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[tony65]

right where do i start

i'm completly new to all this , and i'm after making some serious harsh noise project
but i'm completely at a loss as to what equipment i need , bought a couple of items recently but think i'm heading in the wrong path , what do i need , from start to finish , any help here would be of great help

and when i say start from the beginning i mean it , complete novice , so i need to know all most everything from amps to leads and finally music making

cheers
tony

[tony65]

c,mon

someone surely could give me some idea , 16 views and no reply's , c'mon and help a newbe to the scene

cheers

[Circuitbenders]

I suspect the problem might be that your question is about the widest ranging thing that you could possibly ask. Combine that with the fact that theres probably a million different answers and things get a bit tricky. 

Are you asking about getting started in circuitbending or in creating music from the ground up with no previous knowledge? If its the latter then my advice won't be the most useful as despite, or probably because, of the fact that i've written electronic music for about 15 years, i don't really use computers.

If you're after some hideously brutal live noise i guess you won't go far wrong with some basic DIY synths, a circuitbent sampler or two, a shitload of guitar pedals and some method of recording and mixing it. That is, if you actually want to record and mix it.

Theres plenty of information about this stuff on the forum and around the net. Theres a thread about what tools and gear you'll need to start bending here http://www.circuitbenders.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,509.0.html and in a couple of other places on this forum. Our basic getting started guide is here http://www.circuitbenders.co.uk/tips.html although i'm sure theres a fair few guides out there.

[tony65]

yeah basically thats it , maybe my question was a little wide ranged

and what you have wrote is already a help , and i will be asking you guys to modify some things for me , just purchased a speak and spell for £15 on gumtree , i want that modifying , and sent you a message on the contact form , what i would ike to know is what is the best software to use on a computer for this , there are so many , if anyone knows it would be of great help , i find this forum and website fantastic and have heard noises from machines i never thought possible , can you modify any synth , and i mean basic synths ?? , also just got myself a korg monotron can that be modified too , if so can it be done hear??

any help input would be excellent

Tony

[Gordonjcp]

You could add a socket to pass audio through the Monotron's filter.  Don't bother looking for "distortion" bends; save yourself some time and bung it through a fuzzbox.  If you don't have one, make one.  Make several, in fact, because you can never have too many fuzzboxes.

If you're into building stuff with Arduinos you might want to take a look at my Github repository which has got some simple Arduino-based synths, including one which mauls samples in a glitchy way.  Everything in there needs some work, so don't expect it to be instant ;-)

Have a chewed-up Amen break.

You can modify the insides of samplers, or you can just fire odd random bits of noise into them from a PC and play about with that.  Audacity has an "import raw file" function which you can use to open any file whether it makes sense to do so or not.  By chopping files about and timestretching or pitchshifting bits of them you can make some quite complex evolving textures, or big crunchy percussive noises.

Good luck with it ;-)

[tony65]

cheers

and thanks for the imput , all help is appreciated

tony

[Circuitbenders]

just purchased a speak and spell for £15 on gumtree , i want that modifying , and sent you a message on the contact form ,

Just working through the weekend email backlog, but to be honest if you wanted to get started in circuitbending yourself, i probably couldn't think of  a better target than a speak & spell, or even a monotron. Speak & Spell machines are well documented, difficult to kill, capable of some excellent bent effects and a good introduction to bending techniques.
The same could be said of the monotron. I've never modded one myself but it looks like it'd be a perfect introduction to modding basic analogue gear and theres plenty of documented mods out there by now.

can you modify any synth , and i mean basic synths ?? ,

Well, thats what circuitbending is all about. Finding out just what you can do with stuff. You can probably modify just about anything in some manner, but whether there would be any point or not is a different matter entirely.

[electoyd]

there is probably different aspects of circuit bending that you need to think about, when you start it is best to keep it simple start on machines that don't cost very much.  I would say even coughing up 50quid for a monotron is prob too much if it may not make it through the first bending session. 
Go to a car boot sale fill a large bag up with crap electronics/simple keyboards and play about with them, add audio outs (simple jack socket to speaker), try and find resistor pitch bends, do some random short circuiting avoiding the area where the power comes in.  Working with these things helps you get used to working with electronics and taking things apart before you start blowing up the expensive stuff.  Keep your speak and spell till you've done some of the basics, 15quid is a good  price.
Get a large stock of components if your serious about it (jack sockets (or equiv), spst/spdt switches wire. pliers, all sizes screwdrivers soldering iron, potentiometers of diff sizes (1k 10k, 100k, 470k or 1meg), because you rattle through them and it is brutal to have to go to maplins to buy a switch for 3quid because you urgently need one.
I think the key to this is building your skills slowly but steadily, just so you understand what your doing/want to do-it's not a race always worth remembering that.
Also try to experiment as much as you can don't just get bend schematics and copy them, its cool to do abit of that but also good to try and find a fresh outlook or even a machine that no one has done yet.

[Gordonjcp]

Well, there's not really anything you can break in a Monotron!  It's all cheap readily-available bits, so if you do somehow manage to zorch something in a feat of spectactular boneheadedness you can fix it.  It's not like a Speak'n'Spell where you can wreck it beyond repair because the custom ICs are very fragile.

[Circuitbenders]

oh yeah, i forgot about the prices of speak & spells these days. Still, i have found them difficult to kill accidently. Obviously apart from the power supply board, and everyone should have the fun of rebuilding an S&S power supply board at some point in their bending careers. Best to get it over with at the start   

[selfpreservation]

Well, there's not really anything you can break in a Monotron!  It's all cheap readily-available bits, so if you do somehow manage to zorch something in a feat of spectactular boneheadedness you can fix it.  It's not like a Speak'n'Spell where you can wreck it beyond repair because the custom ICs are very fragile.

i broke my monotron osc doesnt work  its just a filter these days in a new box with proper input and output bypass the headphone amp , cv vcf and gate for LFO triggering , best thing that ever happened to it tbh the osc was balls without an envelope and not i can trigger the lfo with a gate

[Gordonjcp]

well, fix it then!  Jeez, there's nothing to them.  How on earth did you manage to break it, anyway?  Are you particularly prone to breaking crowbars in sandpits?

[tony65]

there is probably different aspects of circuit bending that you need to think about, when you start it is best to keep it simple start on machines that don't cost very much.  I would say even coughing up 50quid for a monotron is prob too much if it may not make it through the first bending session. 
Go to a car boot sale fill a large bag up with crap electronics/simple keyboards and play about with them, add audio outs (simple jack socket to speaker), try and find resistor pitch bends, do some random short circuiting avoiding the area where the power comes in.  Working with these things helps you get used to working with electronics and taking things apart before you start blowing up the expensive stuff.  Keep your speak and spell till you've done some of the basics, 15quid is a good  price.
Get a large stock of components if your serious about it (jack sockets (or equiv), spst/spdt switches wire. pliers, all sizes screwdrivers soldering iron, potentiometers of diff sizes (1k 10k, 100k, 470k or 1meg), because you rattle through them and it is brutal to have to go to maplins to buy a switch for 3quid because you urgently need one.
I think the key to this is building your skills slowly but steadily, just so you understand what your doing/want to do-it's not a race always worth remembering that.
Also try to experiment as much as you can don't just get bend schematics and copy them, its cool to do abit of that but also good to try and find a fresh outlook or even a machine that no one has done yet.

thanks for that imput , it makes sense in many ways , and i will be doing a lot of bending soon enough , but this speak and spell i would really like someone with plenty of knowledge to do this for me , in that case i can have a serious look at the kinda work needed , then as you say trawl carboots/charity shops for other stuff , so if someone could do this first model for me i really would appreciate that , any offers  , as for the monotron , i paid £31 from ebay which i thought was a desent price , so i wouldnt be too reluctant to have a dabble with that , but again thanks for all your replies , i'm completely hooked on this subject....cheers

tony

[tony65]

just purchased a speak and spell for £15 on gumtree , i want that modifying , and sent you a message on the contact form ,

Just working through the weekend email backlog, but to be honest if you wanted to get started in circuitbending yourself, i probably couldn't think of  a better target than a speak & spell, or even a monotron. Speak & Spell machines are well documented, difficult to kill, capable of some excellent bent effects and a good introduction to bending techniques.
The same could be said of the monotron. I've never modded one myself but it looks like it'd be a perfect introduction to modding basic analogue gear and theres plenty of documented mods out there by now.

can you modify any synth , and i mean basic synths ?? ,

Well, thats what circuitbending is all about. Finding out just what you can do with stuff. You can probably modify just about anything in some manner, but whether there would be any point or not is a different matter entirely.

i saw a video on youtube about modifying a monotron , the sounds from it were simply fantastic , its something i really wanna do myself , but i think kids toys could be the way to learn before i do that.

tony

[electoyd]

Well, there's not really anything you can break in a Monotron!  It's all cheap readily-available bits, so if you do somehow manage to zorch something in a feat of spectactular boneheadedness you can fix it.  It's not like a Speak'n'Spell where you can wreck it beyond repair because the custom ICs are very fragile.

It's more the fact everything is miniature in a monotron and if you have practically zero experience with electronics i don't think that surface mount components are the best way to gain the kind of experience you need in circuit bending.  Most of the people i know that do this hate surface mount due to it's fiddly nature, but i know thats what you deal with day in day out Gordon so its probably second nature to you. 

As for you speak and spell Tony, why pay someone else to do it when you could probably do it your self in a couple of months after some practise.  Most of the fun of this 'art' is doing it yourself and learning, set yourself a goal that you want to build up to the speak and spell, look at some schematics and hone your skills in that area.  When i first got into circuit bending i found an sk5 at the car boot sale and wasn't sure enough to do it myself and got my friend (that got me into circuit bending) to do it.  I regretted that later because it robbed me off the chance to build it to my own taste, which is the beauty of circuit bending building machines to your own spec.

good luck now