The term “Circuit Bending” was coined by Reed Ghazala, the Father of Circuit Bending.

Circuit bending is the practice of opening up battery powered audio devices (NOTHING THAT PLUGS INTO A WALL OUTLET IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!) such as kid’s toys or keyboards, exposing their circuit boards, and short circuiting points on the circuit in search of new sounds not intended by the manufacturer. If one finds a pair of points that creates an interesting result, wires can be soldered to each of them and connected to a switch, which might be attached to a hole drilled into the body of the device. I call that a “bend”, which can now be activated by simply flipping that switch. Often, connecting points on the circuit result in raising and lowering the pitch. I like to search for those points by touching the circuit board with my fingers and listening for changes in pitch. A direct connection between these points with wire may cause the pitch to go so high or low that you cannot hear anything, and often will “crash” the device, requiring a reset (usually by removing and replacing the batteries). For pitch control, you will want to use a potentiometer (informally referred to as a pot, a variable resistor). If you find two points that raise or lower the pitch, chances are that one of those two points will change the pitch in the opposite direction when connected to a third point somewhere on the circuit. Once you find that point, you know how to raise and lower the pitch. You then can connect the center lug of the potentiometer to the “common point”, and one of the remaining lugs to the point that raises the pitch, the other to the one that lowers it. Now you can vary the pitch continuously from low to high. I like to insert a switch between the common point and the center lug of the pot for a couple reasons: First, I like to be able to switch between “normal” and “variable” pitch. Second, often, the device will not activate if the pitch is set too far away from normal. Another method of changing the pitch is by determining the location of a resistor that sets the pitch, removing one end of it, connecting it to a switch that will either reconnect it to the point from which it was removed, or connect it to a pot which will make the pitch variable.

On some devices, momentarily connecting two points will result in totally unpredictable results – a glitch, a harsh noise, or the device will start randomly “composing”. In such cases, you would install a “normally open” momentary push button switch, which only connects when it is pressed.

I describe circuit bending as a black art, because often it is taking an action and getting a result that is astonishing but inexplicable. There are many potential targets for circuit bending out there, and a wide range of behaviors resulting from applying the techniques of circuit bending. In addition to what is described above, circuit bending can result in distortion, fluttering of pitch, robotic voices that randomly glitch and spout often unintelligible gibberish, drones, evolving soundscapes, and many other aberrations.

A final thought – and this is what attracted me to circuit bending – ANYONE can do it. It is low risk, in that if you destroy a toy you paid $3 for at a thrift store, you won’t be devastated. You do not need to know anything about electronics, but of you stick with it long enough, you will begin to understand more as you go along. I knew nothing about electronics when I began; now I can read schematics, design my own circuits, and I even learned to write code Arduino based microcontrollers which I embed in my instruments. It’s been an amazing journey!