How to Begin a Circuit Bending Project

Series Summary

Circuit bending is one of the most creative ways to make random weird noises. It involves soldering and wiring contact points on the circuit boards of common sound-producing electronic items like children's toys or synthesizers to alter the sounds such items make. The wiring is attached to switches that can then be used to control the "bent" circuit and create strange, unique, and interesting sounds. Circuit bending is commonly associated with noise music, but such improvised musical instruments have been experimented with by a variety of musicians.

In this free video series, our expert Amanda Claire will show you how to find and bend circuits to make new instruments and sound generators. She will teach you the basics of electronics, all about the circuit board itself, and how to find and experiment with circuit bends to create new sounds. Amanda will also teach you how to use gator clips to test different bent sounds, how to install an audio jack to amplify your new musical instrument, and how to measure, strip, tin, and solder wire to the contact points on circuit boards to bend circuits. Amanda will teach you about looping effects, logic scrambler effects, body contacts, potentiometers, the lick and press method, the chopstick method, and the unpredictability of circuit bending. Finally Amanda will show you how to decorate your new instrument, install different kinds of switches and buttons, and how to keep yourself safe when soldering and creating great new interesting sounds.

Video Transcript

"AMANDA CLAIRE: Okay. So we're going to think about how do you get started on a circuit bending project. So let's say you've picked your toy, I'm going to do a toy here, and you know you look at it you say, "Okay, well, you know, what sound? What's cool about this toy?" And this is just kind of a thought process that I go through. It makes a lot of different sounds that I like, you know, animal sounds. You know it also has kind of a like this little miniature keyboard up top you know which I think is kinda cool but that's just my personal choice. And I can change the sound on that by picking a different, one of these. All right, so that's cool but you might ask, "Okay. Well not what? Now what am I supposed to do?" So the outline of how you do circuit bending is you open something up and then you really can't plan in advance what you're going to do. All right, I'm going to have to shut this thing off. Okay there we go. You can't really plan in advance what you want to do. You have to kind of stumble upon it sort of through luck and through kind of spontaneously exploring the circuit board. And so we'll talk about that but just keep in mind that you know you choose your toy based on the sounds that it makes, that it's something that you like, but beyond that everything that happens next is pretty spontaneous and there's a lot of luck involved in it too."