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Paul Slocum of Richardson has modified the programming of vintage electronics to produce unusual sounds he weaves into original music.

Circuit-benders generate music from cast-off devices

Ataris, Commodores, resurrected by programmer as an electronic backup band

By: Doug Bedell

Posted: 5/27/04

The Dallas Morning News/KRT

Ask Dallas musician Paul Slocum to name his favorite instrument, and he'll probably answer, "My 1985 Epson dot matrix printer."

The 29-year-old erstwhile computer programmer takes vintage electronics and modifies their programming to produce unusual sounds that he weaves into original music.

Together with his girlfriend, Lauren Gray, Slocum is gathering notice as Tree Wave (www.treewave.com). All performances are produced with scavenged and "modded" electronic components _ a 1977 Atari 2600 game console, 1986 portable 286 PC, a 1983 Commodore 64 computer and the printer.

Gray blends her lilting, ethereal voice into the bass, drum and melody lines programmed into the PC and Commodore by Slocum. The Atari produces colorful, dancing video collages that are projected onto club walls or portable televisions. In the background, the Epson printer head creates buzzing, guitarlike riffs as it prints out images.

In its broadest sense, the printer may be considered part of an unusual niche in modern electronic music called "circuit-bending." Participants of varying technical abilities take old battery-powered devices -- Speak & Spell toys, GameBoys, Furby dolls (see hackfurby.com), Coleco Talking Teachers -- crack them open and experiment with ways their circuitry can produce sounds.

At the low-tech end, circuit-benders bridge contact points or short out a gadget's mainboard, then figure out ways to pipe the resulting sounds through amplifiers.

"The most common thing is to put wires where they're not supposed to be and put switches between them," Slocum says. "Or you tap into the electronics and create a little audio-out, something like that. A lot of times people who do that stuff are just playing around until they find something interesting.

"The nice thing about it is that you don't have to have any technical expertise, and it's kind of fun, I guess. But the potential for making music with it is limited."

Circuit-benders from across the globe congregate in online discussion groups to share information on sounds they've created out of all sorts of gizmos.

"The only problem with circuit-bending is that it's so hard to control," Slocum says. "It's so hard to make music that's not just noise."

Rather than let the modified machines dictate the musical output, Slocum controls his machines with detailed electronic programming. Only minor physical modifications are used.

The Epson printer head, for example, produces sounds by striking paper based on how Slocum manipulates a box of push buttons connected to the printer's font cartridge.

"It took me probably about three months to get it to do what I wanted," he says. "Now it's evolved into kind of an art installation piece."

The Epson was featured in last month's Bent 2004 circuit-benders show in New York City (thetanknyc.com/bent). Slocum has just been invited to Denmark to speak about his Epson instrument and its music.

Tree Wave is largely a labor of love for the Dallas couple. But some circuit-benders _ including Waterhed (billtmiller.com/circuitbending/waterhed) _ make their livings scrounging for cheap electronics on eBay, hacking them to produce new noises and selling their creations to musicians.

One pioneer, New York-based artist Reed Ghazala, has circuit-bent instruments on display at the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim and the Whitney permanent collections. He has also built experimental instruments for Tom Waits, Peter Gabriel, King Crimson's Pat Mastalotto, Faust and other artists.

Slocum says he doesn't anticipate fame. "But I tend to think this sort of thing ought to be growing more than it has," he says.

For now, he's moving on to his next mod project _ an automatic bank teller machine that he's ripping apart on his office floor.
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(c) 2004, The Dallas Morning News.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.