I love this twist on the traditional keyboard. The interface is like a tweaked out Stylophone. The user has contact points on his finger. When these points make contact with the board, the sound is triggered. What’s interesting is that this device is multitouch, unlike the monophonic input on the Stylophone.
Since there are no buttons, [...]
When constructing music using circuit bent instruments, I tend to spend 10 minutes improvising to a click track then combing over the resulting audio and extracting the most interesting moments to be later chopped and sequenced in Reason. Basically, I’m the enemy of the “purest” bending community. My goal isn’t to make deconstructionist audio collages, [...]
Mark Growden plays the handlebars from Doctor Popular on Vimeo.
Looking back, I probably wouldn’t have bought Xoc’s newest album, The Beginning of the End, if it had cost one dollar more. Not that I wasn’t interested… GameMusic4All’s description of the Sacramento based musician who performs live versions of video game sound tracks sounded enticing, but without as much as a single preview track, my [...]
After years of use, I’m finally retiring my circuit bent Casio DM-100. The DM-100 is one of the rarest Casio’s out there and a unique piece for any collector. This keyboard is basically two separate units; the top tier, which is believed to actually be the guts from a Casio SK-5, where the lower keys [...]
I had written before about a few super SK-1 circuit bent synths. Well one of those keyboards, King Capitol Punishment’s modified SK-1 is for sale on ebay, starting price $550.
This SK-1 was one of the first modded casios to have a step sequencer added to the patchbay. This sequencer has a standalone tempo dial and [...]
I’ve recently come across the work of programmer and chiptune musician Pixelh8. For me, a lot of chiptune music sounds the same. I think that many artists allow themselves to be controlled by their devices more than they control the devices themselves. Although the chiptune scene is full of artists who frown on using anything [...]
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In the infrequent battle against a lack of Drown Pirate Radio podcasting, The Vacorec is a major unit in my arsenal.
Designed in the 70’s by VRO industries out of Anaheim CA, the Vacorec is both a record cleaner and static remover.
Just slide the record into the slot, and the motor will [...]
Although I hardly ever create chiptunes on my handhelds anymore, I have always wanted a way to sync the gameboy with a midi trigger. Often haunted by dreams of triggering my circuit bent TR-707 along with nanoloop. Such devices exist, but you have to make them yourself.
I first saw plans a few years [...]
Item number 140058470242 is a prototype Tannerin built by Tom Polk in 1999. Tom’s design was based on Paul Tanner’s original instrument the Electro-Theremin. Tom also built a Tannerin for Brian Wilson’s 1999 solo tour and 2 more compact models for the 2005 Broadway production of “Good Vibrations”.
The Electro-Theremin, or Tannerin, is an electronic instrument [...]
