Casio MT-205 with 17 mods [w/ audio and pics], Casio PT-100 9-ish mods [pics]

[Gleix]

Hey everyone! Thought I'd post something I finally got around to finishing yesterday and something that I've had done for a few months.

First there's this:


I haven't seen any of these bent online... such a large board took a lot of probing, and I obviously found a lot! The mods are:

Switches:
- 6 drum glitch switches [random rhythms, loops, etc... I enjoy switches more than patch bays  ]
- Drums pitch up
- Drums pitch down
- Heavy hardcore-ish bass [using accompaniment slider varies from none to very heavy]
- Drums low pass/distortion
- High pitched blippy drums

Pots:
- Lead/full distortion
- Drum distoriton
- Drums pitch down/up and blippyness
- Accompaniment distortion
- Two accompaniment fuzz/crazy bass distortions

Here's an audio clip of me jamming out with it: http://george.gleixner.googlepages.com/VOC036.MP3
If you don't wanna listen to the whole thing, at least skip to this awesome looping at 3:43 which fades into some bass heavy rhythms. Not this is the second day I've had it after finishing it so I'm still not that experienced with all of the mods  I would advise you to listen to the whole thing though, if you would :]

Here's an audio clip focusing mainly on drum/rhythm glitch switches: http://george.gleixner.googlepages.com/VOC037.MP3 (forgive me for some slow parts... still inexperienced with my own machine!)





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This is something I finished a long time ago but never posted... It's that PT-100 I got at the flea market. Also my first attempt at a paint job, didn't come out as well as I would have hoped (paint wise). Mod wise.. this thing is an insane drone machine which I ended up fooling with for an hour straight as soon as I finished it instead of going to bed.





The mods are:

- Starve pot [pitch wayyy down]
- Lead distortion
- Rhythm distortion pots: Chords, Bass drum, Bassline/hihat/snare
- Wahwah-ish switch for lead
- Pulse fast for lead switch
- Pulse slightly slower for lead switch
-1/4" out added
-Speaker on and off

[Signal:Noise]

Your stuff is always really well thought out mate. that MT205 sounds and looks fantastic

[shimshon]

great job with the 205! i'm inspired to open mine back up...

[kevins08]

damn. thats sick! im pickin up and mt-205 this weekend for basically nothing. can't wait! i've never tried circuit bending before but i wanna get into it. any help on what you did to yours would be great! i obviously wont try it right off back but i wanna eventually!
-thanks, kevin

[Timodon]

Wow! thanks for posting! I have an MT-205 and like you I couldn't find much online, other people I asked said it wasn't great for bending but it sounds like you found some good stuff in there!

I also have an MT-220. After searching the web I was getting the impression it was a bit rubbish for bends too and was starting to think the MT series might have been a bad place for me to start my search for noises but after some poking around I've already added 2 keyboard distortion switches and a tuneable oscillating feedback pot which I'm really happy with

I'm guessing these mods are replicable on the MT-205 (Sounds like you've already got the "lead" distortion sound) because the 2 keyboards have exactly the same sound set... I'll let you know how I get on and post some pics and sounds etc when I get my MT-205 open and start messing about in there...

[Timodon]

Ok so I've had the MT-205 back and I just had to come back and bump this thread - the tuneable feedback sound is in there and it's even better than the MT-220 because it seems to work on every sound and adds more distortion/ gain as well. I don't know if this is a common effect discovered by circuit benders on every keyboard because I'm still very new to the "Art" (Hobby?)  but I've never heard or seen anyone demoing this sort of thing on their own bends, most people just wanna show off their drum glitches which are cool but not much good to me as I already have a drummer. I'm certainly very excited by my MT205's possibilities for use in a live setting.

I'll sort out some sound clips tonight because I'm genuinely impressed with this effect and I think others will want to add this to their "sonic arsenal." I will post pics of the bend points on the MT-205 and the MT-220 if anyone is interested.

For anyone who is familiar with the Zvex Fuzz Factory pedal it falls into that area of effect - basically you control the pitch of the feedback with your pot and any notes/ chords you play on the keyboard fight against this sound creating interesting random oscillations and pitch jumps. Each different sound and each note played produce different oscillations and changing the FB pitch whilst playing scrambles your riffs up even further.

Also whilst I was poking around I managed to crash it so that the "Release" part of the amp envelope turned off completely, meaning that every note I played sustained indefinitely!

My piano sound became an awesome floaty ambient synth pad for a bit but after I turned it off and on again I couldn't replicate the effect. Would love to know how to get it back if anyone has managed to work that one out.

Cheers

Tim

[Timodon]

Well I slung together a little demo to show what sort of sounds you can get through this mod... unfortunately I've nowhere else to put this other than on my myspace so here's the link, it's the first track on the player and it's titled "Casio MT205 + MT220:-

http://www.myspace.com/modularpet

Apologies for using myspace, I'm having real trouble getting it to play back myself so if you'd rather not go there PM me and I'll send you an MP3

what you hear is all MT-205 and MT220 either clean or with me fiddling on the FB knob. I didn't use any effects except a little bit of compression at the end. I love this mod!