Recasing Projects to note
This Dual Atari Punk Console comes via Andy in Paris France. Encased in an authentic Ikea stainless steel Salad bowl with bright blue LEDs to pierce through the darkness, very nice addition to the APC line. A video of sample sounds is available in youTube as well. It seems to me that common household objects sometimes do make the best enclosures, Q.R. Ghazala also mentiones using a wooden salad bowl flipped upside down for his Vox Insecta sound system in his Circuit Bending Book
This Gravity Scale DIY synth is encased in a vintage bathroom scale and is currently up on ebay. Packed with 4 sound oscillators and 4 LFOs for pitch modulation. Volume controls and shape change switches are also provided for each oscillator. The oscillators’ outputs are mixed down to a single Master out with volume control. Audio samples can be heard on this page, although they all start playing at the same time, creating a noise sound collage. Nice work on the recase, I specially dig the handle. No word on whether the scale works normaly with the bends off. More info at KingCapitolpunishment.com.
Sound Sample.
Tomas E. Green the creator of Franklinator has posted some very neat looking new instruments to his Barkona Rova website. The Caution Box and the CPX both contain black blob circuits pulled from various toys then modified with output jacks, potentiometers, and toggle switches. The Caution Box also has a vintage vacuum tube being back lit when the circuit is in use, very nice touch. The CPX recase is also very well done, especially with what appears to be two heavy vintage stereo tuner knobs. The wooden box was originally a gift box for a wallet later picked up at a thrift store for a $1. I too often snag those if I see them, certainly hell of a lot cheaper then crappy plastic enclosures and a lot more classy with some sanding, staining, and a touch of clear coat. The opto resistor is hidden in the case just above the hinges. Nice work inside and outside, for more info along with descriptions and sound samples please visit Barkona Rova’s circuit bending section. Thanks to Tom for sharing these.
Panaphonic has recently completed another APC build using two 555 ICs instead of a single 556. The outside case was decorated with a woodgrain adhesive in honor of the original Atari 2600. This type of woodgrain material can be purchased from a variety of hardware stores and supermarkets like Walmart, priced at around $5.00 for a huge roll. Please see my previous post for more info. I guess the next logical step is to have the APC circuit inside of the actual console. Great work.
Phillip Stearns of Pixelform recently updated his website to showcase newest works of Burlap embedded with noise making circuits. Wired point to point these are very neat to say the least. These new burlap works were created for the Soundwalk 2006 festival in CA, unfortunately there are no images from his years event uploaded to their official site yet, but 2004 and 2005 are there, fun stuff. I especially like the idea of having a battery installed in the works themselves, no black cords dangling down, which is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to new media installations. From experience most simple noise making circuits will run for hours, if not days on a single 9 Volt battery, granted these have amplification so driving the speakers drains the juice a little quicker. Thanks Phil and also Karl for sending this in.
Ailab posted another original variation on now very popular Atari Punk Console design to the CircuitBending LiveJournal. The case I am guessing came from a piece of jewelry or a watch and it is black velvet on the outside with a clever magnet mod to hold the lid down. The finished project really looks to me like prop that a humanoid space alien would use for communication in a 60s sci-fi movie, very eye pleasing, silver and fuzzy. Ailab also expanded the device by adding the Oddness filter stage available on Ray Wilson’s website, the addition takes this circuit to a whole new level. The pitch of the oscillator along and cutoff frequency for the filter are controlled by two photo resistors also substituted in to spice up the APC. No schematic yet, but there is a sound sample and more images.
APC aka The Furious Lobste Sound Sample.
Not the Synth, but still cool:
Crazy Audio Sample Here ( RealAudio Embedded )
Telephone1562 has posted this Arts and Crafts version of a popular circuit bending candidate Speak and Math to LiveJournal Circuit Bending Group. The felt does nothing for the glitches, however it does make your speak and spell warm and fuzzy to the touch. Make:Zine also published an Q.R Ghazala article with lots of useful tips and diagrams for bending a speak and spell. To take this Speak-Tacular a step further here is a link to a Sherman filter bank triggering sounds through some bend points on a Circuit Bent Grillo Parlante ( Italian Speak and Spell ) by Asmoeddie. Blinky Blinky, Glitchy Glitchy.
This circuit bent Yamaha SHS-200 has been outfitted with a breakout box crafted from an old Atari 2600 by Tablebeast. It recently sold on eBay, but the idea of using your Atari to house something worth while is here to stay. The banks of RCA jacks fit nicely along the vast flat useless space of the 2600. The standard control switches were replaced with massive toggles and the metal covers are a nice touch. One thing to push this over the top would’ve been the ability to plug-in a Classic Atari joystick for patching of the bends. Possibly even mounted on the keytar for killer live performance!
Alpha_Mod is the complete guide to modding your C64 in order to take advantage of the Prophet64 Cart, which is back in production now. Everything is included: potentiometer mods, DIN Sync, video output, and even serial interface for saving and loading files. Great pictures and lots of valuable text descriptions. Sweet post Via Hack a Day.
This casio PT-10 was completely rehoused in a case made from spare materials by Leadtowine. The finished results and tips were posted to the benders group forum ( Account required to login ). Certain bend points were found with the help of this schematic posted earlier on GetLoFi. Nice work, I especially like the keyboard arrangement from a single piece of Plexiglas. Almost like a thumb piano, yet its a clever way to make a keyboard like interface without too much hassle.
