"Circuit Bending" Kitty Keyboard

F

fractal33

Active member
Anyone heard of this? From my understanding, it is essentially modding toy instruments and/or making weird instruments out of various electronics and toys.
My girlfriend has become pretty obsessed with this guy's youtube channel and music who modifies toy instruments. Specifically, the music made with his modified cat keyboard.

I looked into "circuit bending" and quickly realized there was a lot of crossover with what we do. There is a modded version of the cat keyboard that sells on etsy for $300-$500+, but I figured I would try my hand at it myself since I happen to be pretty well versed with a soldering iron by now.

I bought her a stock Meowsic keyboard from Target for $25 and added a 1/4" output, Volume pot, Speaker/ext. switch, and microphone on/off switch(it never turns off unmodified and was causing horrible feedback when I cranked the keyboard through distortion.) Not going to lie, I had so much fun running this toy keyboard into my pedals and amps. It sounded pretty damn cool!

I would like to do some more modifications similar to what the guy on youtube has, but I'm a little out of my element with pitch bends, light sensors, LFOs, ect. I would love some advice or direction towards resources if anyone out there is familiar with this silly hobby of "circuit bending" so I can continue to upgrade her kitty keyboard.


Here is the channel/keyboard she has been obsessed with lately:
 
lol my kids had that ... probably should get another for my own amusement. I've got a circuit bent speak n spell and it's alright ... that and an atari punk console were as close to analog synth as I ever got.
 
Pretty sure Magpie doesn’t have too much technical background, I’ve watched that video. As I have seen it done, circuit bending pretty much just involves taking a length of wire and touching 2 solder points on the board to see what happens. Trial and error. If you like the result, you make the connection permanent with a switch in the middle to break the connection when not wanted. LDRs can replace just about any resistor.
 
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This isn’t circuit bending per se, but is a super simple little drone synth that is highly tweakable. Change the electrolytic cap to adjust the octave and put an LDR or pot in place of the 10 or 30k for changing pitch. My kids call it the “screech box” because it can def do that in their hands😂
 
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