I am 33, an amateur musician and noise / experimental friend for over 15 years now.
Early years I mostly sequenced in computer programs from AMIGA MOD format in PC soundcard, then MIDI orchestrations. Later years I bought more equipment, last years I got | proper roland synth [sh201] , percussions, real drums and got invloved more into expression playing, jamming improvisations and performance in my little home studio.
I had heard of this circuit bending for some time now and loved it, and even though I have had electronics training in uni, I never really got invoved with it, and didn't think I would have chances to make it... even though it always interested me.
Couple days ago, I stumbled an awesome circuit bending site,
http://weltenschule.de/ and a spend the entire night reading there. After some hours of readiong about what kind of keyboards are more suitable for bending, I thought of looking about Yahama psr - 6, my first keyboard as | child, which I had left in a friend for years. I found out it is pretty suitable for bending, also some nice videos in youtube.
This had me interested again, but this time I thought I could make it, at least have a nice time experimenting with a wire!
I understand basics of circuits, when they are reasonably small but I never got deep into it. I understand part of what is discussed by advanced users, and learn something, and I hope I can be helped without being a pain in the ass due to my lack of skills and knowledge. I am pretty willing to learn though, and I am pretty hot on this new activity, at least making a couple of decent attempts.
I also bought a cheap toy keyoard with which I experimented a bit and actually made it to create some wacky sounds , even though it is not directly altering the tone played by keyboards - cant experiment further with that if I dont buy a soldering pen.
I found out that an ARION stereo flanger I got is also ideal for bending, and also I managed to created interesting sounds with it playing with a wire.
Finally I got the PSR-6 from that friend and opened it up, but didn't get to experiement.
I did all these preparation [weekend] with no soldering equipment and crocodiles, so what I could do was quite limited. Tomorow I am grabbing materials.
Maybe I could share the experimentations here in this thread, and I would love it if I received a feedback of any kind.
YAMAHA PSR-6
SHEN KONG [cheap ass toy keyboard I bought to experiment so as not to spoil the psr]
this has a TDA2822M, which is mostly used as an amplifier. Despite this is a pretty small circuit, depending to the psr, I cannot understand much, lol, f.e. if the TD2822 is indeed an amplifier and the sound/osc generators are on the vertical mini circuit shown or something else - to be on the safe side, I tried to avoidthe possibility of shortcircuiting its pins. I have managed to create sounds short-circuiting couple pins near the TDA2822 pins to pins near the speaker, 4 different frequencies, I think they were x, 2x, 4x, 8x , from the sound of it. Connecting an old potentiometer I found and using 2 pair of hands, as I had no crocodiles, I managed to tweek the sounds in all 4 tones. This was really delighting.
I am not sure if this is considered circuit bending, as this might be not a proper osc signal but a feedback.
anyway, not sure, But I thought I could share my experiences!
ARION stereo FLANGER SFL-1