[dorkbotpdx-blabber] Circuit Bending

[Jason Plumb]

Gintz, Travis wrote:
> So, I'm getting my brother a Casio SK-1 because he's recently got an 
> intrest in Circuit bending... and its one of the better and most 
> documented keyboards out there.... 

If he's just recently gotten into circuit bending, I wouldn't exactly 
recommend the SK-1 unless there's at least some form of prior experience 
there (or just a willingness to be destructive).  In any case, the SK-1 
is a great, amazing sounding device to circuit bend.  Because of their 
popularity in the bending community, they're starting to get harder to 
find and the $ is going up.

As far as being "better", that's arguable.  I think it can sound really 
amazing, but others might differ.  The available documentation out there 
  could also be perceived as either a blessing or curse....all depending 
on what he's wanting to do.  If he's looking to experiment, he'll be 
more likely to ignore the "standard" documented bends and just go feel 
things out on his own.

 > and I was wondering if there are others out there that have
 > circuit bent anything...

We (dorkbot and me) did a circuit bending workshop earlier this year. 
If you google for "dorkbot haywire" you'll see some of the artifacts 
from that.  It was a pretty swell time...there's talk about doing 
another one if enough people are interested.

> What are some parts and pieces that one might need to do some bending? 
> What value of pots, what kind of switches (spst? dpdt?), what value 
> resistors, op amps... 

The main things are pots and switches.  Panel mount pots are generally 
preferred over trimmer/slider/whatever, and a few in each of 1k, 10k, 
100k, 1M is a great-to-have in the arsenal.  Single pole dual throw 
switches are very common in bending, and momentary normally open are 
very handy, and a momentary NC can be often used for reset.

LEDs give a great glam value, and photosensors/LDRs can give a nice 
theremin/whammy effect.  Might be hard rounding some/all of this up on 
short order (especially since the group order for this 2weeks is now 
out), but you might be able to still scrounge enough to get brother started.

-jason
http://noisybox.net