A little difficult

Well, I got down to the task of bending Dylan's Casio today, and it proved to be a tiny bit more difficult than I anticipated. The first surprise, was that it opened out, which makes working rather precarious. I figured out what the trouble was with the batteries. As you can plainly see the spring was bent behind a piece of plastic. I bent it back, and will most likely fix it so that won't happen again. The speaker wires were holding me up, so I un/de-soldered them from the speaker and moved it out of the case, and then reattached it.

You can see in the third picture that I had all of the parts exposed, but the side I want to solder all my wires, and what not, to is on the other side of the board. In the fourth picture you see that once the board is unscrewed, and the underside exposed, all of the switches (on/off, volume, and accompaniment volume) are now rendered useless, making the keyboard rather usless.

I spent a while trying to figure that one out. I tried to follow the circuit to soldering points and then hard wire the switches closed, but that didn't work. Then I realized that the black points that the switches connect probably act as resistors for some reason, so I added resistors to my hard wiring scheme, and it worked.

The last picture shows the working keyboard. The volume switch must be engaged for any sound to be heard, but instead of hard wiring the switch closed I just took the top part of the switch out, laid it across the connections, and put a pair of pliers on top. It does the job.

hey!

Whatever service Dylan used to ship me his casio finally came through, and it got here. It's an awful shame it didn't work. As you can see in the attached picture, there is a small, but destructive, gap between where the battery terminal is, and where it wants to be. But I plugged that hole with some aluminum foil, and everything works great now. Watch out, cause I'll be bending it with ferocity, tempered with my professional restraint, as always.

Some sounds I made

I made all of these from samples I recorded off of the instruments displayed here, using audacity.
I also included a little doodle, to fill up that empty space.

I'm tired, or bend 9

Update:

I cannibalized (more like I aided another machine in the cannibalization of this. If I had cannibalized it, I would be a machine myself) this to make something far cooler. So you can't buy it.

Think you deserve to have this? Click here then.

I worked on the lawn mower all day long, and couldn't find the time to finish bend 9 til tonight, but I did finish it, despite the odds.

It is cool, as usual. I believe it was geared to a slightly younger market, as it has no keyboard, and only plays little tunes. Thats ok.

I found the pitch, and you can control that variably. I also found a weird sound, which when combined with the pitch bend, with a little amplification, equals strange. Have a listen:







What I added:

1) A switch to activate the pitch bend
2) A switch to activate the weird bend
3) A potentiometer to control the pitch bend
4) 1/8" output, to sample, amplify, or shape tiny clay cylinders with.

Sorry once more, or bend 8

Want to buy this here thing? Well, if so click here.

I had to go out and get a new soldering iron before I could finish my latest project. Another reason it took me longer than expected was I had to make a case for it. It was the voice box out of a doll, but the original box portion was too small to add anything, so I put it all into Ernie's (from sesame street) voice box.

Any way, it works pretty well, and makes some cool sounds. It has a switch to activate the voice, a switch to activate the bend, and a potentiometer to control the bend. You flip the voice switch then flip the bend switch, then turn the knob. Pretty simple. It also has an 1/8" output, for sampling, amplifying, or hiding tiny ball bearings.

The bend usually crashes the circuit, so I included a push button switch to reset the device. It's the weird thing at the end of the yellow wires.

Sorry

Sorry I haven't posted, but I had to go to the movies yesterday, and get some sleeping done, and have just generally been lazy. I've been working on something, and I'll post it tonight I hope.

Bend7

Want to buy this? Click here.

I bent this one up quick. I think it was supposed to emulate the style of popular mp3 players. It played one song.

Well I bent it up, and now it does some pretty neat stuff. I found the pitch bends in it, but I didn't really want to waste a pot, so I put a capacitor in the pitch bend circuit. When you flip the switch to activate the bend then press play, it plays super fast, maybe too fast to hear, but as you continue to press the play button, the capacitor charges, and the pitch gets lower and lower, until it breaks down entirely.

You can either flip the on/off switch to drain the capacitor, or just wait a minute, or two. All in all I think it is a pretty cool little bend.

What I added:

1)Bend activation switch
2)1/8" output, for amplifying, or sampling

Back from the thrift store

Howdy,

I'm back from the thrift store with what is hopefully the makings for a weeks worth of bending.

I kept it simple this week, opting for voice boxes over keyboards. take a look at my haul.

I seem to remember a few things that didn't make it into the picture as well. The tape player in the top right is for the potentiometers. I can't be bothered to buy them separately.

I ought to have at least one or two things to post by the end of today, so keep watching.

Just postin'

Got my first custom job from a very special young man named Dylan. We conversed briefly via the dying art of letter writing (through a digital intermediary, aka the internet), before he insisted on having me participate in the antiquated practice of telephoning.

I jest! In all seriousness his soothing voice put me at ease, and lulled me away from whatever qualms I had, convincing me to agree to his proposition; bending his casio tonebank. (I actually had no qualms, I was pretty much on board from the get go)

It ought to be fun, and I plan to really pull out some insanity on this, though it will most likely be user friendly insanity, as per Dylan's instructions.

I think I will post a more in depth piece about my efforts, and will hopefully get some video too.

In other news, I'm goin' to the thrift store tomorrow. I have a notion that I need to buy more non-musical, sound generating toys. We'll see how it turns out.

P.S.

I'll try to fit more parenthetical statements in next time.

number 6

Update:

I cannibalized (more like I aided another machine in the cannibalization of this. If I had cannibalized it, I would be a machine myself) this to make something far cooler. So you can't buy it.

Haven't posted in a while. Mainly cause I ran out of toy keyboards to bend. I do have number six ready, or as ready as it will probably ever be. I haven't recorded anything off it, and its not for sale right now, mainly because it is too insane! take a look see.

The yellow wires go into one side of a potentiometer, while the red go into the other. It isn't really set up well, its hard to manipulate, and the holes on the yellow connectors are too small, but you can gat some pretty neat bends off it.

My favorites include :

1) Turning the melody off of demo songs. You press the button for the song of your choice, then turn the pot down and back up, and all you have is the drum beat. turn the pot back down and up, and the melody is back. Neat.

2) Custom compositions. In this setting, if you press a key, or perhaps song, I don't remember, it will play a drum beat, but make up its own melody. Actually it plays random notes, but its almost in time with the beat, and sometimes it sounds cool.

Plus it has normal pitch bends.

number 5

Have you ever thought to yourself, "Man; I wish I could see and/or buy The Preposterous Man's fifth bent keyboard"? Well today is your lucky day. (It's sold, so it might not be your lucky day)

This one is controlled entirely through what some call "body contacts", but is more accurately described as bolts, in this case. But sure does make some neato sounds:

(It may get boring, but I saved the best for last, so listen all the way through)



You see, you place your fingers on the bolts, which are attached to wires, which are attached to contact points on the circuit board. Your body conducts electricity, with a high resistance, thus creating some of the wackiest sounds ever heard.

The good news is that I got this one to make the cool sound number three made, but it can be reproduced, and controlled to an extent, with this instrument.

What did I add?:

1) Four bolts
2) One hex screw
3) one 1/8" output (It's sort of noisy, but it was the same with the other one of these I had)

bend4

If you are real keen on buying this sucker, click here.

I made this one yesterday, and took some pictures of me doing it as well.

The only bend this one has is pitch, but not normal pitch. As you turn the knob, and the frequency gets lower and lower, the sounds start to break down into a jumble of rhythmic squeaks, tones, and a million other sounds.

The reason why I didn't post it yesterday, when I made it, was I didn't know how to record all of the sounds it made. I still don't; so what I did was record a few interesting sounds, and in the future, I might post more.

Good thing about this keyboard is that it has a volume control, which just limits the volts. When the bend is activated this lowers the pitch even more.



What I did:

1) Added a switch to activate the bend

2) Added a knob (potentiometer) to control the bend (pitch)

3) Rewired the 1/8" input (did virtually nothing as designed) to be an output, for sampling, or amplifying.

Sounds:

Volume button:


Snare drum:


Symbol:

the coolest sound yet

This sound came from my third bend (I probably should name my instruments). It does not currently make this sound, but while I was working some bugs out I recorded this:

bend 3

UPDATE:

I cannibalized (more like I aided another machine in the cannibalization of this. If I had cannibalized it, I would be a machine myself) this to make something far cooler. So you can't buy it.

Want to buy this? Click here

Here is my third bent keyboard.

I added one switch, and a variable control knob, or potentiometer if you prefer, which activates, and controls, the bend. This is really a noise generator as the bend doesn't really follow any rules. As you turn the knob all sorts of craziness happens. You can get a lot of weird sounds out of this.

I have also included an eighth inch output jack, which is in mono, for sampling.

Do to the way I built it, the sounds tend to change, but it's all good. Listen to the last sample first.



Normal, unbent:


All bent out:

keyboard number 2

Want to buy?

All the samples are at the bottom. Listen to the last one, it shows off what this keyboard can really do.

This little keyboard is my second bend. It is pretty crudely built, but is solid, and works pretty great. I added three switches, and a variable control knob, which activate, and control, about six or seven bends. Its hard to keep count, because I wired it so you could have different switch combinations do different things. I have mapped out all known bends, and will include a "manual"(one sheet of paper) of switch combo's. Here are the functions I added to it:

1) fast
2) slow
3) normal, which fades into another slow, when the knob is turned
4) synth instrument 1, a and b
5) synth instrument 2, a and b
6) pause

The knob can control all of the bends to some degree. Due to the way I built it the sounds that the synth instrument settings produce will change as the machine warms up. You can get a lot of weird sounds out of this.

I have also included an eighth inch output jack, which is in stereo (mono on both channels), for sampling. It is sort of noisy, and I did some noise reduction on the samples, although I think I was recording at too high a volume anyway.

Its also got about 14 (the number of white keys) songs on the demo feature, but they may not all be available with certain bends activated, I didn't test that. I don't really know what else people want to know about circuit bent stuff, so if I have left anything out, please ask.