|
I've been circuit bending for almost 2 years now, and in that time I've bent almost 200 items. Out of those I would say that 75% of them were you standard pitch bend, and sometimes a distortion bend. I've grown
pretty bored of that setup, so set out trying to find some ways to spice up these "black blob" one trick ponies with something different. After doing some research online, and drooling over Salior Mouth's website, I started working on adding LFOs to some of my circuit bent instruments to add some versatility. Not every toy has responded the same to any one LFO circuit, so I have a few I try on a breadboard until I find the one that fits best. This page will focus on the toy keyboards that I have added LFOs to, I've also added them to some of my circuit bent Crib Soothers, see them here:
The first keyboard I added an LFO to was super simple. It only has one tone that is assignable to the keys, a low and high volume switch, and a switch that will make the keys play lullabies. In this case the keyboard responded to having a depth pot for the LFO, so I added one of those, an LFO rate control knob, and LFO rate indicating LED. I also bent the keyboard with a pitch knob, pitch controlling light cell (with a switch to select between the two), a center off switch that selects between sustain, standard, and short note decay, and a white LED under a lens that indicates power. Sound sample here.
This Kids Way keyboard has mutilple tones, rhythms, and demos. This one, like quite a few keyboards I've run into makes a very glitchy white noise type sounds when it's set at certain high point on the pitch. Baring this in mind I added course and fine pitch controls to dial in that point. This one responded to the tremolo mod (shutting off the rate LED) that I've run into on quite a few of these LFO mods I've done. Controls are: Course Pitch, Fine Pitch, LFO send switch, LFO rate LED on/off switch, LFO rate knob, and LFO rate indicating bright blue LED. Sound sample here.
This one's pitch was controlled by a crystal rather then a resistor, so I used a high frequency oscillator to replace that. I also setup a home made vactrol (a photocell again an LED wrapped in tape) with an LFO, and then wired it to modulate the pitch. Circuit bends are pitch control knob, pitch controlling photocell, and pitch bending body contacts. I set the knob, and cell pitch controls on a center off switch so that the center will allow you to control the pitch with just the LFO'd Vactrol. Sound sample here.
All though not a keyboard, this Wiggle's guitar got the same treatment as them. It also received a "hammered look" black finish.
|
