Gl0tchbl0K Buildbl0K#01 Gl0tchpatch/KiCad

circuit bending, Gl0tchBl0K, Gl0tchKons0le, Simon Says

I thought of a way of making circuit bending a Playstation2 a bit easier than having to solder 64+ tiny wires by hand, because I didn’t really want to have to do this again:

circuit bent PS2
circuit bending a PS2

I circuit bent the PS2 by soldering a field of switches directly to the data lines of the PS2’s graphical bus, which consists of 64 data lines, that each create unique and consistent glitches and a few adress lines that also produce interesting effects. combined, they work as an endless pallet of I took some time comparing the schematic with the circuit board to map out all the points that create an effect. It’s quite a lot of them:

PS2 GPU data line pinout. a1,a2 and a3 cause crashes!

Any of those can be connected to ground, to the 1,6V also present on the GPU, to each other, and also the Sound RAM, that I’ll write about later. Working with such a complexity is pretty challenging but well wort it.

I took some time during the lockdowns to actually sit down and learn how to use KiCad. I had a few PCB’s ordered just to try out if I could do it at all and it seemed to work.

Thinking of a way of using my new skills to simlify the process of connecting to the PS2’s graphic bus, I came up with the ide of creating a flexible circuit board that could be soldered directly to the vias on the GPU’s underside, organising their slightly chaotic placement on the circuit board into two flat cable connectors.

Introducing Gl0tchpatch PS2:

This would open up an easier way to experiments with all sorts of interfaces that could be created on the other side of the flat cables.

rc3/Alte Hölle

circuit bending, der Warst, Gigs, musik, Recording, Simon Says, video

Ha! Vor lauter Lauter hab ich ganz vergessen, dass mein Set, das im Rahmen vom rc3 von der grandiosen alten Hölle aus gestreamt wure, ja schon längst geschnitten und gedingst und ins Netz geworfen wurde, äh und dass man es sich hier anschauen kann:

Das war auf jeden Fall ein ziemlich zerschallertes Set. Ich hatte mich so darüber gefreut, mal wieder mit meinen Babies rummurxen zu können, dass ich völlig den Überblick über die Zeit verlor, und also weit in meinen „offiziellen Gig“soundcheckte, und dann einfach zwischendurch aufhörte, und dann darauf hingewiesen werden musste, dass ja eigentlich grad gestreamt würde, und ob ich nicht vielleicht doch weiter spielen wolle…

Ich habs vielleicht auch noch nicht so rumgereicht, weil ich in ästhetischer Hinsicht leider nur so halb glücklich mit dem Video bin. Ein bisschen mehr Licht auf mir wäre schon auch nett gewesen und die Partikeldurchfalldesktopgalaxie im Hintergrund ist mir etwas zu dominant. Aber tja naja. Es sei wie es sei. Beim nächsten Mal wird dann alles perfekt…

Summersoldering at Mono Shop

circuit bending, der Warst, Gear, Mono Shop, Simon Says, Workshop

Summer, Sun and Soldering

Tired of no Songs to sing?
Come to Mono, build a Thing!

Hööö!

Mono Shop is going to open its door again for an awesome electronics extravaganza! Regardless if you are a super pro or have never touched a soldering iron in your life, this will be crazy fuuuun!

Mono Shop
Weichselstr. 32
12045 Berlin

What’s on offer:

Build a phonic Taxidermist 47.2b:
designed by circuitbenders.co.uk
https://www.circuitbenders.co.uk/forsale/phonictaxi/ptaxi.html
The Phonic Taxidermist 47.2b is a clone of the Maplin voice vandal. It consists of a grungy 10 bit digital delay based around a HT8955A ‚Voice Echo‘ chip, and a high speed audio chopper that strobes incoming audio on and off at four separate frequency bands. The chopping circuit produces effects that sounds similar to a kind of nasty cross modulation or filthy frequency based distortion.
I have 6 boards left, including all the needed parts, so you can build the whole thing and also include some extra mods that I found while building it!

A/V circuit bending:
Bring your toys, we make noise.
You bring some of your gear and I show you all the tricks how you can make it into something all new just by poking around on the circuit board!. So go and hit the fleamarket or your attic/basement for all those things that have been collecting dust for years!
Examples: old Casio Keyboards, Kids Toys, Drum Machines, Video enhancers/processors, Delay pedals, etc…

Answerphone hacking:
I still have a few answering machines lying around that are desperately waiting to be made into superwhack Samplers. Monsterfuuuuun!

Gameboy modding:
Fof all the chiptuners around! I know all the tricks to make your old trusty DMG a whole new beast! Pro Sound Mod, Extra Bass, Pitch mod, Backlight, you name it!

40106 Mini Synth
the 40106 is a chip that you can easily build up to 6 square oscillators out of with a minimal part count. So you can actually design a whole crazy minimal synthesizer out of it..

Prices:
Phonic Taxidermist 47.2b:
80 € including board, parts, extra parts and knowledge. Please bring your own housing

A/V circuit bending + Answerphone hacking:
30 € per project,
40 € including answering machine (first come first serve)

Gameboy modding:
30€ per Gameboyy

40106:
20€ including parts

Warstware KP1 halfway there

circuit bending, Gear, Simon Says

Building on a sexy Warstware Kaoss Pad KP1.

Progress so far:

  • – pitchbender/bitcrusher
  • – loop switch + yellow indicator LED
  • – backlight LEDs changed to white
  • – videoprint integrated into touchpad
  • – button LEDs changed to green
  • – 5V/Gnd Switch
  • – 3 bends

Will be for sale soon.

Let me know if you’re interested.

Warstware KP1

Warstware

Warstware

Warstware

Warstware at Mini Maker Faire

circuit bending, Gear, Simon Says

I will have a Warstware booth at the Elephant&Castle Mini Maker Faire on Saturday 6th of June.

Elephant&Castle MMF

I’ll be around there pretty much all day and at some point, I’m gonna do a performance of sorts (no idea yet when that’s gonna be-will update as soon as I know).
The whole thing will take place in the London College of Communication which obviously is around Elephant & Castle.

Please pop by if you feel like it.

Warstware official

circuit bending, Gear, Simon Says, Website

I decided to make the Warstware site, documenting my endeavours in circuit bending and machine hackery, official. It’s still far from complete and quite messy because I’m slowly getting out of hibernation and projects are piling up, but in my opinion, it’s too nice to keep informal for very much longer. Comments and productive criticism are appreciated.

Here we go:

Warstware

Videoprints

Art, circuit bending, Gear, Simon Says, video

A while ago, I scanned the videoprints I’ve done during live av performances around 2008-2009. I made them with a printer that connects directtly to a composite video input, which was plugged into the output of my video mixer. Since doing live video is more or less my way of painting (not entirely true: I’m currently making the weirdest paintings, but they’re not quite ready to be published, yet), these are probably the closest things to static paintings I’ve made. At least around that time. There are 74 prints, some of which have been collaborations with Eva Becker.

Of course, with 74 prints, not all of them can be of the same quality, still I like most of them a lot.

Here’s a few of my favourites in no particular order:

I might upload more of them as soon as I have built a proper project page for them.

Video hackspace

circuit bending, Gear, Simon Says, video

Fabrizio D’Amico from Video Hackspace came over. We talked about doing a visual circuit bending workshop soon. It was very pleasant.

I borrowed a projector and he filmed some of my pictures with his telephone. Then he uploaded them to Youtube. Here they are:

Also, I had a very nice/strange night. More things soon.

Videophone growing

Art, circuit bending, Simon Says, video

I finally managed to upload some stuff I recorded with the Videophone (which now also has it’s final name, yay). I’m still building on it like crazy, so there’s lots more to come.

Here’s also a picture of its last stage (it already looks different again, but I am way slower with documenting than I am with building.

Videophone

I am currently building the screen to the left inside the housing.

Here’s two recordings I’ve made. More to come, soon.