Yes, I did circuit-bend. And technically I still do from time to time. Though I only used the authentic, 'anti-theory' circuit-bent principles at the very beginning. Soon the whole anti-theory angle of it seemed somewhat lazy to me. I needed to know WHY such strange changes were happening and how those changes made such interesting sounds. I wanted to utilise theory to get the most out of this creative short circuiting called circuit-bending. At one point I even owned circuit-bent.com and ran a really lame website out of it. Back then when bending was so hip, I sold piles of stuff and never had time to even make a proper website! So even though I capitalized on the url, I've always considered what I am doing as modding instead of actual bending. I was never poking around blindly once I got to my third or fourth project. I started to figure out via message boards and my own research what was really going on. I was trying to get the most out of this digital phenomena of screwing up little bits of code to create such alien noises. Back in early 2001 when I first really got going with the bending I picked up my first Casio SK-1.
While plotting out the mods that I had found, I was becoming frustrated at how to tap into the vast wealth available with this circuit. Up until that point I had been messing with Speak & Spells and other simple children's toys. A few switches, some body contacts, maybe a knob or two and they were ready to go! But this SK-1 was going to take a giant array of switches if it was going to do the SK-1's potential any justice. I thought instead to just breakout the points on the board to a series of contacts and then short them together with alligator clips. While I was doing this, trying to whittle down my favorite short circuit to like 24 switches or so, I realised that I could just install something similar to my clip setup, only more user friendly. My first idea was to use an external box with an umbilical cord attached. The box would have an array of 1/4" jacks. You could jump a cable from one socket to another, make a short circuit connection, and thus creating a patch for a modular bending mod! Immediately I was looking for something more streamlined. I didn't think the mod box was too elegant. I then stumbled on some RCA panels used for diy hi-fi. Since I needed a more compact setup I gave it a shot. There was actually enough room in the case itself if I yanked the speaker out, so I really liked how I could fit the mods all inside the keyboard and keep it as portable as stock. The kicker was that the RCA cables were a joy to play with. The way they contact the sockets allows you to do careful and nuanced shorting that was impossible with the 1/4" variety. Over the next few months I refined my design, changed the 8 point patch panels for some much nicer 12 pt panels that I found, and added some switches that shorted pair of sockets, so specific patches could be saved and engaged with a switch. The hybrid approach of full access to the live mod points and the programmable switches proved to be a popular combination. I soon outfitted this type of setup on nearly all my mods. After a while I figured out you could even patch back and forth with similar devices. The Yamaha DD drum machines, the Roland digital TR drum machines, the Casio SK samplers, could be CROSS PATCHED between devices with insane mods as a result. Needless to say others found this idea of modular bending via an RCA and later other types of patchbay was something they wanted to use for their own mods. Today they call an RCA patchbay of any sort a Tablebeast mod, especially when installed on an SK-1. I don't know if I am the first one to come up with using a patchbay to bend, but I sure was the one to popularise it. I sold a ton of SK-1s back in the day because of it! I don't sell many any more, but I offer them for sale as every time I try to quit selling my mkII SK-1 mod, folks wave money in my face so I help them out. What can I say? 11+ years later and I still love building them!
OK, so the point of all this circuit-bending talk and what it has to do with the xfmr page? I plan to build a few choice instruments for the studio and will for sure be using an MT-240 and SK-1 to help write sound FX for the podcast. Like I said, the main focus is tubes here, but there will be some synth, mod, and solid state projects added in for variety.
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