Gadgetory

I am playing with you buddies that was a big boat there we go that is the beginnings of circuit any futuristic doesn't have to be meal it can also mean using old tech in a way that hasn't been done before we're here in the seaside town of Margate to visit Sam battle Sam is also known as look mum no computer he's a musician and circuit bender who breaks apart old toys and sins to create his own instruments some of his creations include a musical flamethrower and a pervy organ he's invited me into a studio so that I can check out some of his creations for myself and so we can break open a toy and circuit bend it together my name's Sam and I do a project called look mum no computer which is basically like repurposing things and making silly inventions that are loosely based around music and I do do some circuit bending things what is circuit bending circuit bending is basically taking like machines and toys and cheap things from the past or even nowadays and just making them do things that they're not intended to do usually like let's say in the 70s somebody's got a toy in there I could speak and spelled like those orange and yellow toys like somebody's eye I wonder what it's like inside there they pull it apart they see all these circuit bits lick their fingers because it's only got two batteries you're not going to electrocute yourself blue I'm joking and then it makes you find that it makes different sounds or you can change the pitch if you touch the ground with one finger and like a certain bit of the chip goes like oh yeah and like you're making it do an intent of things in this maybe it began probably as something that was fun and then it quickly like evolved into something like musicians used to make new sounds out of tight circuit bending spans several musical genres with artists like Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails Beck and Danny Elfman all using circuit bent instruments and performances well it's not as popular anymore the still something about Sam's creations that's just really cool they're massive and insane for a full circuit Ben Furbies all circuit been in sequence around the back if you look really carefully behind it they will see behind them they've got like you can see all the wires and stuff a little peek in there now you miss it now you miss the sound but how long did you get built this thing I built this in about two weeks if not sleeping however I've been planning it for seven years and then it took me about a year to find all of the furbies this is like Gordon Ramsay but Furbys someone what God do is we've got to get it really by removing its protective cable tie then you got a bear bit forceful so there we go oh wow okay now when you go do is you get that and have a fiddle there's no wrong and there we go I mean what you do is you find something like that yeah and then you put some sort of thing that would make this permanent or not so you snip that and you put switch on it so you can choose those control over it nice they just see what it does sit back and enjoy I mean I've always I've circuit been Furbies a lot from when I started because they were quite cheap for how advanced they were in what they did apparently ever since they came out there was a people that wanted to you know fiddle with them and see what's inside them circuit bending really was it was an exploitation of this little window of time when the scale and complexity of electronics was just right you know it was complex enough to do wild stuff but simple enough that a little hat could make it you know malfunction in cool ways that's Peter Edwards who founded Casper electronics he's a circuit bending expert who has built custom instruments for bands the consumer electronics we have in our lives have evolved in a way that's completely oblivious to these hacking practices and have moved away from hack ability I was teaching circuit bending workshops for about 10 years and then I stopped because eventually no one in the workshop could hack anything there was nothing to bend because the circuits just weren't bendable anymore so yeah is there a future for circuit bending I think from the perspective of modifying kids toys I think no not really but from the perspective of people approaching you know consumer products and electronics with an adventurous spirit and finding new ways to use them like absolutely and Sam is one of these people who is pushing the medium forward and finding new ways to make music through hacking electronics it's like a DEFCON fight yeah hit up every every since bike needs a air horn this one's even got a head it's got a face look every synthesizer needs a face his name is Cosmo or huh I don't know right now we're going to control it with this solar panel so I'm going to patch in a solar panel into the parameter that controls the mouth so I'm gonna get the solar panel are you ready okay so to be fair with circuit bending it's not nearly as popular as it used to be there aren't a lot of people that do it as much anymore but you are over here doing the absolute most that you could possibly do with circuit bending and doing these gigantic projects yeah yeah I feel it's involved a bit the kind of people that did circuit bending are into building like modular synths now and stuff like that the problem with modern toys is they're not as hackable as the old ones however you can still hack them but they require a different way to do it and it's not usually as obvious but I love it and I just I'm trying to take it to different levels and like right now I'm trying to take existing projects that I've had in my head and just make them larger but why when everything has a when everything is evolved so that you can do it on a laptop and there are digital replications of most Hardware instruments that are out there yeah why put in all of the effort and time and money into creating is so tough I mean the only answer I have is why not I guess I've just a deeply curious do you make music and all digitally at this point or do you are you really committed to just using hardware I think I'd be crazy to just do hardware I mean like computer is a very enabling for people I do a lot of work with a variety and I tend to be stuck in front of a computer for that stuff anyway shot myself in the foot with the name like look I'm no computer company use a computer but at the same time whatever like I make the rules I make the rules for my project so you can't tell me if I couldn't use a computer or not because the name Tec in music runs the gamut from futuristic technologies like AI on one hand to circuit bending old electronics on the other circuit bending has fallen out of style a little bit but that doesn't mean that it hasn't continued to evolve and progress creativity doesn't require new technology but rather a new way of looking at the things that you already have this video is presented by aloft hotels different by design if you enjoyed this please subscribe to our YouTube 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