Circuit Bending Fool - Pitch Mod Tutorial

[@PaulTheSkeptic]

Thanks for this. This is the one trick I already knew but it's great to have some more instruction. A lot of benders seem to be reluctant to do tutorials and some even seem like they want to keep it a secret. I don't know why bringing joy to people would be a bad thing. Anyway thanks and I'm looking forward to watching your other videos.

[@CircuitBendingFool]

I'm happy to share my experience. Most of what I learned was from Reed Ghazala's book and Pete Edward's online tutorials. Thanks for watching!

[@PaulTheSkeptic]

Oh great. Thanks for the recommendations.

[@abstractauditory7895]

Good Demo... Also fun adding a 1/4" jack in place of a pot. Then you can use other toys/lfos/really anything with an output to modulate the sound. Great Video!

[@blonieamw2998]

thanks for sharing, always nice too see good folks bending it up!

[@SampleScienceSounds]

Very good tutorial. It answered a couple of questions I had concerning the potentiometer + knob installation. Thanks!

[@CircuitBendingFool]

cool man. glad to hear it.

[@Tribune12345]

Great tutorial! We have the same wire clippers!

[@Gijs7156]

Dat music

[@allrighter0413]

I think the music comes from a circuit bent Kids Musical Fun Keyboard.

[@CircuitBendingFool]

one in the same

[@bbbbzshssaggzxjkxjkfkgjzxf]

Thank you!

[@CircuitBendingFool]

U welcome

[@CircuitBendingFool]

I'm guessing my pedestrian soldering skills must be maddening as well... Yes It's total piece of crap. I always sharpen it to a edge with a metal file on my bench and it's tweaked it over the years. Still works though and didn't cost me $7.

[@zarrir]

How do u identify the pitch resistor in other instruments?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

lick finger and touch the circuit

[@nochjemand]

the content of this whole video would make three seconds of a video by "look mom no computer"

[@nyrbsamoht]

and you would not learn anything yes. he is great for killing 10mins and getting inspiration for projects. not for "hold your hand" style tutorials - which is what I desperately want when it comes to bending lol

[@CircuitBendingFool]

whole in the universe

[@areusmartinez8343]

🙌🏼

[@bekka72798]

Dont forget to remember that you forgot to rememeber that you forgot

[@CircuitBendingFool]

⚡️🔊🎛️🚀🛸

[@riccardodannazioneHC]

Music reminds me Doom soundtrack

[@dustinfernandez7533]

Hi Phil good tip!!!!!!

[@pacolopez9577]

Great video! I'm going to try this....haha By the way, could you tell me the music used in the video? It sounds haunting.... Thanks!

[@CircuitBendingFool]

+Paco Lopez Hey, the music was made with the instrument created in the video. I have made two albums of similar circuit bending music. 'Phil Void - Scoliosis' and 'Phil Void - Book of Noise'. Find them on Bandcamp and Last Stop Records.

[@horrortimeproductions5504]

How do you bend one of those singing fish?

[@Gijs7156]

Great idea

[@CircuitBendingFool]

experimentation and tenacity.

[@justinleokennedy]

HorrorTimeProductions, check out Look Mum No Computer

[@Chunda8]

@@CircuitBendingFool Billy the Bent Bass!

[@CircuitBendingFool]

Thanks for watching. I love KLEIN tools.

[@JakeGeremia]

Circuit Bending Fool where did you get the wire in the video? Is there a certain type I should buy?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

I picked up a free Wurlitzer organ and gutted the wires. All of my projects were created with these wires I saved from the land fill.

[@weirdosheep619]

I always used to wire the ground (negative solder point on the battery) and usually end up killing my creations. Is that a bad idea?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

Ah Yes. A rhetorical question.

[@weirdosheep619]

@@CircuitBendingFool I might have misjudged the resilience of several of these toys, but no more. As a wise man once said, when life gives you a few eggs, you can't make lemonade.

[@JSprayaEntertainment]

subbed

[@DonElevation]

Nice video. For me I'm able to change the pitch up very fast which is great but it wont pitch down to lower that the normal speed of the original sounds. I tried 5k pots to 100k. Any ideas to help a dude like me out?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

Right on. Glad you found the video helpful. If you get a 1meg or 2 meg pot, that will get you a much larger range of pitch.

[@DonElevation]

@@CircuitBendingFool Thank you sir

[@CircuitBendingFool]

@@DonElevation www.etsy.com/listing/863250669/circuit-bending-bundle-1-meg?ref=shop_home_active_1&frs=1

[@Degear-ls5lw]

Hi! Great information! Is there a specific way to find which component controls the pitch on different mini pianos? How did you find out that that specific resistor has to do with the pitch?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

In this video, you can see the the "big black blob" on the small circuit board is mounted at a right angle to the keyboard. On this board there is only one fixed resistor, which is the component that controls the pitch. Many simple battery powered keyboard and other devices will use this same design. It's always a first go to when I bend a new piece like this one and often the only bend I find. The simplest way to find the pitch speed resistor is by trial and error, while the toy is making a sound. You need to open the casing and keep the wires connected to the batteries to enable you to try and find the bends while the device is making sound. You can explore the circuit board using wires with alligator clips to make connections between components. Most connections won't change the sound, many will crash the toy and a few may create new sounds. Possibly speed up the pitch... The simplest and most common way is to lick your finger and poke around to each resistor. If you touch the right one, the speed will vary abruptly. Thanks for watching. I hope this helps define the process. Good luck. Have fun. WARNING/DISCLAIMER: Be safe and never bend a device that is plugged into the wall. Only experiment with battery powered devices.

[@westelaudio943]

Ja place a 100k resistor across every resistor on the board, play a sound each time and see.

[@devonthechristmashalloween1141]

Can you use a speaker jack for circuit bending

[@CircuitBendingFool]

I'm sure you can.

[@BryanEddy09]

geeze!

[@CircuitBendingFool]

fun

[@apotheodaimon]

I've been trying to bend my crybaby wah for several months, trying to wire oscillation into the circuit and to the treadle pot, unsuccessfully so far. I keep poking around in it with my wires but I think I'm missing something. I would like greatly for you to succeed where I have failed and post the results. I hope you can rise to the challenge.

[@TeamFlamingStones]

What sort of effect would this achieve? My guess is that you won't use it as a guitar pedal, but rather a sort of a synth, as we're talking oscillation? I'm only beginning to interest myself in this now, after a big project work I did on the evolution of electromechanical and electronic instruments, so please minimize jargon?

[@apotheodaimon]

TeamFlamingStones Actually I would be using it as a guitar pedal. I had hoped to get sort of a mechanical stuttering noise similar to a jackhammer, with the frequency dependent on the angle of the treadle and some small amount of playability. I literally got nothing, no sound or no difference no matter where I poked my clips around.

[@TeamFlamingStones]

apotheodaimon Oh right, so like a tremolo effect on the wah-wah effect itself?

[@apotheodaimon]

TeamFlamingStones more like a pitch shifting wall of jackhammers and truck engines. The technical term would be parasitic low frequency oscillation.

[@apotheodaimon]

TeamFlamingStones its what happens when power starts to leak into the circuit, normally undesirable.

[@PixiloYT]

I have a question, what are the name of the electronic items you used?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

A potentiometer is a manually adjustable variable resistor with 3 terminals. Two of the terminals are connected to the opposite ends of a resistive element, and the third terminal connects to a sliding contact, called a wiper, moving over the resistive element.

[@vinniesuzin]

Great. Does it work on a Casio CA-110?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

I think unlikely. The CS-110 is a more complex. Very easy to find GLITCH Bends. So much so that often folks will attach many connections to an RCA based patch bay but a bunch of toggles and momentary switches would be my approach. Bust it open with some alligator clips. Have fun!

[@newenglandlofi4195]

How did you know which resistor controlled the pitch. Where are these commonly found?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

Lick your finger and touch resistors on a battery powered circuit until you hear a change in pitch when you touch it. The toy needs to be making a sound when you search for a pitch resistor. The resistor could be anywhere but this video shows one possibility. Don't wait for approval, you don't need permission either. Just try it. Good luck.

[@newenglandlofi4195]

@@CircuitBendingFool lol you’re messing with me 🤦🏽‍♂️

[@julianviveros4802]

What's the size of the wires??

[@CircuitBendingFool]

I don't know specifically. Not too Thin. Mostly braided. Probably a variety of sizes. I took apart a wurlitzer organ 15 years ago. Most of the wires come from that.

[@eltaqwym1535]

@Circuit Bending Fool .. How to adding pitch bend to Yamaha psr e 243?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

I have never tried. I think it's a pretty modern keyboard with mostly tiny SMD. Have you opened it up and taken a look inside?

[@chromosomerism1712]

How do you identify the pitch resistor?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

while it is making sound, take some alligator clips and poke around the inside of a battery powered toy and listen for pitch variation as you touch resistors. good luck

[@chromosomerism1712]

@@CircuitBendingFool I was trying out my first project on a tech toy, found a pitch point and was daisy chaining the potentiometer to another with alligator clips and it made a distorted sound. I was then soldering that together and it stopped working? Could I had maybe over heated it?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

@@chromosomerism1712 anything is possible with experimentation. it could be fried but it might be fine with a reset.

[@coondogtheman]

Hello I'm trying to do this with an older voice recorder and I've found the speed resistor that sets the CPU speed I did what you did with the wires but now I'm trying to get the pot to work but every time I touch the wires to any of the three pins the recorder fizzles and crashes. It still works. Heres the thing, when I have the circuit hooked up normally if I put my fingers on the resistor and ground the speed changes faster. If I wet my fingers and do the same thing the "recording" beep plays faster and you can record in better audio quality for less time. What I'm trying to do is add a speed control so I can do this without the wet finger method. The pot I have is a slider from a broken RC helicopter remote and it has 3 pins. Is this the right one of no? If I succeed in this it will be my first bend.

[@CircuitBendingFool]

Great work! I think you may want a high resistance potentiometer for this task. Try 1mg up to 4mg. This should give you the whole range of speed and then some. In some of my temperamental builds i have kept the initial resistor on the circuit board and hacked in after the resistor, but usually I just take the fixed resistor right out and insert the pot (a variable resistor) in place of the fixed resistor. Hope that helps.

[@coondogtheman]

Not sure where to get one. Could I use a volume control from a broken radio? I don't have a radio shack just down the road from me and I cannot buy online except amazon but i doubt they would have something like that. This recorder came from a toy spy thing that looks like a camcorder and the battery door is the LCD on the camera. I just mounted everything where it could be used like a yak bak since it uses the same type of recording chip.

[@yesway]

Oh man, I just stumbled upon your channel and noticed, that you stopped uploading any videos around 4 years ago and there also haven't been any updates on your blogpost, and I thought you died or something. What am I saying is that I'm glad I noticed your recent comment and I hope you're OK. Sorry, it's almost 4 AM and I'm watching circuitbending videos and my mind goes crazy.

[@coondogtheman]

rfgecnf Do I know you? I don't do blogs and I have uploaded videos just not as much.

[@yesway]

Hey, coondogtheman! I was referring to Circuit Bend Fool in my comment, but it seems that you received a notification instead. Sorry for the confusion

[@ncgallagher]

can you talk about how you go about finding the right resistor that affects pitch so i can apply this to other toys?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

I learned by doing and I've written about it quite a bit in the comments below. For me, it's an art, not a science. You need to explore and experiment with the circuit board. Get yourself some lead/jumper wires with alligator clips and poke around. Make new connections and keep track of the results.

[@N64player1996]

I tried this on a 80s soundbox with a 1k pot it didnt do anything really does it have to be a very high ohm resistance? Should I install a 1meg potentiometer

[@CircuitBendingFool]

Yes it does. 1meg or even 2meg will get you where you want to go. Next step is usually a trim pot for fine tuning the optimal range before crashing the circuit.

[@CircuitBendingFool]

www.etsy.com/listing/863250669/circuit-bending-bundle-1-meg?ref=shop_home_active_1&frs=1

[@noahbounds6373]

Would that particular potentiometer work on most toy keyboards in this vain or do they tend to be different

[@CircuitBendingFool]

1meg pot is a great place to start. In this case it worked perfectly and gives you a lot of slow down and some speed up. However in many cases you will need to add a "trim pot" or a resistor to prevent the toy from crashing at the fastest speeds.

[@cristianmoreno5109]

Could you do a tutorial for glitch?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

maybe

[@stefanoalderighi8993]

how can I set up the pitch band on a Casio ctk 591?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

I dont know.

[@om9482]

How do you find the pitch resistor?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

Take action. Experiment. It can be easy or impossible. Open up the piece and poke around at components with alligator clips attached to wires. If you do so while the instrument is playing you will likely here the pitch change dramatically when you find it. On this instrument the pitch resistor is the only resistor on the circuit board. DISCLAIMER: only do this with battery powered toys. NEVER do this with anything plugged into the wall. Be careful. Have fun. Don't be afraid to break stuff.

[@jacksonshelton8055]

Will this work on something more advanced like a Casio SA-76 or SA-46?

[@CircuitBendingFool]

No it won't.

[@jacksonshelton8055]

Circuit Bending Fool Well thanks anyway. Since I'm kind of a electronic wiz, I might want to do something entirely different; maybe make something like a digital pitch filter from an Arduino.

[@CircuitBendingFool]

Sounds cool. Put that wizardry to work.

[@jacksonshelton8055]

Though I can't program very well... I'm not going to circuit bend it. I have another keyboard (Casio MT-205) now, but the pitch bend mod can be made by wiring a 1M pot in parallel to the tuning pot. May not do that though...

[@krishna34674]

your soldering iron tip is loose its so annoying.

[@benmeyer2916]

Lol you called a shitty Bratz toy an instrument, no hate man I just thought that was funny

[@CircuitBendingFool]

haha. i know this is all very absurd. thanks for watching.

[@teun7923]

horrific soldering iron yeez

[@CircuitBendingFool]

the worst

[@The_Evil_Appl]

How do u know what value pot to use? I tried using a b50 pot and every time it crashes the circuit and I can’t go below the default pitch

[@CircuitBendingFool]

I don't know. I make choices based off of experimentation. I will use a B1M pot as a starting point for most pitch mods. Sometimes adding a wire from the battery ground or speaker ground to the 3rd lug of the pot is what will lower the pitch. Sometimes I attach wires to the resistor and do not remove it. Each toy is different. Experimentation is essential. Good luck and have fun.