Casio PT-180 (pics)

[justindeloop]

picked this guy up for £1.50, only even seen one other circuit bent 180 on youtube so maybe they're not so common as other PT varants. anyway heres some info on the bends ive got if you do happen to find one lying around...

its a bit of a weird keyboard. i expected it to be a slightly larger clone of a pt-87/vl-1 with limited bends. but its actually got some digital elements which means its a bit more unpredictable and bends have a completely different effect depending on the 'voice' selected.

mods added;

-3 different types of distortion;
    -garbled 'reverse' tones, with bonus flickering led
    -subtle fuzzy distortion, with 5k pot going from 'clean' tones up to 'walkman box' style overdrive
    -straight out on/off LOUD distortion, with this on the pot controls the overall gain of the sound

-different drum controls (bass boost, snare, distortion, cowbell/clap/beep boost - improves the pretty cheesy drum patterns) theres a lot of sound possibilities for this but i chose to limit it to just 4 toggle switches

-voltage drop, as i said earlier i expected the inside of this keyboard to look like a pt-87, in which case a voltage drop wouldnt have any effect other than making it a bit quieter... but i was surprised at the sounds this produced it doesnt 'crash' but you get some messed up drum beats and weird melodic chords

-and also added a jack socket + speaker switch (naturally!)

photos: (linked because im too lazy to resize  )

http://tom.stoopdice.com/uploads/pt180.jpg
http://tom.stoopdice.com/uploads/pt180inside.jpg
http://tom.stoopdice.com/uploads/pt-180zoom.jpg  yeah yeah messy soldering


i dont think ive finished with this yet - i hope to add a vactrol/lfo with a few different options. there seems to be an area where a pitch bend might be possible but ive had no luck experimenting with this - usually just results in the sound turning off. i also managed to make this crash in an 'aleatronic' way about 3 times, but there didnt seem to be any sort of logical correlation to the area i was working on so maybe there is a way to trigger this but it seems unlikely. oh and theres also a specific point which when used as a body contact picks up the radio but its way too noisy to permanently solder on. (not without some kindof pullup/down resistor anyway)

i also recorded some drone and melodic stuff 'live' from this which you can download here:

http://tom.stoopdice.com/uploads/hbec-ramn.zip

aside from track 4 (which i used a flange pedal on) its all unprocessed pt-180, and not overdubbed. it produces some pretty good 'guitar' tones.

hope someone finds this stuff useful - i can post a bit more info if needed or record a video showing the bends depending on interest

[nochtanseenspecht]

very nice layed out, the bents
and with 3 distortions + flickering led it must be killer machine 

i listen now your tunes, indeed very good... far better than many circuitbent machines/noises i heard

hope you find more inside and make it even more nice !