Bending the myth of "circuit bending" into risk & passion

[YamahaPSR6]

disclaimer / drinking precautions:

Do not attempt to replicate anything stated in here under the infulence of alcohol. Alcohol is really not the best guide to execute bends, or doing anything around bending.

but experienced benders/drinkers could have opened up keyboard and...

yeah you can explore it drunk, but extra careful, and of course you dont get to build wasted!! only experiment and mark on the pcb 'cause you wouldn't remember otherwise!

but always remember you can burn something with bending experiments!!

cheers!!!!!!

this is about useful bending, even bending to create some useful feat missing.

sure its easy to bend with a super cheap device, but bending a more sophisticated device like a keyboard with a brand is likely to have more potential.

so yeah hear it, uneducated will not take you far. even slightly educated through the net might let you at least guess wtf is going on in the PCB.

I am not expert bender, but I being an educated folk in the electronics department, with almost no experience, apart from circuit bending and other DIY osc-audio-boxes-building these last 6 months

but I have been very active exploring, and actually made some very nice bends to hype me up until I got scared damaging a beloved instrument.

lucky me??

1) replicating and seemingly improving the well-known FM bend for Yamaha FM keyboards with separate CPU and FM ICs .

Indeed, as I thought, as this is a digital keyboard (fast timing), and the bend involves a patch bay allowing us to totally control the 8 channels of data flow betweenthe two chips (ICs) , so what better of using " assignable " controls, and especially buttons which can be pressed for a fraction of a sec?
especially when we spend $$$ in building the patch pay in the first place

2) a cool 6x6 DIP switch matrix (36 modes, a bit less really usable) to cause various nice results in a casio ctk670 , a 5 octave, very nice 1992 keyboard.

This has LOTS of space for creative bends and its relatively lightweight for its size, as is digital, an empty box

3)bontempi es3200 digital monophonic keyboard, cool bends, awesome bendable this keyboard is!

and others...

but

FAILURE

stupidly, I burnt my bontempi minstrel beta, given to me for free from friends, trying to find a way to mute rhythm/accompaniament, while there was a balance vol between them.

IMO it was too much of a arrogant search, to do (on 12V ac - 1000 mA adapter ) , when I had not even went down to the main pcb (with interesting trimmers!) , which saw recently, after I fixed it.

but I got more bontempis in the same analogue sound department, when fixing this

anyways. I created a short phobia with messing / bending home keyboards real analogue or with lots analogue compartments, while building a short collection of them . well I usually get them at 40 euros each including postage, so its no 5 euro shit I got in no flee market.

and I REALLY LOVE my bontempis!!

I got two HF 222 , lol , them cheapies, love them!

and one of the rules of bending is

NO MESSING WITH SOMETHING you'll be sorry to fuck up and/or you cannot find another of (as circuit bending already involves some risk for the keyboard involved) / you cannot fix.

Good thing is these oldies can really be fixed as long as you dont burn up some of their specialized and 80's looking , huge ICs ! Good thing is to also know some old skool technician to fix your gear and whom you can trust.

I really liked the sound of that bontempi and other 80s oldies from casio I got with analogue parts.

anyways, I really did not get all these keyboards in 6months time to bend them all. but these oldies can really be fixed as long as you dont burn up some of their specialized and 80's looking , huge ICs !

I am led to believe there might be some digital compartment in here, even if most of everthing seems and sound analogue

anyways... many trimmers in these oldskool keyboards are listenable!

just opened my casio mt 52

(has a complex accompaniament system, but its not so over priced as say mt-68 , but seems to be rarer to)

this thingy I said, having opened it up earlier... sober, this morning, noon

several trimmers only 2 usable
( toms and tom section in snare )
(kickdrum bass )
it seems...

no bending attempts, then

disappointing, having read in warranty void its like its made for circuit bending , since most trimmers were not really usable - well 2 of them resonated the thing, but that did n't make it useful

so when I returned home, a bit drunk, the mt-52 opened up

I tried a couple nice attempts..!!!

y'know, real circuit bending ?

this thing rules!!!!

only with minor attempts,I found
you can do transform the accompaniament the thing is

very bendable.

on the one hand you have the awesomely amazing
so you can bend these things into very versatile accompaniament generators

on the other hand

casio ht-3000

so awesome

you're (well I am) afraid to even transfer the jog pot into a normal pot, which should be more easy for faster control.

such awesome keyboard, one of the few I know with programmable accompaniament section, together with a synth allowing huge control over the sounds, a very slow and unpractical, but other wise pretty full-on 1987 synth.

and I dont know who would bend this

so ~~50 euro thing (casio mt-52), bendable to have an almost costume accompaniament with real time control ??

or a 100 euro thing (casio ht-3000, ht-700)

with a real programmable accompaniament, but no real time control in the chords, or parameters of the sounds apart from a single

you're saying I am comparing things uncomparable. piss off mate.

of course

the heavy and awesome ht-3000 cannot have the realtime control , just programmability

and the mt can be tranformed into a real time beast , and this is the appeal

THIS IS HOME KEYBOARDS ACCOMPANIAMENT SECTION FREEK THING NOW

This is not the regular dude bitching about how this synthg doesn't sound "decent" enough.

LONG LIVE HOME KEYBOARDS! I LOVE THEM