwards? Through distortion? Make Rob Halford proud and kill yourself. Now. Skone: everyone needs a bent SK-1. They're just too much fun, even unbent, but, oh, the possibilities! The keyboard has a built in sample/playback function, which is a delight. My modifications consist of ten semi-random functioning sound devastation switches (four push on/off, five toggles, one momentary "soft reset"), each fuctioning differently depending on tone voice, key, etc. one causes the synth drums to cycle thru all the tone voices and also acts as a looping switch; one functions as a tremelo at some times, a strange distortion other times; one turns the sample into a screeching mess that is remarkably playable. Yanni never had it so good. (Eno either, for that matter.) Skive: modified SK-5. not finished, more when it is. Thumper: bent Yamaha DD-9 drum machine. One six position rotary switch, employing three extemely stable sound bends, one lock-up/freak-out bend, and an "off" position. Two momentary switches, one a more drastic lock-up and explode connection, and one a quick, hard reset. Hamburger Devil uses this beast. Spath: bent Speak & Math. four bends: one switch to pitch-bend up or down; one gibberish gligiddy-gliggidy-ahh-ahh-ahh switch; a loop/beatmaker switch; and one "breakdown" switch that takes the clicky beats out of the loops for a quick switchback effect. upcoming Mighty 90 release will feature heavily processed sounds from this baby. Box of Wires: pretty much precisely that. i made an attempt at turning a halloween voice-changer into an electric bass pedal before finding the whole thing unfeasible without the pain-in-the-ass of recasing. then the line-in wouldn't work. bastard. so, instead i made this monstrosity. has a new on/off switch, a line-out (1/8" jack), and three strategically placed wires. the box puts out a nice hum, and touching the wires in combinations has unusual effects: one pitch-bends up, one down, used together they create a ball of static mess; the third, on its own, adds tremelo and other effects depending on the pressure of the touch; using all three together allows you to pick up shortwave radio (i believe, at least it sounds like shortwave, possibly AM, or just aliens chatting away), with yr arm as an antenna-- voices flutter and babble, tone frequencies change depending on the weather and yr sitting position, all modified by the original voice changing circuit as well. since there was not much left to the thing after the uncasing, it is now protected by a nice, cheap wooden jewelry boxes. good thing too, 'cause the insides are pretty pathetic. Whikid: V-Tech talking Whiz-Kid Plus laptop toy. almost every bend pumps out more beautiful gibberish and glitch debris than any Speak & Whatever, plus there is tons of room for switches. sometimes words are recognizable, and sometimes they say naughty things: "Attack, Attack, Shoot, Steal." mostly, there is a large amount of glitch spew, with strange modulatng loops. everyone should stop spending their money on Speaks and go straight for these: they kick the pants off of any other "incantor" around. Bleeper: a Talk'n'Learn Numbers toys. nothing creative, as there was very little to the circuit. however, one bend causes harsh noise or very atonal, nintendo-like anti-melodies. one trick pony, but a good trick. pretty unremarkable, unless yr looking for speedy little bleepies. ranks about a 2 on the creativity level, but about a 6 for fun. Feedbacker: slightly modded Danelectro "Black Coffee" distortion pedal. tied the input to the output with a potentiometer--turned one way, it makes all incoming sounds modulate feedback tones (which are themselves manipulated by the "bass" and "treble" knobs on the unit); turned the other way, you get simultaneous clean and effected sound. need to put in an on-off switch, cuz, as it is, it feeds back continuously, but i like that, for the moment. i'm gunna start a Zombi cover band with this. Answering Machine Sampler: yup, you guessed it. a digital answering machine (Sony TAM-100), with inputs and outputs. nothing special, but it does sample a good amount of audio. i'm going to get another one and do some real bending to it. |