circuit bending anybody ??

[nutrinoland]

hey...i am really intrigued by circuit bending...do any of you use circuit bent sort of sounds or instruments to enhance you music??
i think its cool to have some of those whacky circuit bent toys/synths lying around to add more spice to music...apart from the mothership Virus TI,having a few other smaller craft in the fleet would be so cool...
i am just starting to learn about how to make my own circuit bent instruments/toys...it would be awesome to hear some of your stuff and get some tips on learning about circuit bending...

:D

[Innovine]

I've done a lot :) I ran several workshops and did a couple of live shows with all or mostly circuit bent gear. Ambient music/noise worked best for me, I think the bent gear is a bit too unpredictable and unsyncable for more structured music. You might get places by sampling it and making beats with the sounds, but I thought live improvisation was more interesting for the audience. Its very visual, and they understand immediately what is going on (especially as I did many bends on keyboards with the casing removed, putting wires directly onto the circuit board. Sometimes even licking them :)

Here's a few studio tunes I put together. Some computer processing too, but quite a lot of raw bent sounds in there. http://www.soundcloud.com/magpieindustries

For tips, about the best thing to do is just get a wire and start making short circuits. There are plenty of youtube tutorials on how to solder switches and audio jacks, but really, the basics are very very basic, just get the instrument making sounds and then create short circuits, and see where it takes you :) Battery powered gear only!!