Casio sk-2100 -Ranting about breakout boxes

[broken in brain]

HI everyone! just found this great site and was wondering if anyone has any tips for me . I'm new to circuit bending and all of that but have a good knowledge of synths and such.  This morning I found a casio sk-2100 for $10 so I had to snatch it up.  Needless to say I cannot seem to find too many resources about it online.  Being that it is a good size enclosure it has a good amount of room to hack it up and cover it with pots and switches. My only issue is I have never done this before and can't seem to find any good starting points. Is bending it just like any other in the sk series, or is it a whole diffrent beast all together? It is fully functional and I got a shitload of D batteries redy to go. Just could use a few pointers to get me going. I have a bunch of other cheap casios and yamahas to mutate, but this one seemsl ike it could be real cool with its nicer keys and all of that. Has anyone bent one of these? Help!!!
Thanks in advance.  Colin

(EDITED BY ADMIN: Changed the thread title to reflect where the threads gone)

[Circuitbenders]

Find the RAM chips. If i recall correctly they are two big chips connected together over to the left of the board with the solder side up, keys towards you. There might be an unoccupied space for another identical chip between them, or that might be the SK200 i'm thinking of.

There will be RAM chips in there somewhere, probably near a big surface mount CPU.

[sk-1]

An SK-2100 for TEN BUCKS?!!?!?  You did well my friend! 

If the unit is in good to excellent condition then I'd strongly advise against drilling holes in it and mounting all sorts of dials and switches and patches, etc.  The SK-2100 is an extremely rare beast nowadays and you'd be much better off hiding all your mods in a breakout box and just wire up the SK-2100 internally.  Not only does it look more professional, but it helps to preserve the condition and original state of the keyboard itself.  This is a trick that is commonly used on immaculate boards that have a Highly Liquid MIDI expansion installed in them.

If I were you, I'd cut a hole in the side of the keyboard, somewhere discreet and screw in a DB-25 male or female connector.  That way you can run all the wires from the boards to the rear of the DB-25 connector and then use a printer cable to connect it to an external box which you can drill to your heart's content and fill it up with dozens of switches, dials, patch ports, etc.  If you're a little more clever, you can take an arcade joystick and wire up all your dials and switches to that and wire up the stick so that it connects bend points as you wiggle the stick up, down and sideways.  You can turn a joystick into a breakout box provided you have enough room inside it.

At the end of the day, it's up to you whether you want to destroy your SK-2100... but if you were a serious collector of vintage 8-bit keyboards and wanted to modularize your setup, then a DB-25 with breakout-box system would be the most professional looking of all setups... IN MY OPINION! 

Happy Bending!

[Circuitbenders]

At the end of the day, it's up to you whether you want to destroy your SK-2100... but if you were a serious collector of vintage 8-bit keyboards and wanted to modularize your setup, then a DB-25 with breakout-box system would be the most professional looking of all setups... IN MY OPINION! 

Happy Bending!

Well, IN MY OPINION, its only an old keyboard and if you do it well, mounting controls on the actual case looks a lot more professional than having a breakout box trailing around on the end of a cable. Personally i prefer my bent machines to actually look like they have been circuitbent. As far as i'm convcerned thats half the challenge, to mod something in a way that looks good but still looks like its been modded. Each to their own though i guess. 

[sk-1]

I've never seen professional musicians cut holes in their equipment and solder effects units, noise gates and DVD burners into their keyboards and guitars!  LOL!  Most professional musical equipment is designed to be modular and cables and breakout boxes are the standard with professional gear these days.

To wire up switches and dials to the surface of a cheap, plastic toy does not make it look professional in anyone's opinion.  I base this assumption on questioning over two dozen people as to whether circuit-bent gear looks professional or expensive.  The answer was always 'it looks messy', or 'it looks stupid'... words also mirrored in the majority of YouTube comments left with the bulk of unprofessional bends proliferating the video universe.

Personally, I see a large chunk of bending to be nothing more than the culmination of a personal endeavour and the fruits of someone's own opinion towards what constitutes a good bend as opposed to just pure noise (even though a lot of benders out there would rather listen to their musical toys making nothing but random, static noise).

I think painting keyboards and toys and littering them with controls that do not add anything visually is nothing more than a way of convenience.  Professional design incorporates form and function and simplifies the problem with a sophisticated solution and modularization is the most common way to build a DAW or retro-rig for both professional and toy instruments.

The BIGGEST advantage I see with turning the toy itself into a control surface is when it is needed in a live situation... such as a stage performance and where the instrument needs to go portable and visually add excitement and that dynamic, rough edge to a performance.  Then I can understand the used of 'built-in' controls.

I guess it all depends on how the instrument is to be used.  For me, intergration and professional installation is important for a studio setup and having a large rig of toy keyboards can get messy and dangerously LIVE *ZAP*.  Any musician you see with a circuit bent toy in their studio that has a control surface on it for circuit-bending will not have bent it themselves, I can guarantee it.

*Edit: Any serious musician with (non-toy) half decent equipment, I meant to say.

[Circuitbenders]

I've never seen professional musicians cut holes in their equipment and solder effects units, noise gates and DVD burners into their keyboards and guitars!  LOL!

I have, and i've built and modified a vast amount of gear for 'professional musicians' who specifically wanted controls mounted on the casing. In fact i've built a lot of gear for 'professional musicians' who specifically wanted it to look as industrial and modified as possible. I've also been helping 'professional musicians' from all over the world bend their own gear for years. Thats what this forum is for.

I've also put a lot of breakout boxes on things, but i'd say it'd would be a bizarre idea to put a breakout box on everything regardless of the machines function. Personally i only use a breakout box as a last resort as 90% of the people i work with, whether they be 'professional musicians' or not, seem to prefer it that way.

To wire up switches and dials to the surface of a cheap, plastic toy does not make it look professional in anyone's opinion.  

I think you might find that its the cheap plastic toy itself that makes things look unprofessional. Mounting some brilliantly designed control system on the case of a cheap casio keyboard is only ever going to look like like a crappy casio keyboard no matter how well you do it. On the other hand you can still make it look cool regardless of how professional it looks. Mounting the same style controls on the body of a Yamaha DX or SH101 can look as pofessional as you want it to. As with anything, theres a lot of crap out there, but theres also a lot of really good looking gear.

Any musician you see with a circuit bent toy in their studio that has a control surface on it for circuit-bending will not have bent it themselves, I can guarantee it.

WHAT? LOL, Did i just miss something? How many people on this forum alone are circuitbenders AND musicians? At least 90% if not more i would say. How many people on this forum own a whole load of decent equipment plus a load of circuit bent gear they've built and designed themselves? Me for one, and a lot of others i know of.

Correct me if i'm wrong but you seem to be quoting rather a lot of what can only be personal opinion and preference, as being accepted fact there?  

[SebbeK]

Any musician you see with a circuit bent toy in their studio that has a control surface on it for circuit-bending will not have bent it themselves, I can guarantee it.

well.. hehe. I am a experienced jazz(!)/rock/pop pianist... and I am into electronics and circuitbending. Right now i am working on a casio sa-3 with the goal to get every crazy bend and mod planned onto it without any breakoutbox.

EDIT: i saw your edit now.. but I can add that i think i like playing on a visual appealing instrument more rather than a boring looking one.

[sk-1]

WHAT? LOL, Did i just miss something? How many people on this forum alone are circuitbenders AND musicians? At least 90% if not more i would say. How many people on this forum own a whole load of decent equipment plus a load of circuit bent gear they've built and designed themselves? Me for one, and a lot of others i know of.

Correct me if i'm wrong but you seem to be quoting rather a lot of what can only be personal opinion and preference, as being accepted fact there?  

No, I don't think you are wrong at all.  I agree with most of what you say, except I think that when it comes to defining what is 'professional' and what is not... that can be very subjective, hence the limitations of our opinions.  And I know I will be chastised for saying this, but I am merely using the 'establishment' view on equipment standards and systems when it comes to describing anything designed and built by a large corporation.  As much as I hate established procedures and designs (such as large, standard piano keys as opposed to nice, medium sized keys) I see many musicians wanting to break free from the restriction of an existing design in their equipment and adding detail and features in order to bring it closer to their own vision of what constitutes a professional or practical piece of gear.
The cult of circuit-bending itself brings a musician to modify, expand or bend his tools and there can be many reasons why he does it.  But a lot of the time it works very much like an amateurish trend or an underground movement that over time, builds up and begins proliferating the professional scene.  Then you get all kinds of talented and adept electronics gurus and musicians modifying pieces of equipment and turning mere toys into machines that are almost (and a lot of the time ARE) good enough to sit beside their more expensive effects-laden cousins.

As for the actual production of a bent toy with a control surface mounted directly on it...  well I agree there are many bad, rushed examples out there and the very attitude of 'oh, it's just a cheap, nasty plastic piece of junk' lends itself to the 'devil-may-care' approach towards the design of a circuit-bent instrument.  Sometimes, what I call "the industrial piece of nonsense look" can be a good thing, if done correctly.  I think many people these days can tell the difference between a nicely executed work of art and something that was hurriedly slapped together in the span of an hour or two.  We all have this ability to detect that... and a lot of the time people can be very forgiving and find ways to appreciate the junk as having some kind of random purpose.  Which is where the topic becomes subjective again.

I've seen so many circuit bent toys that sound like rubbish to me.  Nothing but static noise and crunching, grinding 'junk'... which can be quite good if that is what you are looking for.  For example, I've recently seen a DD-12 on eBay made by (you know who) that looked absolutely fantastic! (lots of lovely switches along the side and knobs at the back, creating the impression of a top-of-the-range model with dozens more features)... but when he switched it on and started flicking the switches, it sounded AWFUL.  I was expecting to hear some booming bass drums and some spine tingling Tekkno beats and pitching percussion... but all I got was scratch, scratch, scrape, scrape, ksshhhh... and this static noise that sounded like someone searching out a station on an old AM radio.  Very disappointing to say the least because I was expecting to hear some amazing hardcore Tekkno drum sounds yet all I got was this 'crunch, crunch, crunch'.  I was going to bid on it merely because of how it LOOKED, LOL.  The guy who modified it did a great job of making it LOOK like those switches and dials were meant to be there.

IMHO, the majority of bent machines out there are made by amateurs with a keen sense to explore and push the boundaries of electronics (which is the whole point of bending, I know) but a lot of the time are built to very messy, random and unconventional standards, if any.

If benders want to place controls directly onto their bent toys, then greater care should be taken to at least make it LOOK like the controls were designed to be there.  To me, that makes more sense.  Like that dude with the wicked bent SK-8 with pitch wheel, 32x sample bank, etc.  Now THAT is what I call professional design.  I guess it all boils down to what kind of effect you're trying to achieve.

I don't mind seeing a pink Barbie keyboard with patch leads and control dials hanging off it being thrown around on stage and making spaced-out noise, if that is the whole point of it.  Kitsch and cheeze can be just as acceptable as industrial and hardcore  

Edit: Unfortunately for me, adding the 'ranting' comment to the thread title does devalue and dismiss my personal opinions as being irrelevant when all I'm doing is offering this guy some sound advice.  At the end of the day, it really is up to him to make a choice... and to make a sensible choice, one must always have a wider palette to choose from.  I guess it also depends on just how much he loves his SK-2100  

[sk-1]

Then again... I do see the whole point of having no rules and conformities with circuit bending.  After all, it's all about pushing the boundaries of conventional wisdom and design, is it not?  I have some keyboards I wouldn't want to get a scratch on, then I have some that I'd love to put a switch there and a dial there, etc.

I have a Merlin handheld game which I want to mount switches and dials all over and turn it into a handheld synthesizer or circuit bending toy.  So yeah, I neither agree nor disagree.  I just think its good to tell someone of their options if they value their toy and don't wish to deface it or cut into it 

[Circuitbenders]

Edit: Unfortunately for me, adding the 'ranting' comment to the thread title does devalue and dismiss my personal opinions as being irrelevant when all I'm doing is offering this guy some sound advice.  

That post wasn't a rant? Mine certainly was!   

I think that was the longest post we've ever had on this forum.

Don't take it so seriously. Making amateur looking machines is a large part of what this circuit bending thing is all about isn't it? We've all done it when we first started and thats how you learn to make stuff look good, if thats what you're after. It doesn't really matter. 

now selling stuff that looks and/or sound like complete crap and calling it a 'super analogue chaos generator synth' or something equally ridiculous, thats a different matter entirely...................................

[sk-1]

now selling stuff that looks and/or sound like complete crap and calling it a 'super analogue chaos generator synth' or something equally ridiculous, thats a different matter entirely...................................

Just like on eBay, where sellers take advantage of a buyer's trust in order to artificially inflate the price and get buyers scrambling all over each other.  I've seen machines costing five bucks to buy (ten to modify) getting sold for over a hundred dollars or more 

[sk-1]

Hmmm, I have to say Paul... you've persuaded me in favor of your opinion in relation to turning a bent instrument into a control-surface for the bends.  The only reason I seem serious about the idea of drilling into a keyboard is because I am a complete newbie to this scene and all of my Yamahas and Casios are in immaculate or mint condition.  So they were purchased with the intention of preserving them and collecting them and making some awesome retro-music with them. They are also VERY cool to look at, especially with so many of them becoming more rare and unusual over the years.

So I have a couple of PT-30s that I know sound great when you mess with the analog drums in them, yet the problem is that because of this passion I have for collecting these toys in mint condition, the idea of drilling holes and customizing something I put a lot of effort into preserving kind of upsets me.  It has nothing to do with the idea of improving or customizing the sound at all.  If all my boards were in poor to good condition, then I'd be tearing them apart and soldering until I burnt all my fingers off! LOL

Since these first series of discussions you and I had on the topic of control-surfaces vs breakout-boxes, I've begun dreaming up visions of one of my PT-30s being re-colored and bent/modified... and I've become excited at the prospect of making a unique and mega-cool looking unit out of it!  Very much like the bent, lime-green PT-30 I saw recently on YouTube.  The PT-30 I want to modify is in okay condition, is missing the tuning-pot (it fell out and disappeared during a recent repair job), and the battery wires have been temporarily disconnected because of a problem with the solder not sticking (wrong type perhaps).  My other PT-30 is so immaculate that there is not a single scratch, scuff or mark anywhere.  It had only been taken out of its box once, played with for half an hour and then put away into storage since the early eighties!  I kid you not... the body of it is so white and it is so scratch and defect-free that it totally looks like it was made only yesterday!  It's beautifully preserved.

So I think my intention is to build a collection of original, immaculate keyboards that I can play as were originally intended and then build alongside it a big rack of circuit-bent keyboards that can be linked up to them... and of course, a mixing desk or glitch-desk and ultimately Cubase or Adobe Audition on a PC.  My circuit-bent collection doesn't really exist yet because I am not going to hack into my lovely, immaculate boards... and if I do, I want to take the breakout-box route because I am never going to perform live with them or move them around the place. The breakout-box system would make more sense in a studio environment, although I am sure I will end up with some toys that have dials and switches all over them!

Hope that explains more of my 'collect-to-preserve' attitude as opposed to my newbie circuit-bending approach.  I guess I will have to start buying more broken or trashy condition toys to overcome that fear! LOL

[Circuitbenders]

The other problem with breakout boxes is that a lot of the time the machine won't work without the box attached. Its all very well having a sexy looking breakout box that can be removed so that the machine looks like its never been touched but what do you do when for example, you've removed a clock resistor from a machine and the pot that replaces it is in the breakout box? When you remove the box there won't be anything in place of it and the machine will just crash permanently.

I often get people wanting me to mod their SH101's but as you have suggested, they don't want holes drilled in the casing so they want the controls in an external case. The problem being that two of the mods are directly in the signal path and without the extra controls in place the synth just won't work at all. The second you removed the breakout box the SH101 will just stop.

So they were purchased with the intention of preserving them and collecting them and making some awesome retro-music with them. They are also VERY cool to look at, especially with so many of them becoming more rare and unusual over the years.

Its a weird idea that something gets more unusual simply by continuing to exist, but i guess to some extent its true, as other examples get broken or discarded. As i've said elsewhere, i have an absolutely mint condition TR505 which has only been out of the box once or twice since it was made. Its probably worth more as a collectors item than it is as a bent machine but i think thats just a bit crap really. Its like buying an original 1956 Les Paul Goldtop guitar and sticking it in a vault to wait until it becomes worth more money. These things are instruments, they are made to have people mess around with them and make weird noises with them. Just make some noise. 

[SineHacker]

this thread should be re-named the "epic post" thread... I'm not going to tribute unfortunately... although I do like my rants.

[sk-1]

You think this is an epic thread?  LOL... you obviously haven't spent much time in forums!