Circuit Bending

Retro thing has a post up on Reed Ghazala's new book titled, "Circuit-Bending: Build Your Own Alien Instruments." I'm with James of Retrothing in not messing with the old and increasingly rare vintage synths. Circuit bending is NOT synth modding. Modding usually ads functionality to a synth maintaining it's original sound and design - think adding audio input, midi or adding PWM to a synth. It ADDS to the synth. Circuit bending usually completely alters the device by creating bridges between circuits that weren't meant to be there. In a sense it's mutilating the device into something completely different. Interesting, but not something I'd want to happen to old synths. I always cringed when Trent Reznor trashed a synth on stage, well I guess DX7s were ok. : ) Joking aside, fortunately circuit bending has been relatively limitted to toys and cheap home keyboards.

Click here for Reed's Ghazala's circuit bending page. Make sure to check out his home page for more of his work and an interesting home page. : )

From his site:
"Circuit-bending is an electronic art which implements creative audio short-circuiting. This renegade path of electrons represents a catalytic force capable of exploding new experimental musical forms forward at a velocity previously unknown. Anyone at all can do it; no prior knowledge of electronics is needed. The technique is, without a doubt, the easiest electronic audio design process in existence.

The circuit-bent instrument, often a re-wired audio toy or game, is an alien instrument: alien in electronic design, alien in voice, alien in musician interface. Through this procedure, all around our planet, a new musical vocabulary is being discovered. A new instrumentarium is being born."

For fun I searched for "circuit bent" on the bay. Check out this circuit bent SK-1 currently up for auction.