circuit contortion

[c.j miller]

      Aloha.
   Aren't storage devices handy?Catching up with the
 state o' the list for an hour or so every few days
is awkward.(I'll try the MIT flea mkt 5/16 if I re-call-perhaps I'll find some wee display devices for
the PC104 wearable that will eventually be my first
interesting platform..)Perhaps a drive,too..
   ANYWAY,several geological eras later:greetings to
Timothy Gardner,Tom baldwin,and James B Parker;I am
delighted to blip through my experiences in circuit
bending technique.
   About two years ago,a roommate had discovered a
casio in the neighbors' garbage(an SK100?).It basic-
ally seemed to work..sampling at about 12-16 bits,
a few broken keys.The guy disassembled it and it was
floating in fragments for a month or so.I inherited
the SK to find that it no longer sampled external
sound,though pcm presets were"ok".Upon dissection I
accidently bridged wire from a large square-ish ic 
across several random components to find several kinds of oscillations.I made a wire loop at that ic
and ran leads and photocells to various traces on the board.Results were about 50 very complex feed-
back textures-to this day some of the most interest-
ing timbres and relationships that I have yet yield-
ed.It died after amazing people for 10 minutes at it
's first jam.
   I wanted to mod another cheap sampler right away,
but they are suprisingly scarce around here.A class-
ified probably isn't worth the 1 to 10 $ price,but 
they don't show up at flea mkts or yard sales'either
.I found an SK1 about 5 months ago,at eight bits it
was obviously grainy antics.I made about 15 bridges
between various pins of the three large ics on the
far left of the pin-up side.When I tried to mod the
case to fit the new switches and pots I stupidly 
shorted a pin to a cap and halved it's pcm resolu-
tion;except for that classic rhythm accompanyment!
I can tweak the drum patterns and sounds ta an ex-
tent,but after a few days I could work through the
processes and hear the "original"beat patterns,so I
don't use it much now.That "plink" sound wouldn't 
die!
   I worked in parallel(with a 20 year delay) to QR
Ghazala.I discovered EMI a few years ago,which is 
how I initially heard of Qubais' circuit bent crea-
tions(I'd love to hear some of his music,but with
diy rations,I'll only occaisionally buy an out-of-
print rarity..)EMI is wonderful, I hope their distri
bution comes together!The prices that Ghazala charg-
es for his circuit-bent inventions has increased by
a factor of ten over the past five years..I guess
that's good.
   The most recent concert that I attended was about
 11-12/98;just before my exile,of Experimental Audio
 Research (Middle East cafe,CambridgeMA). It was EAR
's "data rape" tour-some earie textures skillfully
sampled/mixed from a table of 8 Speak and Spells.
        Enough about my technique! DIY y'all!
   Still hunting the snarf,sk,sn's,etc.  CJ


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