#circuitbent

Beats, courtesy of HELL (Circuitbent Casio PT-7)

There’s a weird story to this one.  I picked up the PT-7 a dog’s age ago, but I could never get the keyboard to actually work, despite every attempt at repairing it.  Fast forward to now, I decide to hack off the lovely little soft touch foil completely and just bend the beat box parts of the synth.  I found enough interesting bends that adding a separate section for all the hardware was needed, though it was kind of a pain in the butt.

Most of the switches do exactly what they say, and you can see it all in the demo video, but I’ll list them out for those interested.

Top panel

Reset: Duh

Snare/Bass Roll: Makes a four beat string of either the snare or bass drum (or more, depending on how long the button is held)

Pok: Makes one single pok (sometimes two though).

?????: Just fucks everything up.  Plays random beats at random tempos with random instruments.  Resetting is the only way to stop this.

Front panel

Muffle: Self explanatory.

No Splash: Cuts the splashy cymbals out of beats which include them.

Add Beep: Adds a beep to the mix, high beep when switched up, low beep when switched down. 

No Hi-Hat: Cuts the hi-hat.

Woodblock?: Replaces the snare with what sounds like a woodblock or bongo.

Buzz: Adds a buzzy and/or plinky effect.

Turbo: Speeds up the tempo past where the normal tempo dial would allow.

HELL: Adds a filter of static and scratching.