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What is Circuit Bending?

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Part of the video series: How to Attempt Circuit Bending on Audio Electronics

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Summary: Understand what circuit bending is and how it produces different musical sounds and noises in this video series that will help you understand how and when to utilize this unique way of making music.

Views: 566 | Tags: tools, guitar, circuit, electronic, what, books, is, bending, sk-1, mijam

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Contact: electricwestern.com

Lorin Parker Lorin Parker works as an artist, audio engineer and instructor in sound and audio. He is currently a faculty member at the Art Institute of California, Los An... read more

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Video Transcript

What is Circuit Bending?

LORIN PARKER: I'm going to tell you exactly what is circuit bending. A Lot of people ask me this question. Well, what we're hearing right now is one of my instruments that's inspired by the spirit of circuit bending. It's based on an instrument by Dr. Friedrich Trautwein and uses 1930s technology to generate different tones off of these vacuum tubes. As you can see, you can control it with switches, knobs, buttons and I can even plug in all kinds of special controllers that we're going to talk about today to make this instrument really play like an instrument and really sing. But before you get to things like my instrument here, the [PH] Electrosparklavier which runs on quite a lot of voltage and uses vacuum tubes and technology from the 1930s which requires a lot of patience and a little bit of scholarship, we're going to start with what most circuit benders start with and this is really where the art of circuit bending is most defined and most popular. This is a $2 Tiny Love piece that I picked up from the local thrift store and all I have to do--and all anybody has to do in order to create up their own electronic instruments that they built themselves is open the shell up this guy, turn it on and here we can hear--we've got Beethoven, we've got Bach, we've got Mozart. It's just as the toy manufacturer intended it. But as we open this up, we can start adding controls like I have here on the Electrosparklavier and we can turn this into a musical instrument that you can play and you can make some crazy sounds with it. So, in a nutshell, that's circuit bending; taking something simple and making it your own by opening it up and changing the circuitry inside.

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