Circuit-bent Ugly Face ideas...

[bwanasonic]

I have yet to build an Ugly Face, but have heard/seen a demo of it from fellow forumite Rodgre. It really seems to lend itself to fiddling about with the knobs during performance, so I have been thinking of alternate ways to tweak it . I mentioned the zvex probe/theremin-like approach in another thread, but I've been thinking of a more down and dirty approach, borrowed from so-called circuit bending. Basically the circuit bending approach is to take something like an old Speak & Spell toy, and run wires from various interior parts to *improvised metal appendages* (nuts, bolts, etc.) on the exterior, causing all sorts of random sonic mayhem to ensue when the metal parts are touched by fleshy appendages (fingers mainly).  A few pairs of electrodes on the surface of the Ugly Face could yield some interesting *performance features*.

Kerry M

[ExpAnonColin]

Normally circuit bending works better with more complex circuits.  The uglyface is pretty simple and easy to master-anything you'd be "bending" would probably end up being a pretty easy mod.  Looking at the schem, something fun you could do would be to wire up contacts for the timing capacitor on the 7555-one on each lug-then you could touch them to gether and vary the frequency.

-Colin

[Johnny G]

like ExpAnonColin said, for circuit bending its really alot better when you have a microchip that has saved loops and sound effects on it. it basically works by crashing the chip and seeing what happens

ive got a little casio SA-5 that ive circuit bent and all the bends bar one centre around the clock pins of the chip. in simple analog circuitry all you can really do is get stuff to feedback and oscilate.

[petemoore]

Feed the envelope a signal from a cheepo keyboard sequencer 'auto' loop thing...even a drum beat...anything that goes up and down in voltage output enough to trigger the detector different ways...how/can you do this ?...I'd have to look, Tim E. would know if there's a way.
 Use a momentary switch that varies the resistance of the threshold pot, so instead of having to adjust it to make it go from osci to non self oscillation mode, holding the switch down, makes it switch
to:
1  Oscillation with low or no input
From:
2  No oscillation.
 A treadle pedal for the frequency knob would be a nice mechanical addendum.

[bwanasonic]

Just wanted to point out that I know what circuit bending is. I was just referring to the way it is often controlled, ie. little bolts and stuff sticking out that you touch. This is what I was getting at.  I am just looking at an interesting alternative to honking on the knobs, mainly to exploit the Ugly Face's ability to make some wacky synth like noises.

Kerry M

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I suppose there are 1 million ways to 'circuit bend'. some more 'bent' than others. But the touching knobs thing covers two aspects, 1. using yourself across two knobs as a variable resistor, and 2. using one knob as a way to inject hum.
If a resistor is too low to be replaced by body resistance, you could possibly use a transistor E and C across it & bring the C and B out to the knobs, that should do it (hint: make it a cheap transistor :wink: )

[ragtime8922]

I recently built the Uglyface. I absolutely love these ugly, annoying, staticy fuzz effects. I was going to add an expression pedal of some sort as well. The only thing that bothers me is when you turn the guitar volume knob off you still hear the pedal bitching and whining like a relentless wife. A pedal to control the frequency knob would be nice.

      Anyway, I dismantled it after about 10 days of fun to continue my search for ugly static fuzz with abrupt stops and freaky noises. (Fuzz Factory type). Next on that list is the SKY RIPPER. Any other suggestions?

[thumposaurus]

Noise Swash is a good canidate for those types of sounds, as a plus it can do a pretty decent "normal" grind too.