bending on the box

[electoyd]

Hey

anyone watch the gadget show last night (british tv) ?  they had the dubious modified toy orchestra on, the whacky guy with the big white specs had to re make the gadget show theme tune using modified instruments with their help, there was the customary shots of an sk1 amongst others, so expect those remaining sk-1s to keep on going up in price!  there was abit of actual 'circuit bending' shown, he did the pitch mod to a crappy toy, he had that look of glee when you do your first pitch mod and get carried away tweaking the pot back and forward, ah them were the days when i was so easily amused.  The modified toy orchestra looked creepy in their dinner suit get up, dunno wot thats about.

[jamiewoody]

like i said, casio is stupid if they dont re-release every classic keyboard they have! (i know there is a sa-mini series coming...)....especially the sk1!

think about it, produce things and not have to honor the warranty if someone opens it up, which at least 50% of the population will do!

[electoyd]

thing is Jamie they would probably flop if they re-released them they would be looking to sell millions of units and they wouldn't, not enough interest its only c/benders that want them.  These things are only expensive because people believe they are rare usually because the ebay advert says it is.  The sk-1 simply is not worth what people pay for it imho but some people believe it is so they pay for it, like any machine it is worth what people pay.  To be honest its how circuit bending comes across on tv, like a bunch of whacky grandads in dinner suits playing with 'cool' circuit bending instruments that used to belong to their grandchild, trying to write a tune-badly.  If this is the future of circuit bending, god fucking help us, i'm gonna take up crocket even that must be cooler now.
http://www.allfreecrafts.com/crochet/index.shtml

i'll be hanging on the crochet forums from now on so, i guess it has been fun see y'all later.................

[Circuitbenders]

It could well be the kiss of death.

Anyone else in the UK remember when 'grunge fashion' was on richard and judy about 15 year s ago ( for people ouitside the UK this is a tragic daytime magazine show). You know a scene is more or less over when a couple more socially inept and out of touch than your grandparents are parading it on our screens in front of the unemployed and housewives 

I was asked to do a feature on circuit bending for the Paul'o'Grady show a year or so ago (early evening chatshow hosted by a camp ex transvestite) but i could see the oh so hilarious 'bender' (UK slang for homosexual) innuendo's coming a mile off so i turned it down.

[jamiewoody]

i just wish i could find that one in the states, that smallest one, the sa-46 (i think). it has the fewest keys and  comes in mod colours.

they look so cool!

i understand, if  "everybody is doing it" it is less unique. this concerns me a little. also, the fact that an sk1 costs as much as a brand new korg monotron!

on the other side of the coin, it's a feeling that i helped further a movement BEFORE it hit the mainstream! lol!

[Gordonjcp]

It's funny, I was just talking to one of the people that comes along to our electronics club about this earlier on.  I think that circuit-bending as it was when this site started is basically dead.  No, really.

All the cheap Yamaha PSSes, SK1s and so on are *gone*.  People are paying stupid prices for crappy toys that might or might not make a funny noise if poked in the right place, but the really good stuff is just not there.  Manufacturers are turning out more and more "black blob" units not to stop people modifying them, but because they are cheap.  Casio aren't going to produce a "new SK1", and if they do it will be - guess what? - a black blob board.  Why not make it bendable?  Because you're too small a market.  The sheer cost of producing a new SK1 with components you can actually get at would be prohibitive, simply because factories aren't geared up to make them that way any more.

The Korg Monotron (and indeed the very close relative, the Gakken SX-150) are an interesting development - they clearly *are* geared to our market.  It looks like you *are* meant to spindle, fold and mutilate them.  So, maybe we'll see a new wave of hobbyist synthesizer constructors like in the 1970s.  There are a lot of really cool things you can do with very cheap processor boards (like the Arduino) - things like wavetable oscillators, envelope generators and sequencers.  The "boring" bits of the synth are easy, leaving us free to do cool things like filters, waveshapers and oscillators.

It's time to hit those electronics books...

[Ciderfeks]

I remember hearing the Modified Toy Orchestra on Radio 2 about a year ago - they get booked to play all over the World doing that believe it or not. I remember they played some of their music and it sounded decidedly un-circuit bent - more like the standard presets and demo tunes you get on unmodified toy keyboards. That was my biggest disappointment with them - the apparent lack of a desire to do something interesting with their creations, I mean why bother with the bending process at all if thats what you're going to do? I guess I only heard about 30 seconds of their stuff so perhaps they toned it down for mainstream radio. And a career...

One thing they did say was they never pay over £1 for any toy which they source at car-boot sales (like yard sales in the US) rather than Ebay and I think that is a commendable, if limiting approach.

I was asked to do a feature on circuit bending for the Paul'o'Grady show a year or so ago

That's bizarre! Next step - circuit bending on The Generation Game.   

[jamiewoody]

i always wanted one of those gakken synths, but the shipping to the US is just outrageous!  it would be cool to have one of each, and compare them side by side...

[Gordonjcp]

The circuit for the SX-150 is easily available and there's not much to it.  Take it bit-by-bit and build your own.

[electoyd]

i like the gakken probably better than the monotron, it has a nice raw sound and better controls/size.  Paul think you were right to turn down the paul o grady show that could only have back fired and yes i think it is the kiss of death, especially when we are bundled into the same bag as that modified toy orchestra dross, and yeah you can tell they dont spend more than a pound on their equipment it certainly sounded that way.  I dont really care about saying that either because they bring nothing to the scene and if anything make it a laughing stock.  We could all jump about in clowns outfits blowing on small plastic saxaphones making preset rubbish but where would things go then, nothing would ever progress beyond an infantile level and at best for gigs we may get childrens partys.

Most of the people that seem to come on this site are beyond that level yet that is the level that seems to be socially acceptable  i.e. check those crazy psuedo scientist boffin benders playing with kids toys isnt that hilarious, eh no.  They aren't interested if you've just built that amazing modular or about those crazy amazing mods you just put on that rocking drum machine that make it a unique piece of art, they just wanna see a barbie guitar and an sk-1....................baa humbug-god i'm starting to rant like zoinky

[Gordonjcp]

baa humbug-god i'm starting to rant like zoinky

Naw, you're making more sense.

[Ciderfeks]

for gigs we may get childrens partys.

That's great! Imagine the horror on their little faces as their favorite 'Hello Kitty' keyboard spews out a sonic fur-ball!
If you did that gig right, you'd only get booked the one time.

I don't really feel too concerned about The Modified Toy Orchestra effect. It's not unusual for mainstream media to barely scratch the surface of a scene to find someone to "represent" it (at least Paul O'Grady's researchers are more clued up than those on The Gadget Show ). If anything they probably want T.M.T.O to be as ordinary as possible - they think the audience can only just deal with "wacky" and they certainly don't want unique art breaking out on tea-time TV! We are living in the age of The X Factor and Big Brother. But, as Electoyd pointed out, most people who frequent this forum seem to do so because they want to learn/share knowledge and they want to make interesting musical instruments, be that out of modified toys or built from scratch. Hopefully that will remain the same.