Those wonderful toys

[Paul Perry]

At 06:37 PM 4/02/98 -0800, Brett Duggan  wrote:
>Synth DIYers:
>
>I was hoping that someone on the list could help me out.  I have a couple 
>of old synthesis machines that I wish to use in my music.  Not analog 
>synths, but speech synths.  In particular, the classic Texas Instruments 
>Speak & Spell and Speak & Math.
>
>Instead of having to mike the internal speaker, I would like to try 
>modifying one or both to have a line level output for sampling purposes.  
>So I was wondering:
>
>Does anyone know where I could acquire the schematics for these devices?
.....they varied during production anyway....
>Has anyone else tried this? 
the expert on this is Reed Ghazal (?spelling) who modifies them with 
switches, resistors and pots at points found by random connecting.. he has
published on this in Experimental Musical Instruments Journal a few years ago.
He calls his modified instruments 'incantors' as sometimes they go into 
strange buzzing/muttering loops.
You can try this at home with a 100K resistor or your fingers, there are no 
dangerous voltages involved.... let us know what happens!
He calls this process 'circuit bending' so a search on this might find 
something.

paul perry melbourne australia