FS:CIRCUIT BENT CASIO SK1.V-NICE!.(London U.K)

[fanriffic]

I know-its not the place but hey this'll be of most interest to you guys..

I have up for grabs a beautiful circuit bent Casio SK-1.

The sounds this creates just CANNOT be made with software...but only by physically opening up a machine and skillfully abusing the original circuits

All the original functions of this 80's classic are retained but when you start flicking those switches,dialing those dials and patching those little leads-things begin to get very strange! &..the more switches flicked ,dials dialed,and leads patched....the stranger she becomes !

There are alot of inexperienced benders(...i said benders..)doing IMO very weak bent instruments and putting them on eBay for silly money-I've seen stuff on you-tube where the MOST you get is,for example,a little distortion on the drums..or a res filtered sounding bass...I can assure you this is NOT one of those..Of course If all you want is a little distortion or wot-not then fine it can do that..but it can also go waaaaaaay deeper...
When I first got this I literally did not come out of the house for week..I just sat there and made sounds!!
It palette ranges from basic SK1...to all-out random chaos..and all thats in between.The well of sonic goodness is truly bottomless..!

I looked at alot of bent stuff before I got this and this just seemed the most versatile,capable and flexible I came across.
It is in great condition and all bends and original features are fully functonal.

Its added features(on top of original SK1 functions)include-light sensitive theremin style control,two body contacts,detachable patchbay-with eight patch points,pitch dial,the ability to dial in/out drums/bass,adjustable LFO-with LED indicator,ability to control some of the bends with an Atari joystick,1/4 jack output,blue LED...and a shit load of other switches which do things that defy description..

Included is an original Atari joystick,the detachable patch bay,and a couple of patch-leads(phonos) to get you started

Am in desperate need of money which is the reason I'm having to part with her-so cash on collection is my preference,and I'm looking to sell ASAP.I'm in North London but would be happy to meet in anywhere in the London area. Would also ship worldwide if no ones interested locally.

Looking for £140.OBO

I've also got some mp3 samples of this-(just me having a little play around-no FX or other processing)-but there're a bit too large to attach to this.If you want a listen just PM me your email and I'll be very happy to send them

Any questions give me a shout-thanks for looking.

[W-W-Int]

meh

take all the crap off and sell it to me unbent and we'll talk.

[fanriffic]

Originally Posted by W-W-Int

meh

take all the crap off and sell it to me unbent and we'll talk.

OOOoooo kaaaay..?..!

.....if all original SK1 functions are retained (as stated) and additionally you've got a HUGE amount of well designed unique sound creation possiblities...er...why??

Maybe you've had a bad experience with some crappily bent stuff-there's alot...by its nature bent gear will vary hugely and there's alot of amateurs out there putting out shit stuff.

PM me with your email and I'll be happy to send you some samples...of this unit...but until you've listened to them you're really in no position to comment on it.

Of course it maybe that as a personal preference you don't like the sounds a bent circuit creates....in which case;cool...walk on my friend.



F

[MarcB]

wait...

Casio SK1 for £140 ?

[fanriffic]

Originally Posted by MarcB

wait...

Casio SK1 for £140 ?

..(sigh)...O.K-let me explain for those who may be unfamiliar with bent instruments,for those who may not have properly read the original post...or for those who are simply just a little spesh...

This did indeed start its little life as a run-of-the-mill Casio SK1...and were I asking £140 for a bog standard SK1,I would indeed be mad-as-a-balloon,living at least 3 decades in the past and your comment,Mr B,would be totally legitimate.

However,

Due to many internal and external modifications it is now very much more than simply that.

Well bent instruments are strange and fantastic things and this could indeed be described as both.

If you don't know what this is-(and your comment,Marc,indicates you don't)-thats cool-then please ask me some questions,do some research..listen to the samples!!!...instead of posting ignorant replies.

I bought this from the guy who makes them in the U.S. for $265.He sells them regularly at this price..and he can because they are quality,unusual instruments which take skill and time to build well..If you do a quick conversion you'll see what I'm asking is a fair bit less. Add to that shipping costs and the chunk of import I had to pay,and this is actually a bargain!!!

I'm only selling this because I have another identical one which I bought after I fell in love with my first.I'd love to hold onto both but...hey;I'm broke.

Lesser CB creations go for far more on eBay everyday..and Glitch machines,Nervous squirrel,and Folktek stuff ,for example, can easily go into four figures...

So,to summarize:

Its not just an 'SK1'.



F

[MarcB]

I know it isn't my place to question what you want to charge for your gear, and although I'm not up on the CB stuff , the end product is still a Casio SK-1

£140 is well in with the "real sampler" ebay territory.

Yeah I understand it can do "stuff" that the original unit cant do , and probably alot of other gear cant do either. Maybe this isn't directed at your sale , this is more of a general Circuit bent thing.. but buying a £10 car boot stall toy item and soldering a few switches here n there to mess it up doesn't compute (to me) to be adding £130 to the price.

hey , I'm out of this loop so what do I know....

good luck with the sale anyway

[wax808]

I personally think circuit bent stuff is killer. This one looks to have quite a bit going on. Some audio samples of what it can do would be nice though.

[mikecook]

tough crowd

I think the unit looks killer.. I'd love to hear it!

[MarcB]

Originally Posted by mikecook

tough crowd

I think the unit looks killer.. I'd love to hear it!

yeah, sorry mate..

It's probably a similar story when you show a guitarist a 303 and tell him how much they're worth

[msl]

I think £140 is reasonable for a bent cz-1, but it completely depends on what it can do. So lets hear samples please, put them up on yousendit.com or something. It does look interesting, what does the joystick do?

[fanriffic]

Hey Guys..I'm going to be v busy today-(..day of rest-my arse..)-but later tonight I'll edit the samples into 6meg sections (max mp3 attachment size) and post them up here...so you can alllllll have a listen.

Judging be some of the responses it seems that this is a bit of a grey area for alot of people-so would be a bit of an education...if nothing else.

Hey Marc-no worries mate...yeah-I was going to post a similar analogy...but with my girlfriend and a v expensive mic ("??!!...b,but they sell those for £20 in Maplin..?!!")

F

[W-W-Int]

it's not that i haven't heard a ton of circuit bent sk-1's, it's that i have. they all sound like crap basically. all you get is the inability to have it reliably play back what you're intending. it is a sampler after all, there is nothing the bending can produce noise wise that it can't do with a sample. i could see bending something like a speak n' math, it doesn't produce anything useful without bending it. but all you get with a bent sk-1 is a bunch of switches you have to make sure are in the "off" position to use it reliably. i have an sk-1 and think it's a fairly cool little noisemaker. bent sk-1's are a complete waste of time though. after a while you reach the conclusion that it isn't doing anything different other than slowing the clock down and causing the sample to play back at unreliable speeds, or slowing the sample down itself and causing loop issues but they happen at irregular intervals which screws up the timing of an otherwise new tempo thing from the bend rendering it again useless. all the knobs, patch points, joysticks, switches, optical theremin diodes, etc... do is a combination of the 2 states of slowed down sample playback or screwed up timing.1 switch and one knob would cover it pretty much.

and besides you also knew this isn't the proper place for a sale and went ahead anyway?

[alexp]

Im not into the whole circuit bent thing... But I am very excited to hear your files man!!!


Looking forward to it!


alexP

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by W-W-Int

and besides you also knew this isn't the proper place for a sale and went ahead anyway?

It's been quite the thing to post ads here for gear that is of particular interest to EM people.
The main gear for sale section is almost all audio and outboard gear.
People post drums and percussion for sale in the drums forum too.

So you wouldn't pay £140 for a circuit bent Casio.
You made your point, and if everyone agrees the seller will have to review their asking price.

[fanriffic]

Hey Guys-Apologies for the Delay....been trying to sort out a heap of stuff..anyway...the good news is:here are the samples !-chopped into 4 sections...and shared with you all !!..

..the bad news-(well..for those of you who were interested..) is that its been sold !!!
I'd advertised it locally as well and a guy came round to check it out last night and left with her under his arm..(who BTW didn't have any problem paying £140 for it...).

But I did promise u'all the samples so here they are anyway-hope they will be of interest..If any of you do like the sound of it PM me and I can put you in touch with the guy who bent it.

The samples are from a 20 min file cut up into 4 sections-so each one follows onto the next...admittedly its a shit load of bent SK1!!!.. but I couldn't be arsed to edit it-or more to the point decide what to edit...I've already faded out bits which went on a bit and cut out the gaps-as you may hear..so there was in fact MORE..!

It's going through a DI then straight into the computer-there are no other FX/processing (other than a little compression on the master buss-to even out the dynamic range a little),no layering/multitracking,and no loops-other than what the machine is doing itself...Just one track of me fiddling about.If you can't take listening to the whole 20 mins (..and hey,wouldn't blame you..) but want to get a good overview maybe listen to the start of each section...but the whole thing is pretty varied and I tried to give a good taste of its sound creation possibilties...(still came away thinking there's so much more to hear..)..

I've not really used any of the unbent SK1 sounds-which of course isn't the point of this-and so its virtually all using the bends and various combinations of them.I've also just used the bends with the onboard sounds-haven't sampled in anything.

@WWint:..mmmm.. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.I can't speak for the other SK1's you've used but please listen to the files from this and tell me if you honestly think that the bends are doing only what you describe.If you really think that they're doing "nothing...that it (..I take to mean an unbent SK1) can't do with a sample" I would be amazed..and hey if you can get your SK1 to do that then you need to give me a tutorial !!! I agree in part that bent SK1's (and bent instruments in general) can be prone to randomness-but thats part of the beauty of the beast...
'Useless' ??...."a complete waste of time"..?..for what??,for who????..Its what-it-is...If you're judging it as a sampler or a straight keyboard then I think you're kinda missing the point...If I want that kind of thing I'll go to my 950/MPC/JP8/Q etc...but none of them does what this does.-(which is why I'm keeping the other one!!!!).
Didn't really get your final point-(....so..should I just accept rash,sweeping statements if I post stuff for sale here???..)-but appreciate the heads up...chrisso covered the rest(cheers mate).

Anyway thanks for the patience guys-hope you enjoy..or they at least..er..satisfy your curiosity..



Fanny

[Popbott]

Congrats on the sale and thanks for posting the samples, I had never heard anything circuit bent.

[W-W-Int]

you seem to have missed my point as did chrisso...
the bend does nothing FOR the sk-1, it just takes what's already there and makes it random. random is only useful if you don't really know what you're doing and need to find a happy accident. here's the thing with circuit bent stuff, you have switches and knobs, they affect the operation of the device granted. the issue is the more you place jacks and swicthes and knobs on it the more you are just cluttering it up for the sake of adding eyesore/eyecandy (pick your poison) for making it LOOK like there's more potential. 1 switch and 1 "body contact" are all you need. every time you throw the switch it randomly affects the machine the same as if there were 20 switches hooked into the machine at different contact points on the circuit board. simply because all they are doing is interupting the current between the clock and the porcessor and the processor reacts "randomly" to this depending on how far along in whatever it's doing is going.

the body contact is useful for variable resistance on the other part of the circuit that affects pitch. get something clear before you leap into reed ghazala land of psuedo science here, on the sk-1 the only points of interest to bend all affect the outcome similarly and equally randomly as far as what the result will be in relation to cpu current interuption, and equally (depending on resistance used) as far as pitch control.

sorry i have had extreme amounts of experience with circuit bent sk-1's trying to get them to function again after someone went too far. you only really need 2 bends on one to achieve the gamut of randomization bending them achieves. all the extras are just like the paint job, there for show only.

so anyway you have a bent sk-1 and you want xx amount of money for it. okay good luck selling it talk to you on other topics in future, just having a conversation about bent sk-1's as this is a discussion board.

[fanriffic]

Originally Posted by W-W-Int

you seem to have missed my point as did chrisso...
the bend does nothing FOR the sk-1, it just takes what's already there and makes it random. random is only useful if you don't really know what you're doing and need to find a happy accident. here's the thing with circuit bent stuff, you have switches and knobs, they affect the operation of the device granted. the issue is the more you place jacks and swicthes and knobs on it the more you are just cluttering it up for the sake of adding eyesore/eyecandy (pick your poison) for making it LOOK like there's more potential. 1 switch and 1 "body contact" are all you need. every time you throw the switch it randomly affects the machine the same as if there were 20 switches hooked into the machine at different contact points on the circuit board. simply because all they are doing is interupting the current between the clock and the porcessor and the processor reacts "randomly" to this depending on how far along in whatever it's doing is going.

the body contact is useful for variable resistance on the other part of the circuit that affects pitch. get something clear before you leap into reed ghazala land of psuedo science here, on the sk-1 the only points of interest to bend all affect the outcome similarly and equally randomly as far as what the result will be in relation to cpu current interuption, and equally (depending on resistance used) as far as pitch control.

sorry i have had extreme amounts of experience with circuit bent sk-1's trying to get them to function again after someone went too far. you only really need 2 bends on one to achieve the gamut of randomization bending them achieves. all the extras are just like the paint job, there for show only.

so anyway you have a bent sk-1 and you want xx amount of money for it. okay good luck selling it talk to you on other topics in future, just having a conversation about bent sk-1's as this is a discussion board.

..I'm not looking to argue for the sake of it and am really interested in your input..

But please have a listen to the samples and tell me if you honestly believe that it could all be achieved with only two bends-as you suggest.

(BTW The SK1 has been sold...)

I have no clue what is actually,physically happening when I flick a switch or patch a lead...It maybe current interuption..as you describe..or it may just as likely be magic elf's as far as I know...Its not a huge concern to me....But what I do know is that the various switches effect the sound in different ways..consistantly. And when switches/patch points are combined that in turn affects the sound again-differently.

The bends are not actually all random either but I totally disagree with you about the value of randomness-I make music and use various tools to do it,one or two of which happen to have random sound generating/processing abilities. To say randomness is useful 'only if you don't know what you're doing'..is just silly and by that definition would have to include Stockhausen (arguably the father of modern electronic music) as one of those without a clue.

I've been using these SK's for a while and I know how each switch will effect the sound..and honestly..they don't do the same thing.

I would be very keen to get your input once you've had a listen to the samples..as I originally suggested..then at least we can discuss this from the same point of reference.

BTW-Well done to the 3 of you that made it to number 4..!!



F