Consumer Electronics Make Music

metoikos writes "Forget about hacking your Gameboy -- what about cat toys or Teddy Ruxpins? Any of these is fair game to a circuit bending hobbyist. Essentially, circuit bending is the art of making interesting noises come out of re-engineered consumer electronics, mostly toys. Bending recently came into the spotlight when a number of news organizations discovered the 2004 Bent Festival at New York's Tank. Derek Sajbel, a bender from California, is writing a book/doing a documentary on it." BishopBerkeley writes "Circuit bending has apparently been going on long enough among a large enough contingent of benders to merit a weeklong festival dedicated to bending circuits. The art is largely a process of making musical instruments by 'bending' the circuits of fairly common electronic instruments and gadgets. According to this article in the New York Times people have been making rather interesting music by modifying the strange toys with which a lot of us grew up. If you're near Manhattan, and you didn't know about the Bent Festival, then think about going. You can find more info at the official circuit bending web site."

Benders?

[Seoulstriker]

Bender Festival? Think of all the oil, cigars, and robot pr0n there would be...

So If I..

[TheKidWho]

So If I just go ahead and bend this keyboard something interest should come out...

waits 10 seconds...

ASDLJGFLKJ#$()!*U@#$!)ADFKOH#@$I!HJ@#KJRQWEKJFAK DS FHAKEJHROQWEOURQWLKJEF:LKJ#!LKJ#@$!

Hacking Teddy Ruxpin...

[Equuleus42]

What about [hacking] cat toys or Teddy Ruxpins?

Ha! I remember when my sister had "Cricket", another one of those Teddy Ruxpin-like dolls that had a cassette player built into it. I threw a Metallica tape into Cricket, and she started lip syncing to Enter Sandman! Ah, those were the good ol' days...

Re:Uhm ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would defind music as sounds created by someone other than a country singer.

Re:I don't know what to say.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, who let grampa out?

Re:"But that's not music"

[Duty]

Even if you don't live in the state of, shall we say, bentness it takes to appreciate Merzbow, it is handy for driving away unwanted houseguests.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:A certain kind of bent

[Anonymous Coward]

do not try and bend the circuit, that is impossible. instead only try to realize the truth. there is no circuit.

Hard Drives as speakers?

[Jestrzcap]

Check this link out
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~hsakr/hdspeakers/hdspea kers.htm [cmu.edu]

I saw this a while back, you gotta check out the movies clips.

DMCA violations galore.

[Anonymous Coward]

None of these non-standard uses are authorised by the patent holders. I'm notifying each and every one of the manufacturers about these blatant violations of the DMCA.