Get Bent 2

Sometimes you just can’t improve on greatness. (Or rather, accidental “this seems like a good idea” toy manufacturer “greatness”). There are some out there that are just too weird and creepy to need any modifications. Like in this instance: a stethoscope with the synthesized sound of (a heart?) pounding and then a child’s laugh . . . well, I didn’t think there was anything I could do to make this any more interesting. So I am going to slap an output on it and away I go.

Wanna play doctor?

Putting outputs on all your circuit bent instruments is good idea in general. If you ever want to record or put some effects on it, the easiest way is to run it directly into your mixing board or effect pedal. Plus, you can run it directly out of an amplifier instead of mic-ing the speaker which will lead to less background noise.

You have three standard choices for outputs, ¼ guitar jack, 1/8 audio jack and RCA jack. Although the later two will probably fit better into the case of your instrument, I generally go with the ¼ guitar jack for two main reasons:

1) they are heavier and can take more of a beating
2) you can just use a ¼ to ¼ inch cable if you need to run it into an effects pedal without having to worry about buying converter tips or buying a special cable to use it.
I would rather recase (ie: put in a different, larger case) an instrument than use anything else.

The first thing you need to do is attach wires to either end of the prongs of your jack. There are usually holes so you can thread the wire through and twist, but it is in your best interest to put a few dabs of solder on the wire and the connectors to hold it in place.

Threading your ¼”

Soldered ¼

First you need to find the speaker. Finding the speaker itself is usually easy, look for where the holes to let the sound out are located. Generally speaking, there is a disk, often black right above the holes. That is the speaker. Next you need to figure out where the audio wires connect to the speaker. This is also fairly simple since usually the only two wires on the speaker are the audio outs.

See the white wires in the picture below? Those are the exact points where you need to solder the wires of the jack to the speaker, one wire for each point. It does not matter which wire goes where as long as one wire is soldered to each point.

Solder one wire right over the existing wires

As you have noticed, I cannot shove that jack anywhere in the case. Although you can have wires hanging out everywhere, it will make your instrument fragile and more susceptible to damage. My next article will be able how to recase an instrument. I will also have a few samples of what this sounds like because in its current state it is a little difficult to record it. I couldn’t make anything sound this creepy if I tried.