Pocket bent devices & mini synths

What about having a pocket Speak and Spell or… anything else !

Nowadays with mobile phone apps : the possibilities are endless... mini sampler, mini synth, everything you need in your pocket...

You may say “ok that’s just another gadget”, but think about it : a mobile phone + a 3.5mm jack adapter + tons of musical apps = you’ve got your mini synth whererever you are, with cool sounds, with the possibility to plug it into an amp or any recording device...

Sure it won’t be a monster, but thanks to the 3.5mm output :

- you can add external effects

- you can mix it with other sounds

- you always have a bunch of cool sounds in your pocket
- your pocket Hard Drive is ready to use for a jam with friends, or an external studio session (no need to come with samples CD or machines)

Finally, since mobile phones use SD card storage : your phone is as powerful as computers were a few years ago !... 4Go, 8Go, 16Go even 32 Go ! How many samples can you put on that ? that is SO huge ! You can create folders with classics, indispensable samples : TR-505 / 707 / 909, TB 303, bass lines, weird sounds etc...

Here’s a short demo of 2 devices I made : Speak and Spell and TR-707.

Unfortunately my phone is not powerful enough to play several sounds at the same time... but again : it’s meant to be sampled ...

Yamaha DD-10

7 mods :
- Bass synth
- Bass accent
- Filter ON / OFF switch
- Filter pot.
- Detune (pitch down)
- Overdrive
- Freeze

Playskool Drums - version 1 & 2 !...

Quite easy to bend, I found it interesting because you can make some very strange sounds with the body contacts... There are only 4 pads, but so many possibilities...

This is version 1



















 7 modifications :
- lo-fi distortion (switch)
- extreme bass percussion (switch)
- bass synth (switch)
- doubler (push button)
- Xtrem Noise (push button)
- 2 sets of Body Contacts (high pitch + low pitch / mod)
Case mods :
- Black shiny paint
- Output Jack 6.35 mm added

For this version I used RCA connectors as body contacts.

and this is version 2 (quite similar) :