(Photos by NebulaGirl, Horse by Creme Dementia)

The Experimental Garage Sale was a smash success all across the board, so much that there is already talk about the next one. The Artists finally had a long and needed La Purga of gear. Their cherished musical instruments  got new homes with other local and traveling Artists, ready to be utilized in new and unexpected ways.

Initially there was a concern over the cloudy skies so the call was made to move sale inside the Experimental Sound Studio facilities, but that worked out even better thanks to the spacious Live Rooms and the AC kicking. The summer rain helped to cool off the outside and make for a perfect evening later on in the Windy City.

In the first 2 hours the traffic was unbelievable, piles of unbent gear disappeared before our very eyes and intense negotiations were taking place for the bent stuff. In the end everybody was satisfied, leaving with piles of smiles.

The sounds going on at once inside of the room were amazing and thanks to Nebulagirl we also have some recordings of that. Toys being tested, conversations, hustle and bustle all beautifully melted together. Click here to listen. More images from the event are also in the GetLoFi Gallery here and soon there should be video of Artists talking about their creations on Gearwire.

Huge Thanks to the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago for opening their facilities to us, contact them because they do recordings big and small! That and you will receive professional advice from the ever Experimental Alex Inglizian who was instrumental in making this event happen. Other gigantic Thanks go out to Roth Mobot Crew for being Chicago’s Finest, SpunkyToofers, Creme Dementia, NebulaGirl, Michael and Renee Una ( the New Chicago Prayer Wheel Project is rad ) , Kaz, Tim from Velva, WSAP, Brian, everyone that came to hang out, everyone that came to help support us in making of future art, and everyone wishing us good luck because they could not be there.

Press liked us too:

Tommy of Roth Mobot pointed me in the direction of the SAW III Sampler from AllElectronics.com a few weeks ago. The device costs $2 and includes as set of 2 AAA Batteries! When it comes to bending there are a few interesting points and also some annoyances. The drawbacks include: no Loop Mode when play button is held, there is also a gap between each playback, and a audible beep at lower speeds before the audio starts. Despite the shortcomings there are a some very nice features. The recorded sample is stored even if batteries are taken out and the standard speed length of the sample is about 30 seconds. Low operating voltage only requires 3 Volts which is great and can be supplied with 5 volts by a 7805 Voltage Regulator without burning up the circuit. The best part is that the sampler is only $2 which is cheap as hell!

The board is fairly easy to work with and there are many components yet to be explored, but the pitch resistor labeled R4 was successfully replaced with a 1M Potentiometer effecting both playback and recording speeds. You can also trigger Playback by using an NPN PN2222 transistor with 2 outer legs connected to the playback button. When the Base pin of the transistor receives a positive voltage it completes the Ground circuit and will trigger Playback. As a bonus I marked a location on the circuit board to connect the Base pin to for a quasi-Looping feature.  Pretty neat and at lower speeds works rather well. The Playback can also be triggered from an external circuit like an Arduino Board or some other Microcontroller, all you need is a common Ground between the 2 devices and connection for the Positive voltage pulse.

Last but not least the Output needs to be connected in Parallel with a 10 Ohm resistor, otherwise the volume is way to loud. This sampler makes a very nice candidate for rehousing or even incorporating into another bent device. Enjoy this bend and let us know you find anything else useful.

Experimental Garage Sale will take place at the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago on July 19th, 2008 between Noon-9 PM. This free event will be a perfect opportunity for circuit benders and anyone interested to snag up toys  for bending and to talk shop with all the Artists present. Already bent devices will be available for sale also. The entertainment planned is an all day Experimental Open-Mic, plus various other activities.

The idea for this Garage Sale has been floated a few times by many Midwestern Artists before coming to fruition. Huge Thanks goes out to Alex Inglizian aka Cliplead who was able to secure the beautiful space of the EXSOST Backyard in Chicago for us to gather at.

I will be bringing a big box of unbent toys, lots of various keyboards, several completed instruments as well as new 555 PCB circuits, Waldeck Interrupters, Lo-Fi Delay modules, surplus parts like switches, pots, project boxes. Last but not least an industrial size Cotton Candy machine to make Festive Treats!

Special guests include: Beatrix*Jar ( MN ), Creme Dementia ( IL ) , Spunky Toofers ( MO ), Roth Mobot ( IL ), DJ Demchuk ( IL ), Mike Una ( IL ). Come one come all to socialize, enjoy the day, talk shop, snag up circuit bent and unbent gear.

Refreshments and Snacks will be available. Those attending are also encouraged to bring Cash or your Credit Cards, we can take payments via PayPal through an Internet terminal at the ESS.

Get Directions here.

Interview By: Rodney Clark

Mark 1/2 Mang is throwing one heck of a bash this September in Cincinnati. The event is one that will attract artists as worthy as Bent Fest has in the past. Plus it promises a chance to hear Reed Ghazala speak on the subject of the history of circuit-bending, personal stories, slides, dye migration, plus bent devices he’s made. This sounds like something I had to ask more about…so I did.

Q: What is Circuitastrophe Symposium? What could one expect if going to the festival?

Mark: Circuitastrophe is a forum for people to present their Bent, Modified, Hacked, Robotic, and Electronic contraptions. Secondly it is designed to educate and engage critical thinking behind the designs, theories, and history of Electroniqueness (?) using presentations, installations, lectures, workshops, performances, and a panel discussion.

Performance wise we have circuit-benders, a couple of 8 bit performers, and some musique concre..ters (not that circuit-bending isn’t musique concrete). Many performers have visual components to their performance. The list is at the end of the interview.

There are two primer events; one a circuit-bent performance on Mon, Sept 1st on W.A.I.F. 88.3 FM from 1PM-3PM, and the second is an in-store circuit-bent performance at Shake It Records Wednesday the 3rd of Sept. If anyone is interested in performing those shows please contact me. Their may be another radio slot available on W.A.I.F., as the Art Damage radio show has just been reinstated Tuesday mornings from 12:00 AM – 2:00 PM (details soon to follow in the comments section).

We are trying to do a performance on Fountain Square (Cincinnati’s town square) using the Jumbo-Tron.

The Contemporary Arts Center just contacted me about doing a lunch time performance on Mon, Sept 8th. So the festival may go one more day.

Q: Where’s the festival being held?

Mark: We have several locations; the idea is gathering people from differing disciplines to congregate and share ideas. Plus we hope more locations will translate to a larger more diverse turnout. Thursday and Friday we will be at The Art Damage Lodge (former SkuLLLab, and Art Damage radio people) from 7 PM – 2:00 AM. semantics (a local artist co-op that doesn’t capitalize their s) will host the installations and Saturday performances from 7 PM – 11:30 PM; however the performances may move to an indoor location across the street and go later than 11:30. The Saturday workshops are from 11:00 AM -5:00 PM, but we haven’t solidified the location, however there are several options in the Brighton area next to semantics. We just met with the Contemporary Arts Center, and they are housing the Panel Discussion on Sun morning, and a Circuit-Bending 101 Workshop from 2:00 PM-5:00 PM. The fore mentioned primers at W.A.I.F. 88.3 FM, and the in-store performance at Shake It Records round out the festivities.

Q: Who all is putting this festival together?

Mark: Since I was asked to curate this by an artist co-op; I guess I am the curator instead of the person putting on a show (it’s all semantics). Nebulagirl has provided a wealth of advice and assistance. Nebs also came up with the Circuitastrophe moniker and got Reed Ghazala interested. The Art Damage Lodge’s Jon Johns (Jon Lorenz and John Rich) have been doing all sorts of experimental music over the years, including circuit-bending, and have been incredibly helpful in planning this event. Some of the other entities involved in organizing this event are Scot Boberg from the Contemporary Arts Center, and David Dillon (semantics, CAC), Julia Ranz from W.A.I.F., Jim Blaze from Shake It Records. There are several people within the participating organizations helping organize the behind the scenes stuff.

Q: When did the idea of a festival come about?

Mark: Back in February David Dillon at semantics asked me to curate a show of my own choice. I had been taking “Integrative and Robotic Art” a course at Northern Kentucky University all the while dabbling in the circuit-bending scene. So I thought these components might make for an interesting semantics project. The Robotics course was a great environment for learning about electronics. Many students in this class had varied skill sets, like welding, casting, soldering, chemistry, etc. A bi-product of this course was sharing these skills with each other. I realized that when this class was over we would lose this communal workshop. Right around this time I went to the Bent Festival MN, and the communal aspect there was very similar to what was going on in the Robotics course. I went to the Bent Fest to look at how they organized their structure, with an eye on graphing part of what they did onto our event. What was to be a robotics and circuit-bent show started evolving into my want to improve, teach, and share electronic arts in the area, and most importantly to develop an electronics community.

To help develop an electronics community I am extending the concept of this festival into a bimonthly event called Solder Party. Solder Party will be a gathering of electronics people to show their projects, develop new ideas, and get help with projects gone array. The Solder Party would conclude with a jam session/demonstration, could involve visiting artists, and have themed workshops.

Q: Are you looking for any more sound artist to play?

Mark: Yes! We have apx. 20 performers (list changes everyday), and we have room for a few more. At the moment we have money from the door, and that’s not much considering gas prices. However, if you can work around that hurdle with merch, and other shows, we would love to hear from you.

I would like to round out the symposium with some people who are way out there! People that consider worms as potential resistors, make robots that bend, work on a quantum scale, convert solar energy to chemical energy to kinetic energy to magnetic energy and can talk about it. We want people who challenge the thought processes behind electricity and electronics. Maybe we could involve phenomena besides electricity in conjunction with our electronic doo-hickies. I would like to see the symposium include artists that delve into various phenomena like x-rays, radio waves, the infrared spectrum.

Or we could just get a few more people that bend and make interesting sounds.

Q: What kind of other things are still needed as far as lectures, workshops, installations, etc…?

Mark: I am looking at workshops, but I need to work out details. Dan Demchuk is doing a 101 workshop. Brad McCombs Northern Kentucky University professor of Art and Informatics is giving a lecture on technology, robotics, and ecology. I have approached Casper Electronics, Flower Electronics, Highly Liquid, Michael Una, Tim Kaiser, and Anode Records about workshops and or lectures. So we probably have what we can handle. But if someone has an amazing idea I can probably work it out!

I am looking for people that are interested in alternative power, as well. I think it would be practical to discuss the types of energy (kinetic, potential, thermal, gravitational, sound energy, light energy, elastic, electromagnetic, chemical, nuclear, and mass) and how they are converted from one type to another. Thinking about how these alternative energy sources could power our machines; change their sounds, and visuals are potential fodder for the symposium.

Q: How could one get a hold of someone, as far as being part of the festival?

Mark: You can befriend me on myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/circuitastrophe
or you can e-mail me:
ttwerp@fuse.net

Q: Who all do you have booked already, and what is their role for the festival?

Mark: Q Reed Ghazala (Cin): is planning to do a history of circuit-bending presentation, personal stories, slides, dye migration, and bent devices. Reed keeps changing the program, and making things bigger, so I guess we’ll find out what it is when it develops.

Brad McCombs my robotics professor and colleague at Northern Kentucky University. He developed Animation Station hardware and software with Transverse Technologies. He makes robotic sculptures that interact with the environment in a symbolic or scientific manner.

Mike Hancock (Heart of Palm, French Crips) is making a Barbie Karaoke multimedia installation and performance.

At the Bent Festival in MN Loud Objects gave me a few “Noise Toys” to install, but they may do a larger installation.

Mike Una said he will bring the updated Beat Bike, and do a solo performance with his new Drumbot.

Pelzwik should have a batch of weird things at his merch table. At Bent Fest he was slapping together glitched out devices inside a plastic VHS case. I am curious to see what he brings.

This is the list of performers with hyperlinks:

1. Fluxmonkey (Clevland)

2. Spunky Toofers (Kansas/Cin)

3. Uncle Dave Lewis (Detroit/Cin)

4. Nebulagirl (CAF Galahad) (Cin)

5. Jay Wilson (Cin)

6. Mike Hancock (Cin)

7. Talking Computron (Cedar Rapids)

8. DJ Demchuk (Chicago)

9. Mike Una (Chicago)

10. DJ Tendraw (UK)

11. Crème De Mentia (DeKalb)

12. Datura 1.0 (Minneapolis)

13. Loud Objects (installation maybe perform, NYC)

14. Pelzwik, (Nick Heimer), Minneapolis

15. Tentacle Boy (Minneapolis)

16. Peter Edwards, Casper Electronics (NYC)

17. Mistpouffers (Nebulagirl, and Mark ½ Mang) (Cin)

18. Mark ½ Man g (Cin)

19. Ben Allen

20. Roth Mobot (Chicago)

21. Albino Ghost Monkey (Rice Lake)

We are currently slotting the performers, which I will add to the comments section when completed.

Q: How many days will the festival run?

Mark: 4 days from Sept 4th- 7th (and maybe a fifth day on Mon the 8th)

Q: Is there a cost for the festival?

Mark: $7 at the door for performances and $3 for workshops

Q: Any thing else you would like to add?

Mark: I wanted to thank you for interviewing me about our symposium/festival, and for getting the word out!

According to an interview done by Second Supper a college paper in LaCrosse, WI. Wes Borland is into circuit bending. Some of you may remember Wes as the heavily costumed guitar player of Limp Bizkit from the late 90s, early 2000s.

“…WB: I guess when I was younger I thought in terms of being just a guitar player, but I don’t think that people should stick to just one instrument. Synthesis is so interesting, synthesizers and pedals and crossing the streams of different things into each other. Running keyboards through guitar amps and running children’s toys that have been tweaked. What I’m into lately is circuit bending and people who take those kids’ toys and make them sound like the devil. I do that kind of stuff. I’ve also got a cello, a violin, a French horn, and a sax, which I use. I like generating noise – a lot of noise – and sound through other things than just a guitar. There’s not a rule written anywhere that you have to stick to just one thing, and I think it’s important for musicians to explore. When you approach an instrument that you have no idea what to do on, there’s a naïveté that I think is really precious. You don’t know the territory, so you’re going to approach it like you would your own instrument, and get sounds and ideas that you wouldn’t get out of your own. Exploring is something I’ve always done and will always do.”

Keep exploring everyone!

The Hasbro Power Tour Guitar appears to be on sale for an unbelievable price of $13.98, that’s down from $70 original retail, at my local Target store. Online it appears as sold out, however the shelves were brimming with this awesome instrument. The Power Tour Amp was also on sale for $10.38, perfect for workbench or portable entertainment.

The Guitar itself is a fairly amazing instrument, it features light up touch sensitive frets and strum area. Powered by a microcontroller with crystal oscillator these can be pitched down using a 555 timer circuit. There are about 8 different guitar sounds to choose from and even unmodified its hours of fun. Sounds are stored on a Flash board with lots of posibilities for glitching, however it does tend to crash fairly often.

Recently I modified one of these for a friend by adding a pitch control and a built-in Yada Yada Yada Sampler, the photos will be up shortly. Good luck.

Atari Steampunk Console.

Weird Sound Generator.

Trioscillator.

Warpfactor 9.

Captain Nemo Beatbox.

Mike was also kind enough to answer a few questions about his devices.

CM: How did you manage to make the APC do what appears to be fairly set note intervals? Did you mod the circuit at all?

Mike Ford: I had tried the 556 schematic to no avail and had to go with a dual 555 set up. The circuit has been modded to include two rotary switches with various caps, sorta a range setting, I suppose. The other mods are two photocells that act as Pitch and interval. I plan on adding the Vox repeat percussion circuit in the future.

CM:The Nemo beat box is fucking rad! Are you getting those extra sounds through some feedback circuitry?

MF: NEMO is a bent 1980s Realistic/Radioshack beatbox. I kinda love those old drum machine sounds and hope to get a National Panasonic or Univox to mangle (circuitbend) soon! There were some trimmer caps on the board I wired some pots to gain control over  the oscillators that were set from the factory.

CM: How are you managing to keep contact capacitance from influencing the circuits with all that metal?

MF: Oops. didn’t consider that!

CM: Lastly, have you ever built a really nice case only to realize that it was not worthy of the sound generator?

MF: Sure. I usually work out the ideas in parallel. Or, that is to say, sometimes things will develop simultaneously. Sometimes stuff sits around collecting dust till the inspiration comes or I am driven to finish something and get on with another project. I think I am about to turn a corner and start to  actually perform with the works. After all, my intent was to build stuff I would want to use in a performance setting.
CM: Thanks Mike, we’re looking forward to new and exciting performances as well as devices.

The ever controversial craftsmen of very nice looking Folktek instruments are putting on some sort of a competition via an eBay auction. The premise is that after buying a mystery sound circuit for $44.44 you will be entered into a competition to create a sound art piece with that circuit. The best entry will receive a custom Folktek instrument. Deadline for submission is August 30th and the winner will be chosen and made example of by last day in September. Any takers?

In the previous post we established what a Dub Siren was. Now it is time to make one and start the journey to become a Legendary Dub All-Star.

First you need the parts:

8 Sound Keychain - available here in packages of 12 for $9.50 plus shipping! There is plenty of other sound generating circuits out there which are cheap and in the next few days I will do a keychain roundup. There is also a COB (Chip-on-board ) version of this sound generator without the button traces that would be a lot easier to work with. This particular keychain just sounds so good, its got your sirens and machineguns, which everyone instantly recognizes as being Atari like or 8-bit, plus it loops!

Rotary Switch -  this will be the sound selector. 8 position is ideal, however 12 position ones seem to be most common and are the cheapest from Jameco. This is what all the sound buttons will be wired to and the center pin will be going to a push button that will trigger the sound by completing the circuit with the Ground.

1 Mega Ohm Linear Potentiometer - to control the pitch of the sound being played back. Obviously the sound circuit has to have a pitch resistor, most cheap keychains do. Lets try to stick with just Jameco for the source.

2 Momentary Push Button Switches - One button will connect the ground to the rotary switch and the other one will be used as a Mute by sending positive output from the instrument jack to the ground. Jameco once again.

AA or AAA Battery holder - Mine was from the SAW III sampler toy, you can improvise as long as you don’t go above 3 Volts. Jameco has a good deal on these.

Plastic Enclosure - Plenty to choose from, but I would recommend reusing something and helping to keep the trash out of the landfill. A Cigar box would do nicely.

Output Jack - 1/4 inch seems to be the industry standard.

Rasta Graphics for the front panel - free on the Internet.

2 Knobs - lots to choose from and scavenge if you can, otherwise get some chicken heads from Jameco.

Rubber feet - so the Rasta Box doesn’t slide off that table when the Bass is bumping.

Solid Core wire - stranded core will be a pain to work with, it splinters too easy.

The total for parts should be under $20 and possibly even cheaper if you are resourceful and can strip components from discarded electronics, etc.

The construction process:
Get everything together in one place on a work surface in a well lit and properly ventilated environment.

1. Connect the battery compartment to the 8 sound keychain board. ( Probably best to keep the batteries out for now, so there are no shorts ) No need for power switch because this particular keychain powers down automatically and instantly comes ON when the any button is pressed.

2. Solder the output jack to where the speaker was connected on the sound board. One wire to the Transistor Buffer and the other to the positive terminal? I dunno seems like that’s how they had it. Normally you would connect the Ground to the outside ring of the instrument jack and the Positive output to the tip.

3. Remove the pitch resistor and replace it with a 1M potentiometer. Center and one of the outer taps should go to where the resistor legs used to be. Very important, connect the remaining outside tap to Ground, this will give you the low pitch drop!

4. This step is perhaps the most tricky and easy to mess up, solder 8 wires to the button connection traces. These are very thin traces that interlock and if you build a solder bridge the sound will be stuck in the ON position. It will be hard and the only thing I can recommend is that you lightly sand or scrape the green protective layer and possibly cut the traces that go to Ground from those buttons. Solder with caution and be careful not to pull hard on the wire because the entire trace may come off. At this point you can probably plug in the batteries and test the soldering job making sure that if you connect the Ground to any of the button wires the sound gets produced. If the soldering checks out, drench that thing in hot glue so nothing moves or falls off!

5. Take a break then drill some holes for the controls in your plastic box. Make sure the knobs are spaced such that there plenty of room for them to rotate. After that you should overlay the graphic and then cut the holes on paper for the controls to slide through. To hold the paper in place I just use packing tape, but there are other plastic sheets and laminate options if you want to get fancy with it.

6.  Mount the push buttons, the potentiometer, and the rotary switch in the case if it is big enough to work inside. Otherwise solder wires to the components first and then mount them. Please note that there will be more solder lugs on the rotary than button contacts. I typically just use every other one the first round. The trigger button needs to have a wire going from the center tap of the rotary switch to one of its legs. The other leg needs to be connected to Ground. The Mute button will need to be connected to the tip of the output jack with the second leg going to Ground as well. The potentiometer should just have to be wired to the ground. If you are clever you can make all the Ground connections meet at the same place saving on wire. Mount the output jack and test everything. Makes sound? No…try setting the potentiometer to center and maybe resetting the batteries. Still no? Go back and recheck your connections.

7.  If everything works, use copious amounts of hot glue to hold stuff in place. Close the enclosure and start jamming out. The gate switch should chop up the sound when pressed, doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Next plug this into a delay pedal, turn up some Dub Reggae on YouTube, and start Toasting! The only thing to watch out for is  overusing these sounds because they eventually lose the magic. However the first 30 minutes will be a pure blast! Enjoy.

P.S. Here is the rough schematic of the circuit with the keychain board in the center, note the red Xs, those are to indicate that if you are soldering to the pads make sure they are not connected to any other pads via Ground. I can post a picture of exactly what I’m talking about soon.

* Updated *

I will be making another schematic and a new version of the siren using the Chip-on-board sound circuit. Also if these keychains are not available in your area, for whatever reason, feel free to order them from GetLoFi here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhFXjK8tOOs

At about the 40 second mark of this video you can hear a Dub Siren aka Rasta Box. They are simple electronic sound effect units used as musical accent in Dub Reggae. The sounds are typically simulated police or car sirens with pitch control and the ability to only trigger the sound when the button is pressed. For the most part that is the fundamental difference over devices like the Atari Punk Console or other Opto Theremins that produce similar sounds but generally have no Envelope control besides volume. Dub Sirens like much of Reggae are drenched in Delay, lots and lots of Delay! Recently, at least to me, it seems that Dub Sirens made a crossover into the Circuit Bending and Synth DIY scene. Consider these fine examples: Video 1, Video 2, Video 3.

There are also what appear to be authentic sound FX units on the market, one is from Jah Tubby’s Sound System in UK called SynFex and it is usually sold out.

Video of the system in action and an audio sample of the above device with just the noises. Whats interesting to note is that the Pitch is set via a rotary switch and not just a potentiometer. In a way that seems like it would be easier on the ears, no jumping around in frequencies. Another commercially available unit is from Theremin Planet for 130 Euros! I guess what I’m trying to say is that most of these Dub Sirens are simple dual 555 oscillators with a trigger button and Rasta colors.

There are currently a few resources for building Dub sirens, one is this Interruptor.ch page and a discussion board. There is also a free VST version on the same site along with Delays and other VST effects. Video of the Interruptor being played.

A CMOS Version of a Dub Siren is available on the AEE projectblog. However most of these require building relatively complicated oscillator circuits, but fear not because shortly I will be posting a “How To” on making a Dub Siren using an 8 Sound Keychain. Jah Mon!

P.S. Looks like my Embedded YouTube videos are not working for some reason. Atleast on Firefox 3.