In this Weekend Projects podcast, Bre Pettis is joined by circuit bender Justin Gerardy to explain how to circuit bend. Then we bent up a Speak and Read and an Omnichord. With the omnichord, we found everything by probing around for cool sounds. If you’ve never done this, you’ve gotta try it out and circuit bend up some 80’s electronics!
Check out the photoset here – Link
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18 thoughts on “Circuit Bending – Make: Video Podcast”
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Nice video. What is the music playing when you have the video of you modifying the Omnichord?
I am going to have to get myself an Omnichord…
It’s music I made with the omnichord!
Can the omnicord play Iron Man? (The epic black sabbath bassline)
I’m going to learn to play Iron Man on it… Right after Stairway to Heaven!
Those omnichords are expensive! ebay says at least $150. ive always had a slight interest in circuit bending, but this podcast got my butt out of the chair down to my electronics shop and thrift stores lookin for kids toys…
I know! I finally got mine for 125 and I have to say it’s totally worth it!!!
However, I can’t wait to get some stuff from the thrift store and mess with them.
I have to say, my ability to understand electronics went up a level from circuit bending these two things.
Thanks for the comments everyone!
This is a little disappointing… I went to my local electronics shop and bought around $50 in pots, knobs for the pots, and wire. Then went to a Savers (HUGE thrift store) and spent about $8 on two keyboards. One was “Kawasaki” brand (as in Kawasaki motor corp., haha) and the other has no brand, but makes some really sweet sounds on its own. I opened up the latter and began testing solder points to see if i could produce some sort of tone manipulation. No such luck. The pairs of points that did react only made the unit crash (requiring a hard reset). Tried my other Kawasaki keyboard, and got the same deal. All reactive points crash the unit. Complete waste of money, but more importantly time (about 8 hours total).
That said, have either you or Justin experienced a toy that is unbendable, or more likely, not worth the effort in bending? These two keyboards I picked up suck big time.
why would i want to subscribe in iTunes?
You can subscribe in anything you want! For a lot of people, itunes is something they already have and get.
Just plug in the rss to any player you like.
https://makezine.com/blog/index.rss