QA

Circuit Bending How To

How do you circuit bend a pedal?

Is Circuit Bending safe?

A Yamaha PSR-6 used in a circuit bending project. It is advised that beginner circuit benders should never “bend” any device that gets its power from mains electricity (household AC power), as this would carry a serious risk of electrocution.

What is a circuit bent SNES?

Circuit bending is a practice that consists of exposing a circuit board and using wires or other conductive instruments to touch different points on the board together in order to create “glitches” or other effects that are not usually intended behaviours for the device.

How does a fuzz circuit work?

The fuzz face works by inputting signal through a DC blocking resistor driving a transistor one, transistor two is directly coupled with transistor one. This is called a “voltage biasing circuit”.

What do I need for circuit bending?

Electronics: For this bend you’ll need a random assortment of parts: on/off switches, some resistors, a potentiometer, and wire. To attach things you’ll of course need a soldering iron and solder. And to test things out, some alligator clips are really useful.

What is the point of circuit bending?

Circuit bending is the creative (and often experimental) process of taking apart old, battery-powered toys and synthesizers and fiddling around with the inner components to have them make unintended and new sounds. It was pioneered as a method of making music by musician and technologist Reed Ghazala in the 1960s.

What is meant by circuit bent?

Circuit bending is the creative, chance-based customization of the circuits within electronic devices such as low-voltage, battery-powered guitar effects, children’s toys and digital synthesizers to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators.

How does octave fuzz work?

Octave effect boxes are a type of special effects unit which mix the input signal with a synthesised signal whose musical tone is an octave lower or higher than the original. The synthesised octave signal is derived from the original input signal by halving (octave-down) or doubling (octave-up) the frequency.

What do transistors do in a guitar pedal?

A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and electrical power. In pedal circuits, PNP Bipolar transistors are used mainly but not always in vintage style circuits which have a positive ground / earth polarity.

What is a germanium transistor?

Germanium is a chemical element with symbol Ge and atomic number 32, that’s used as a semiconductor in transistors and diodes, popping up in a few classic effects like the early period Arbiter Fuzz Face, the storied Dallas Rangemaster and the Maestro Fuzz-Tone.

What are potentiometers made of?

The resistive element of inexpensive potentiometers is often made of graphite. Other materials used include resistance wire, carbon particles in plastic, and a ceramic/metal mixture called cermet.

What is a dirty video mixer?

Karl Klomp’s Dirty Video Mixer is one of the best known and wide used simple circuits for generating video gritch visuals. This kind of simple video mixing can work as video fader from one source to another if the video signal is black&white composite video and the video sources are synced together.

What does an octaver do?

Talking in very general terms, octavers can play a note one and/or two octaves above and/or below the note you’re playing. And most modern ones will let you choose the volume of both the original note (if you kill it, it’ll work like the second case you mentioned) and the generated octaves (your first case).

What does an Octafuzz do?

Related Videos: Octafuzz OF-2 Fuzz / Octave Pedal Fulltone’s custom-made brass-shaft pots are among the strongest and smoothest feeling pots available. This method keeps Fulltone pedals up and running for the duration of your playing days.

What is a POG pedal?

The Electro-Harmonix Micro POG polyphonic octave generator pedal can make your guitar sing like a 12-string, emulate an organ, and get some truly unique sounds without glitches. It works great with bass, too, giving your bottom end even more bottom, and some truly funky options to tweak your tone!.

What does a capacitor do in a guitar pedal?

Big capacitors (usually electrolytics) are used to store a voltage and release it when the power supply goes down. Thus it generates a DC voltage! To avoid any noise issue, filter capacitors are also used in pedals to filter the 9V coming from the power supply.

What happened to mammoth electronics?

We’ve been able to contribute to so many amazing projects over the years, and have gotten to work with great people in the process. With a heavy heart, we’re writing to tell you that Mammoth Electronics is in final negotiations of being acquired and will no longer continue our current business model beyond Nov. 5th.

What is germanium transistor leakage?

Transistor leakage is the leakage current across the reverse biased collector-base junction. This current then crosses the base-emitter, which, of course, causes a current from collector to emitter equal to the leakage current times the Hfe of the transistor, just as any current from base to emitter does”.

Why are transistors so expensive?

The main characteristic that make them higher price are the very low demand and small quantities purchased, compared to other transistors.

Is germanium better than silicon?

Ge has higher electron and hole mobility and because of this Ge devices can function up to a higher frequency than Si devices. The germanium diode is also superior to silicon diode in terms of energy loss, current loss, etc. The Ge diode loses only 0.3-0.4 a volt while a silicon diode loses about 0.6-0.7 volts.

Are germanium transistors still used?

Most germanium transistor production ceased in the 1970s in favor of silicon which are more stable, consistent, have higher gain, and lower leakage.