Producing music from printers, hacking Speak ‘n’ Spells for backing vocals—it’s not trendy garage band style, however, it isn’t exactly rock ’n roll. A consider the engrossing realm of circuit bending.
I turn on my Casio SA-1, hit the trusty “demo” button, and—after I’m serenaded for any couple of excruciating seconds using the immense sonic ugliness of Wham’s “Jitterbug” (made entirely 32-note polyphony)—my finger hovers more than a big plastic key. A “num lock” key, salvaged from your old Acorn key pad, it protrudes rather incongruously in the pad of rubbery push-buttons usually accustomed to control the small instrument. Following a moment’s hesitation, I tap it. A circuit that I’ve connected messily to among the Casio’s microchips is finished and also the toy keyboard, bought for 50p in a charitable organization shop a couple of in the past, all of a sudden descends right into a rhythm loop sounding something similar to a vehicle crash being undergone an overdrive pedal. This really is circuit bending—not quite what Casio intended.
Continue reading “Bend Me, Shape Me”
