A Good, Concise Guide to Circuit Bending

i'm looking for a solid piece of instructional media..youtube videos, a book, some websites, whatever. preferably illustrated and concise. i've done some circuit bending before and i went to college for music so i don't want anything dumbed down, but its been a while since i've seen the business end of a soldering iron so i do need a bit of hand holding....

i wanna start small then go big! who has books they love?

reed ghazala is one of the originators

and i would say his website ( http://www.anti-theory.com/ )

but it appears to be down :(

cached copy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.anti-theory.com/

I would be interested in this as well. I saw a cheap ass keyboard "synth" toy at walmart for like 15 bucks. IDK if I could do anything with it, but it would be fun to see what I can do.

I suggest building kits, fuck circuit bending.

  On 4/9/2010 at 6:16 AM, Hautlle said:

I would be interested in this as well. I saw a cheap ass keyboard "synth" toy at walmart for like 15 bucks. IDK if I could do anything with it, but it would be fun to see what I can do.

open it up, connect one random pin on the board to another with a wire and voila - your first bend ! (That's what I did anyway, freaked the crap out of my niece whose keyboard it was though ....)

  On 4/9/2010 at 6:29 AM, Glass Plate said:

I suggest building kits, fuck circuit bending.

Kits are cool, but not quite the same as bending imo. It's one thing to build from the ground up and another to take something that exists and make it do things it "not supposed to do". I've been looking at this kit (not avilable yet) http://mutable-instruments.net/shruti1 Any other suggestions of where to find interesting DIY kits? I've checked out the PAiA site, but their stuff doesn't really interest me. I'm more interested in small portable things.

  On 4/9/2010 at 1:20 PM, mcbpete said:

  On 4/9/2010 at 6:16 AM, Hautlle said:

I would be interested in this as well. I saw a cheap ass keyboard "synth" toy at walmart for like 15 bucks. IDK if I could do anything with it, but it would be fun to see what I can do.

open it up, connect one random pin on the board to another with a wire and voila - your first bend ! (That's what I did anyway, freaked the crap out of my niece whose keyboard it was though ....)

Sounds like a plan. Do you know much about circuits? I imagine you could just do trial and error, but you might fry something? (although let's be honest it's like $15) I guess I just don't know where to start with this type of thing.

Yeah I did it just by trial and error connecting a pin on one IC to another (but again only because it was cheap). DONT follow my above device if a)you have a device you want to keep and can't bear it if it breaks, 2)you're connecting it to the mains (240v is not a happy voltage to bend though your body ....)

the most satisfying hack i ever managed was on a furby

http://circuit-bent.net/furby-bending-tutorial.html

furbys are fucking creepy when you 'skin' them btw. all hard plastic and stary eyes and sharp beak. no wonder bret easton ellis wrote about em in lunar park.

anyway a couple of wire shorts and a pot over two pins on the ic, and it was twitching and speaking in tongues and making raster-noton noises.

sadly it died after about four hours and could not be resurrected.