Circuit bending an old Yamaha-ha-ha-ha

[TRiP]

Yo all,

Just wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction for circuit bending my old Yamaha PSR-550

I'm pretty new to circuit bending, have no experience with audio related units - but am currently bending+building a circuit bent video effects unit...so i'm vaguely familiar with what to do (keep messing around with connections till you find something cool!)

However, just wondering if there's any big no-nos when it comes to working with keyboards like this..any particular components that you just shouldn't touch etc.

 

Or does anyone have any experience with models such as these - is there any point in even trying?

Stumbled onto this video, seemed to have some pretty interesting sounds:

 

Any help/advice would be much appreciated

[psn]

http://www.amazon.com/Handmade-Electronic-Music-Hardware-Hacking/dp/0415998735

[Guest Chesney]

I have done a few casios and plenty of yam PSS's. Some are better than others some are not really worth bending, some are gold (PSS390, 460, 570). You won't know until you try.

As long as you are running on batteries and stay well clear of the power supply area and things leading up to that you are fine. Get a bit of wire and bare at both ends, say, 200mm long so you have some good reach. Set the demo song going. Look for a group of decent sized chips these are the chips you want the FM one should begin with YM and the ROM/data should start with X (I think). Basically experiment by touching the legs with the wire and try all the combinations. If it does something interesting, solder a length or wire to it. You can solder a switch if you want to make that permanent or what I usually do is connect a bolt to use as a contact point. If a leg of a chip does something with another than chances are it will work with other legs so a contact point means you have options when it's finished to touch many contact points tighter getting the most out of that leg of the chip. Once you're used to digging around try mixing different switches up between both chips, like a kill switch. sometimes the most interesting things happen when data lines are cut.

 

I have gotten so much mileage from bending cheap keyboards. I want to find time to do something with a kawai drum machine I have and maybe the DX100.

[TRiP]

I have done a few casios and plenty of yam PSS's. Some are better than others some are not really worth bending, some are gold (PSS390, 460, 570). You won't know until you try.

As long as you are running on batteries and stay well clear of the power supply area and things leading up to that you are fine. Get a bit of wire and bare at both ends, say, 200mm long so you have some good reach. Set the demo song going. Look for a group of decent sized chips these are the chips you want the FM one should begin with YM and the ROM/data should start with X (I think). Basically experiment by touching the legs with the wire and try all the combinations. If it does something interesting, solder a length or wire to it. You can solder a switch if you want to make that permanent or what I usually do is connect a bolt to use as a contact point. If a leg of a chip does something with another than chances are it will work with other legs so a contact point means you have options when it's finished to touch many contact points tighter getting the most out of that leg of the chip. Once you're used to digging around try mixing different switches up between both chips, like a kill switch. sometimes the most interesting things happen when data lines are cut.

 

I have gotten so much mileage from bending cheap keyboards. I want to find time to do something with a kawai drum machine I have and maybe the DX100.

Beautiful! Great advice, much obliged!

 

I'll wait till i'm finished my current VFX bending before dipping my heels into this, but am quite excited

 

Do you have any recordings online with prominent use of your handsome circuit benders?

[modey]

Great thread! I've got an old Portasound lying around (the MP-1 with the built-in printer!) that I don't use anymore, might be interesting for bending..

[awepittance]

the circuit bending PCM/sample based anything starts to sound very samey after about 30 minutes to an hour of circuit bending with one. My advice would be, forget about circuit bending a PCM based device unless you want immediate results that sound 95% similar to things most other circuit benders are already doing and try circuit bending actual synthesizers or effects processors instead

[modey]

yeah, I think the MP-1 is FM so I might be able to get some interesting results out of it. Either that or I should just try removing the FM chip and learn how to program it directly via Arduino or something..

[Guest Chesney]

Agree john but that's if you use them dry as they come out. You can still get odd shit that you could never ever think of or program yourself so heavily affecting bent chops and sequencing them further gives good results.

 

Most of my percussion comes from bent samples that have been warped further. Not saying this is unique but certainly gives me pleasure knowing that I have not just used DAW preset samples.

 

Horses for courses innit

[Guest skibby]

[Guest skibby]

some of these chips have (x) bit registers, and it would be nice to have some accordion style buttons that would add up to your (x) bit register address by just inverting the voltage of the (x) bit port where the chip address is going. this could probably make some chaos.