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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."
Electronic toys have also been known to melt (well, 'bend') when the batteries start running low.
-- If you can read this, you are too close to my signature.
I remember reading a story about how an HP engineer set up a row of printers (I think it was 12, in total) and he programmed the servos to sing "Happy Birthday" for a fellow engineer... I wish I could remember more details but I'm in no state to look up details right now.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
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Try listening to Einstuerzende Neubauten. I'm sure that they've used something that sounds like that in at least one of their songs.
And that way you can save yourself another keyboard.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
Apparently from reading comments on this board so far, most people seem to be offended by experimental music. "You call that music? That's just noise!". Believe it or not, Noise actually is a genre of music and has a rather large following. I don't care if you don't like it, but I could just as easily criticize whatever MTV or Classical Rock things you are all listening to.
Remember, people used to say the same thing about Rock N' Roll, which in my opinion is a completely stale genre. Try and open your minds a bit to things you don't understand.
Led Zeppelin used it to great effect. Here is the Beach Boys using it in Good Vibrations
One would venture to call this a 'bender' device since it is functionally the same as a metal detector, and works by sensing the proximity of the player's hands to the antennae.
Any other similar devices or early bender apps?
I read all the comments to this point, and saw no mention of industrial.
It started at least 15 years ago (though some other versions may have started earlier)...in Germany.
They recorded (sampled) industrial noise, and mixed it together with vocals, percussion (indeed, some bands used the sampled noises AS vocals and percussion) to make music. Skinny Puppy is a great example.
Just thought I'd bring it up.