[dorkbotpdx-blabber] Circuit Bending

[Gintz, Travis]

He's getting started in bending, but he's been around electronics and my
father is an EE... So he'll be able to help a little too.... Brother is
18, so he'll catch on.... But most likely use documented bends he finds
online.

I have a bunch of pots, switches and such available to me at work, just
need to get them out of stock and purchase them.... Thanks for the
recommendations on parts though, that should get him started. 

-----Original Message-----
From: dorkbotpdx-blabber-bounces at dorkbot.org
[mailto:dorkbotpdx-blabber-bounces at dorkbot.org] On Behalf Of Jason Plumb
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 12:11 AM
To: A discussion list for dorkbot-pdx (portland, or)
Subject: Re: [dorkbotpdx-blabber] Circuit Bending


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
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