APR 04 | Circuit-Bending | Proposals

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Read Before Class

Discussion led by: N/A

• “Tickle the Clock” from Handmade Electronic Music by Nic Collins
  (includes historical notes about the Composers Inside Electronics group)
• The Art of the Impossible by D’Arcy Philip Gray (originally published in Musicworks: Issue #69, Winter 1997)

Optional reading

• Soldering and Electronic Parts pages from “Circuit Bending” by Reed Ghazala

In Class

• Bring an electronic sound toy to mangle and cajole into an otherworldy contraption.
  (Battery-powered only please!) Things that play recorded sound-effects are often the most fruitful. Complex devices like keyboards are usually not, but feel free to try one anyway. Risks are encouraged and some failure is expected
• Final Project Proposals are due today. Bring a written description for me and be prepared to talk about it in class. (2hrs total)
  
• We will experiment in class, finding opportunistic short-circuits and discussing basic electronics through experimentation
  (capacitors, resistors, potentiometers, switches, buttons, etc.)

Screening

• none

Further Research – Artists and Musicians

• Circuit-bending isn’t just about making wacky sounds. In 1989, the Barbie Liberation Organization swapped the digital voice-boxes of 300 Barbies and GI Joe dolls, then returned them to store shelves. A (faux?) AP news article published in the 1990′s zine “Unit Circle” and “Home Surgery Instructions” (pdf) describing their not-so-simple hack.
• BENT Festival – every Spring at The Tank
• Tristan Perich is a musician who programs microcontrollers to produce “1-bit music”. One of his releases is a circuit inside a CD case. It produces an album-length composition via the included headphone jack.
• Sonic Arts Union LP on UbuWeb
• Gordon Mumma and his “cybersonic” devices (ubuweb tracks) ff
• David Tudor’s diagram for Rainforest IV, and an extensive interview.
• Chinese electronic music band FM3 created their own chant-box inspired looping machine and released it like an “album”. It’s called the “FM3 Buddha Machine.”
• I circuit-bent Buddhist chant-boxes so ambient light controls the pitch.

Further Research – Electronics Resources

• GetLoFi is a circuit-bending site with excellent kits and advice.
• Beavis Audio Research is similar to GetLoFi, with an emphasis on DIY stomp-boxes and effects. Check out their excellent guide to CMOS “1-bit” synthesizers, which paraphrases a lot of the info from the Nic Collins book Handmade Electronic Music (today’s reading, BTW).
• My printable resistor color code chart for decoding the value of resistors using their colored bands.
• SAW3 voice recorder [Sold out in 2010 - boo hoo!], a 30-second digital recorder that was included in a DVD set that never sold, now available from All Electronics for $2. (They sell other cheap electronic parts too.) Here’s how to bend it.
• Radio Shack “9V Recording Module”, a 20-second digital recorder
• Radio Shack sells photoresistors and potentiometers that you might want to use in “clock”-related  circuit-bends. (The 1Mega-ohm potentiometer in the link is a good value for most circuits.)
• Argo Electronics is one of the last remaining Canal St. surplus dealers. Give them a look.
• If you continue working with electronics, you’ll need a soldering iron. The ones at Radio Shack are crap. I recommend the Weller WTCPS (circa 1980, $40-$80 used). It is temperature controlled, so it warms-up fast and never overheats. It is designed to be repaired, and parts are available. Your solder won’t bead up and roll off the tip like it does on all Radio Shack soldering irons. It includes a stand and a sponge so you won’t burn your apartment down. Also consider the ultra-cheap but excellent modern ones from Circuit Specialists.
• The Drawdio! A little oscillator circuit that responds to resistive surfaces like pencil lines, streams of water, etc. If you’re experimenting, I recommend this version. It runs on a 9V battery, drives a speaker directly, and uses very few parts.  (PAiA electronics offers something similar: free plans or a simple kit that can be constructed without even soldering anything!)
• No resources list would be complete without the famous Engineer’s Mini Notebooks by Forrest M. Mims III, previously sold by Radio Shack. Within those yellowed pages you can find hundreds of circuit diagrams for LED flashers, tone generators, solar battery chargers, light-sensitive switches, and more. Mims made sure that the parts were available from Radio Shack, and most of them still are. These days you can find similar projects online, but most of them are pretty badly documented, so I refer to these books often.