Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

On Wed, 12 May 2010, josh loughrey wrote:

> The knobs on his command station do not send to the control box; in fact 
> it works the other way around. The control box is essentially an 
> expansion for his circuit bent devices. In the first segment of the 
> video, he's not using it (though it is plugged in); all the knob twists 
> and manipulations are on the modded command station.
=====================

if the box is required for this to work, i still have to ask: why drill 
holes in a command station? why not put the knobs on the box? the fact 
remains that if it's a two-part kit; either part getting lost or broken 
renders the others part of little or no value.


> Anyway, neat bit of kit. I'd like to know more about exactly what he's 
> doing with these, and how he's doing them. Anyone here know much about 
> circuit bending?
======================

i'm also interested in knowing more, and i can't claim to have any 
authoritative knowledge on this particular bit of kit... but i can infer 
quite a bit from the info provided. although after checking out the demo, 
the results don't seem any more impressive than running the outputs 
through a kaoss-pad or similar (which i would do long before drilling 
holes in a command station and connecting a box that claims to "circuit 
bend" the CS).

also there's a certain romanticism about "circuit bending" and no info 
about whether they're bending or doing something more intentional. having 
a background in electronics i would say it's cool and fun to bend a 
speak-n-spell or a casio that you found at a garage sale for $1... but 
bending (as opposed to intentional modification of) a command station... 
that's just dumb. intentional modification should never result in broken 
gear; circuit bending is the dismissal or disregard of electronic 
principles in favor of "random exploration" and often results in broken 
gear.

when i modify gear i study the circuit that i want to modify, plan and 
understand what i want to happen, then start experimenting. circuit 
bending is more "lets connect these two pins and see what happens"; often, 
what happens is the machine dies with a puff of smoke.


-- 
         ...atom

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