C I R C U I T BENDERS

‘The art of inflicting various forms of sonic buggery on the carcass of a helpless musical toy’

http://www.circuitbenders.co.uk/
http://www.circuitbenders.co.uk/forum/

Kutchi – Distortia
[audio:http://www.circuitbenders.co.uk/demos/distortia.mp3]

Circuit Bending was a term first used by bending pioneer Reed Ghazala, to refer to the art of taking an ordinary electronic toy such as a Texas Instruments Speak&Spell, and rewiring the circuitry to produce a device capable of creating all manner of wierd and unlikely sounds.

Creations such as Ghazala’s popular ‘incantor’ series have become the stuff of legend. The unwilling participants in these sonic crimes are early Texas Instruments machines, Speak&Spell, Speak&Maths and Speak&Read. Originally intended as pre-school educational toys, the fact that these machines utilise the first form of commercial speech synthesis makes them ideal for circuit bending. Due to the circuitry being so primitive and un-integrated it is possible to create all kinds of feedback loops and glitches within the electronics resulting in 8 bit sounds unlike anything you have ever heard before.

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At Circuitbenders we produce a variety of Circuit Bent instruments including custom bent Speak&Spell / Maths machines and modifications for Roland TR drum machines, Casio SK-1 & SK-5 sampling keyboards and Yamaha VSS keyboards along with other more random instruments. We’ll even have a go at bending anything you can send to us within reason. Take a look at the SHOP page or use the forms at the bottoms of each page to contact us and see what we’ve got or what we can build for you.