Its been a bit quiet around here recently

Circuitbenders · March 18, 2010, 03:34:46 PM

As i'm sure people might have noticed, its been a bit quiet around here recently and many older regular members don't seem to post anywhere near as regularly as they used to.

As a result this is an open thread for anything that people would like to see on the forum or for an ideas that might get people visiting and posting again.

All ideas gratefully received.

myopianc · March 20, 2010, 07:50:11 PM

hello, this is my first time using a forum and i'm probly doin this wrong but I really want to get in to this circuit bending stuff and I'm just after some pointers on doin it. I've got a roland r5 and I've seen that circuit bent beast that s-cat made really want to have a go at mine. I've looked through a few tutorials but I'm still a bit scared about goin in. (don't want to kill it if pos.) The best tutorial i've found so far is for HR 16 - vidiotsquad.com, but a lot of the pictures are missing and though I'm not afraid to experiment I want to try and avoid messing things up. I pick technical things up pretty well so I'm sure it will all come clear once I'm on the right track. Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

To do with tryin to drum up a bit more conversation on here, being so new don't really feel like i can make a suggestion yet, but I am currently on university course called interactive design and they encourage this type of work. I'll put a thread on our courses site to let people know of CIRCUIT BENDERS. There is actually 2 lads woprking on a big circuit bending project now that may well be interested in this site.

Anyway hope i haven't annoyed anyone with my debut forum hit and hopefully here from someone soon.

angrydroid · March 21, 2010, 03:31:18 AM

I don't know a thing about what you want to bend but your post is just fine.

electoyd · March 22, 2010, 07:55:52 PM

Paul i think all the forum's are quite quiet these days, i dont think people are as up for swapping info as they were a while ago, this combined with the fact that there is more info uploaded that people can just snatch without having to give anything in return, there is so many forums (including facebook and the rest of the social ones) i dont think people have the time to go round them all.

If you want people to come back regularly there needs to be an incentive, the incentive most people have for visiting these sites is gaining (and hopefully passing) information so i think that needs to be the focus. There is alot of good info on your site but it is scattered about and can take a while to find things. Maybe if some of this info was collated in a more manageable format, like bending guides (that sounds wrong i know

for key certain machines, it would encourage more debate and people bending certain machines would gravitate towards your site to gain and hopefully pass info from their experiments back.

Not to take anything away from your site as i think it is a good one, but it is very much lots of threads and i think they can become repetitive trying to wade through them and good info gets lost.

Maybe if you start up specific projects and give them a section of there own like they do on the Burnkit website, they have a section for hr16, 505 and others but there is maybe only 10-15 diff machines and lots of discussion on these and they have pushed the boundaries of these machines, and they have found that although there is always some sharks that will try and sell free info on ebay, there is also others that will contribute great info (like gordon jcp) so i guess what i'm trying to say is encourage more in depth bending of certain machines.

Also maybe you could have a corner where trusted members of your site could upload info about themselves, music they do and projects they are working on, so they can have a bit of ownership of it, a kind of rogues gallery of you and the forum members and somewhere they could update info about themselves which would encourage them to come and visit regularly. But i understand this may be hard to implement and keep out the ebay hawks.

dunno if this helps in any shape or form..........................Ian

KingMidas · March 23, 2010, 01:17:12 PM

Hello,

This is officially my first post on this forum, and I thought it would be a good place to start.

I am somewhat new to circuit bending, but know that this will be a hobby of mine for years to come. I currently have a small collection of unbent keyboards, and a speak and read, and plan on contributing to this forum. I am a graphic/web designer by day, and by night...well, I am still behind a computer shopping ebay and craigslist for those rare finds.

I am close to San Francisco, CA and would love some help and advice in the future.

As far as giving some ideas for this forum, I hope that this being my first post, doesn't exclude me from voicing my opinion as well.

While I love the site, the visual aesthetic is very hard on the eyes. Having a black background with orange text and green circuit board borders makes finding information and reading multiple lines of text very difficult. As I write this, the previous responses posted prior to mine (the topic summary) are displayed with a 10 point font size.

I think that this site has amazing content, and very knowledgeable members, but topics should also be organized in a simple fashion.

I hope that you don't mind if I show an example... but I was always taught to learn from those around me (hence the reason I am here) and web design is no different.

http://forum.sportruck.com/

I used to be part of this forum several years ago, and to this day, the forum is still going with over 16,000 members. The layout is simple, and the categories were to the point... General, Technical, and Classifieds with a "for sale" and "wanted" subcategory.

I hope that my opinions and observations are taken as positive feedback from a new member as opposed to someone just joining to create problems. Many of the members on this site are masters with electronics, and more than willing to share their knowledge. Knowing this, I felt compelled to share my own personal knowledge as to what I think would help this site reach its potential.

Again thank you for even providing us with a place to discuss circuit bending. This is a slowly expanding movement, but moving forward nonetheless.

KingMidas

*here is a picture of my small collection!

Spann · March 24, 2010, 05:51:58 PM

Something like competitions might be quite cool - Give people say, a weekend to bend something with particular themes/rules etc.

As someone who was away from the scene and has only recently come back, I can honestly say the scene seems to have shrunk over the last couple of years.

electoyd · March 25, 2010, 09:52:49 PM

With competitions you need people there in the 1st place or they just end up a total waste of time with three (or no) entry's, i've seen this happen on other forums, not just c/bending ones. The scene has changed alot and people who used to post here and other places are maybe just alot better at c/bending and dont need so much advice and dont have so much time to chat about social subjects so they don't post, maybe more new members are needed, a recruitment drive. If you were to do a competition maybe you could email all the members and let them know, or even just give all the members a reminder email that the forum is still here for them sometimes people just need reminded.

Circuitbenders · March 31, 2010, 02:27:02 AM

Thanks to everyone who has posted in this thread.

I guess the place to start might be trying to sort out some kind of better organistaion on this board. There was some talk a while back about collecting all the schematics posted on here and elsewhere into a schematic archive section which would probably be very useful but did seem like a bit of a massive job at the time. Its still an option though.

I'm currently rebuilding the main site but when thats done i might look into putting up some new dedicated sub-sections in the main sections and collecting all the threads about particular machines together i.e. having a TR505, TR707, DDD1 etc section on the drum machines board. I was considering this before but it seemed like things might get a little unwieldy, but i agree that some way has to be found to make it easier to find information.

To be honest i suspect it might be a good thing that the 'scene' itself has shrunk a bit as being flavour of the month is never a good thing for any movement in the long run. $:-\$

nochtanseenspecht · March 30, 2010, 08:19:29 PM

Quote from: KingMidas on March 23, 2010, 01:17:12 PM

While I love the site, the visual aesthetic is very hard on the eyes. Having a black background with orange text and green circuit board borders makes finding information and reading multiple lines of text very difficult. As I write this, the previous responses posted prior to mine (the topic summary) are displayed with a 10 point font size.

I think that this site has amazing content, and very knowledgeable members, but topics should also be organized in a simple fashion.

I hope that you don't mind if I show an example... but I was always taught to learn from those around me (hence the reason I am here) and web design is no different.

well to be honest, i like the lay out of this site, the black background is calm to my eyes and i find it easy to navigate. the truck site you mentioned i find not so pleasant to look at, so i guess it is just a matter of taste , and what you're used to..
on topic; i think maybe circuitbending isn't a thing you keep doing for years, after a while there's not much new to discover, get tired of the noise etc.. at least in my case its like that. right now more interested in analogue modding

Circuitbenders · March 31, 2010, 02:10:09 AM

Quote from: nochtanseenspecht on March 30, 2010, 08:19:29 PM
on topic; i think maybe circuitbending isn't a thing you keep doing for years, after a while there's not much new to discover, get tired of the noise etc.. at least in my case its like that. right now more interested in analogue modding

I don't think i'll ever get tired of noise but i agree, for a lot of people circuitbending is a stepping stone to building their own synths or getting into modular systems.

nochtanseenspecht · March 31, 2010, 01:52:34 AM

hmm. i have to agree that some kinds of noise i never get tired from

also admid that i soon will glue my hr16 and hr16b together and a big control panel on top

hehe it stay fun after all

Signal:Noise · April 03, 2010, 10:06:53 PM

How about a netlabel? there's enough people on the forum writing interesting circuit bent music that you could easily do a few compilations a year or something.

I've not really been around a lot as I've not done any circuit bending for ages. i still pop back to browse every so often though.

SineHacker · April 07, 2010, 03:38:36 AM

I'm still here!! I'm doing an MA at the moment which keeps me seriously occupied, I'm still bending but I don't have as much time to post except for in holidays

sorry guys!!

electoyd · April 10, 2010, 01:23:35 AM

yeah Paul i think a few changes could make it easier to navigate round certain machines, i think it would be advisable to make the subsections for specific machines and collate the info out of threads, bit of a fucker of a job but i think it would make it easier to gain info about machines and would give people something other than just threads to view. I suppose the first thing to do would be to work out which machines you have the best info and also maybe the more popular ones.

Think it is probably a good thing as well that the scene has shrunk a bit, at least people with far fetched idea's of copyrighting their bends seem to have disappeared. I have also moved more onto analogue building but i also like to circuit bend existing technology, there is always a place for that.

davethedoobie · April 11, 2010, 03:13:21 AM

Hi Paul,

I'm still here too. Got a new job that keeps me very busy. I'm still buying drum machines though on ebay. I'm glad It (bending) has lost a bit of its hype as I can get machines cheaper. I cannot believe the prices some people pay for machines like the 707/727 they aren't that good. It is interesting to see that a certain person who once made a lot of money out of bending on ebay (I read the posts) is very quiet now. I think alot of the suggestions are very good. It would be nice to have schematics and pictures for certain machines in a set area but I also get a buzz finding something attached to a post that helps me, just like in my youth when I found a new piece of vinyl with a magic break on it! I also think you should retain the background it is easy on the eye or maybe go retro and have the screen black and green! I am not sure how many posts you get but maybe you are still getting lots of guests who pop in from time to time to see what's new.

All the best.