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Consumer Electronics Make Music
metoikos writes "Forget about hacking your Gameboy -- what about cat toys or Teddy Ruxpins? Any of these is fair game to a circuit bending hobbyist. Essentially, circuit bending is the art of making interesting noises come out of re-engineered consumer electronics, mostly toys.
Bending recently came into the spotlight when a number of news organizations discovered the 2004 Bent Festival at New York's Tank.
Derek Sajbel, a bender from California, is writing a book/doing a documentary on it." BishopBerkeley writes "Circuit bending has apparently been going on long enough among a large enough contingent of benders to merit a weeklong festival dedicated to bending circuits. The art is largely a process of making musical instruments by 'bending' the circuits of fairly common electronic instruments and gadgets. According to this article in the New York Times people have been making rather interesting music by modifying the strange toys with which a lot of us grew up. If you're near Manhattan, and you didn't know about the Bent Festival, then think about going. You can find more info at the official circuit bending web site."
Bah. If you want to know circuit bending, check it out from the real masters...
I've been torturing electronics for years, and have some personal instruments that make sounds no commercial synthesizer could ever do.
If you think that's cool, look for a copy of the CD "Symphony for Dot Matrix Printers" by [The User], as previously discussed on Slashdot. It's excellent.
Not quite as good, but still worth buying, is "Xerophonics"
Of course, circuit bending is how popular electronic music started. Kraftwerk were building their own instruments from scavenged parts in 1970.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Needless to say, something as odd as circuit bending doesn't have an "official" web site. However, the person widely credited with starting and popularizing circuit bending is Reed Ghazala, and his site is http://www.anti-theory.com/. Got to give credit where credit is due, folks... More information on bending and other amazing experimental musical instruments is available at http://www.oddmusic.com.