Circuit Bent Casio Played in Silo Number 5

On a whim I thought it would be fun to play the little piece from the modded Casio through the Silophone, located in downtown Montreal.

The Silophone is an interesting thing: essentially it is an abandoned grain silo, outfitted with microphones and speakers, with an internet connection. The idea is to play pieces in the grain silo, and take advantage of the natural acoustics and reverberations that colour the sound. The internet connection takes this experiment one step further: it allows home users from around the globe to upload their audio and play it back to themselves through the Silophone.

To hear the modded Casio through the Silophone, visit the site, click the 'play the silophone' tab, and find the track by Faunaflage, posted on March 1st (Faunaflage is a project name I am working under right now).

Bear in mind that the Silophone uses RealPlayer, which is easily the worst file player possible (though one of the most common, internationally). Also, take note that it will take about 1 minute or so for the sound to come back to you. It may, in fact seem like nothing is actually happening, but I can confirm it does work. I think sometimes you have to wait for other files to stop playing first, too.

I thought this was an interesting experiment. All the sharp trebles in the piece are muted, and the thick, glitchy organ is rounded off and warmed up considerably. Also it is a very cool thing, to hear your stuff played at some remote industrial location downtown. Playing it back once I heard some random dude in the building talking. The unexpected happenstance of an experiment like this.

Give it a try. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

(photos provided by the Shearwood photo essay in The Reservoir section)

Audio from Circuit-Bent Casio SK-1

More on the modded Casio SK-1 (see a previous post).

Just letting you know that I’ve found a crude way to provide some audio of the circuit-bent synth. No player will open, no sales agent will visit your home. This piece was something I was working on to see how different circuit-shorts would sound and colour chords. I’m finding there is much to learn about recording this keyboard. Despite its overall freakiness, there are a lot of subtleties in texture that can get rail-roaded without some finesse with EQs and limiters. Like the keyboard itself, it is an ongoing learning curve.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think of the piece.

Also, here are some links to various other circuit-bent resources, if you are looking for some general information, more specific information, or craaaaazy information.

Circuit Bent Casio

I realize it has been about three weeks since I last posted, but I've been busier than I expected I'd be. I will endeavor to have more posts up more frequently in the coming weeks. Of course, you can always click the "Midnight Poutine" link at right to get your weekly fill of my unique brand of the lowest-form-of-humour.

Part of what has been keeping me busy is a recently re-acquired keyboard. I've had this Casio SK-1 kicking around for many years, but about a year ago I gave it to circuit genius David Smith to re-work. The idea of "circuit bending" is to create short-circuits inside the keyboard that result in unpredictable (often non-repeatable) sounds. The SK-1 happens to be particularly suited to these modifications as it was one of the first sampling keyboards made, and has this strange one-key-play function, which allows you record a phrase and play it back bit by bit with a single button.

I'll figure out a way to post some of the short pieces I've made with the modded Casio, but I thought that I'd post some images of it, just to explain my absence and also, you know, make people jealous. I'll be using it in a few upcoming projects, but right now am simply trying to figure out what happens when I plug cables into various touch-points. The variations are very nearly endless. Which, for a guy with very limited skillz, makes for a very steep learning curve and gobs of post-it notes. Stay (altered) tuned...