Making a device for audio distortion: an introduction to Circuit bending

Circut bending is a creative process of experimenting with various electronic acoustic gadgets to create unique sound effects. In short, using short-circuit on a printed circuit board, short circuits are created, which are converted into sound. Hearing an interesting sound, you can add potentiometers, switches and other elements, creating a kind of musical instruments and audio gadgets. Consider the method of circuit bending on the example of the manufacture of the device for audio recording distortion.

What do we need

• Module for recording and playing voice . It is very cheap, it makes it quite easy to find suitable sounds and solder the wires. But it is desirable to have soldering experience.
• 4 buttons .
• 4 three-position toggle switches .
• 2 potentiometers 1M .
• 2 knobs for potentiometers .
• Thin wire.
• Battery compartment for two AA batteries . You can also use AAA.
• 3.5 mm audio input .
• The case in which the speaker, board and other offal will fit. This may be a faceless box, the body of an old radio or radio. I took a vintage intercom.

Instruments:

• Drill.
• Bormashina ("Dremel").
• Solder.
• Passatizhi.
• Glue gun.

Attach the battery compartment

First we solder the battery compartment to the board.

1) We determine on the board the solder points of the positive and negative wires.
2) Solder.
3) Insert the batteries and check the operation of the module.

We start experimenting with short circuits

Circuit bending is a simple thing. You need to make a short circuit between two points on the board. A hint to make it easier for you to search: personally, I get most of the sounds with the help of the closures of the legs of the microcircuit. Use the probe to experiment with different conclusions, and listen to the sounds that occur.

Making the probe:

1) Take a wire about 20 cm long.
2) Solder to both ends on a piece of hard wire, clip or stud. I soldered the copper wire.
3) For hardening the places of adhesions, I added a heat shrink.

Now you can short the IC.

Create a schematic

1) At first I made for myself an enlarged image of the board. This is for the convenience of marking connections that give interesting results when closing.

2) Then he experimented with the probe and took note of the resulting interesting sounds. Finding an interesting combination, marked it in the picture. Experiment with your board and see what effects you can get.
3) Having collected a sufficient number of combinations, I created a draft scheme for all the connections and components.

Solder the wires to the board

At first, I started soldering the wires directly to the legs of the chip. It did not work, so I decided to solder the wires to the points of connection of the legs with the board. I have not photographed the process, but if you follow the above scheme, then there will be no problems.

1) Make sure that you do not accidentally solder any of the microcircuit outputs.
2) I tried using connectors, but it turned out to be inconvenient, so I just soldered the wires.
3) In the end, do not rush everything carefully check.

Record, play and microphone

Add on top of a pair of wires for recording and playback buttons. You can unsolder the buttons themselves and solder wires to their outputs on the board. But if you leave them, you can test the gadget in the process of further work.

1) Unsolder the microphone from the board.

2) Solder two wires to the outlets on the board. One for the microphone, the second for the audio input.

3) Solder the two wires to the outputs of the record button. Please note that there are four contacts. It is necessary to solder as in the photo.

4) Do the same with the play button.

We install switches, speakers and potentiometers into the housing

1) Think about where to place the switches and potentiometers. Seven times measure cut once.

2) Install the components so that the wires reach their contacts.

3) Install the microphone.

4) Set the audio input.

5) Install the speaker. I secured it in place with a glue gun.

Solder the wires to the components

1) Place the board in the case. Consider the placement of the battery compartment and wires. If everything fits well, it's time to solder.

2) Measure the wires to the desired length. Tear off the ends and solder to the components.
3) Check the operation of each connection. If something does not work, check the quality of the soldering of each contact. Check that there are no shorting bridges of solder between the adjacent contacts.
4) Collect everything and close the case.

Having fun with our Lo-Fi sampler.

Record some sound first. Now let's begin to distort and sample it. Potentiometers change playback speed. Distortion switches introduce distortion (who would have thought) and reduce the volume of the sound from the speaker. With the restart button, everything is clear. Now through the audio input you can record your favorite song into the sampler and make fun of it all.

What's next?

1. You can make an audio output.
2. You can also experiment with the board and get new sounds from it.
3. Corps. You can come up with many other interesting cases in which you could place the electronics. For example, in the case of old radio stations .
4. The sound module can only record 10-second fragments. Replacing a resistor can increase the duration to 20 seconds, but the quality is reduced. Although you can experiment.