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Foreword

TL;DR: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 

Perhaps one of the greatest things about electronic music is how it 
changes the way that we listen to the world. The distinction between mu-
sic and noise becomes blurry and often disappears altogether. This was 
my experience at least, and it quickly allowed me to find music every-
where around me. Drumbeats from the dishwasher, drones from the A/C 
unit - there were few sounds that could not be placed in a music context. 

Another unintended consequence was that the delineation between 
functioning and non-functioning audio equipment became unimportant. 
Sometimes I preferred when my CDs were scratched, my cell phone was 
slightly too far from a Bluetooth speaker, or when a children’s toy was 
running out of battery. Composer Kim Cascone summarizes this phenom-
ena in his essay, The Aesthetics of Failure, “The technique of exposing 
the minutiae of DSP errors and artifacts for their own sonic value has 
helped further blur the boundaries of what is to be considered music, but 
it has also forced us to examine our preconceptions of failure and detri-
tus more carefully.” 

And what group has better harnessed this new aesthetic of failure than 
circuit benders? Armed with solder, jumper wires, and serendipity, these 
people hunt for the most effective way to make audio devices misbe-
have. 

As a longtime fan of circuit bending, I’ve always wanted to bring that 
sense of discovery to the digital realm. What if we had digital “bend 
points”, that were attached to knobs and switches, affecting how DSP 
was rendered, all under voltage control? This was the inspiration for 
Data Bender. 

I hope you have as much fun breaking it as we did.

Happy patching,

Andrew Ikenberry
Founder & CEO

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Summary of Contents for Data Bender

Page 1: ...Digital Meets Analog v1 4 5...

Page 2: ...CV Attenuator Shift Break Knob Break CV Attenuator Shift Corrupt Knob Corrupt CV Attenuator Shift Bend Button Stereo Behavior Shift Break Button Restore Default Settings Shift Corrupt Button Corrupt...

Page 3: ...ttery Composer Kim Cascone summarizes this phenom ena in his essay The Aesthetics of Failure The technique of exposing the minutiae of DSP errors and artifacts for their own sonic value has helped fur...

Page 4: ...ottom of the module Data Bender is a circuit bent digital audio buffer It is inspired by the ways in which audio equipment can fail The sounds of skipping CDs software bugs and defective tape machine...

Page 5: ...rument the audio output will become jumbled Certain devices lend themselves especially well to circuit bending and have accumulated a standard set of document ed bend points These include the Casio SK...

Page 6: ...Front Panel Tactile Controls CV Inputs Audio IO 4 Gate Inputs...

Page 7: ...xpected and interesting ways Time CV Input Range 5V to 5V from the knob position 1 Internal Clock Mode In this mode the clock LED will blink blue at the clock rate The Time knob will be a smooth chang...

Page 8: ...lays entire buffer Plays subdivision twice Plays subdivision ten times 3 Mix This controls the balance between the live input and the audio buffer being processed When the knob is fully CCW only the d...

Page 9: ...bend using the Gate or Button will toggle this control on or off When enabled LED Blue every clock division a certain manipulation of the playback speed and direction can occur When the knob is all th...

Page 10: ...n jump to any sub section of the buffer and has a high likelihood to do so It can also set the repeats to anywhere above where the knob is set and add up to 90 silence to each repeat Break CV Input Ra...

Page 11: ...nd up 3 octaves and tracks 1V Oct When the playback speed is forward the LED will be blue unless it is on a specific multiple oc tave above or below the original playback speed Then it will be cyan Wh...

Page 12: ...ct from each chunk of the active buffer On the far left of the knob the first subsection will be select ed On the far right of the knob the last subsection determined by Repeats will be selected When...

Page 13: ...or Blue Controls the occurrence of random audio dropouts There are less but longer dropouts on the left side of the knob and more but shorter dropouts on the right side of the knob Dropout LED Color G...

Page 14: ...buffer To learn more about Momentary and Latching Freeze Modes head to the Shift Menu section Freeze Gate Input Threshold 0 4V 9 Clock Toggles between internal and external clock modes While the modul...

Page 15: ...icks will happen often which is great for glitch beats and sound effects When turning this all the way up the glitches will be fully windowed only reaching its full volume for a moment before fading b...

Page 16: ...Knob Break CV Attenuator Holding Shift and turning the Break knob will set the attenuation on the Break CV input When the knob is fully CCW maximum attenuation occurs at the Break CV input and let s...

Page 17: ...internal or external clock to re sync This can be useful for synchronizing with a DAW or manually restarting the buffer and ran domizing Macro Mode controls when running with a slow internal clock In...

Page 18: ...ferings Holding Shift and pressing Mode will swap between the current Data Bender Corrupt effect offer ings and the original offerings When the Mode LED is blue all 5 effects on Corrupt are available...

Page 19: ...Bend in Micro Mode If you are either Unsure if your Data Bender is calibrated due to it being used Updating your Data Bender to the most recent firmware Looking to recalibrate your Data Bender Then y...

Page 20: ...d then click Connect 7 Download unzip and drag the firmware file bin into the File Window on the Web Program mer page 8 Press program to update the firmware You will be notified once the module is up...

Page 21: ...ngs Mode Micro Mix 100 Time 30 Repeats 0 Bend 45 Corrupt 45 Glitch Windowing SHIFT TIME 0 In Micro Mode Bend acts as a live pitch and speed manipulator with the option of reversing the buffer Corrupt...

Page 22: ...FT TIME 0 In Traverse Mode Break divides the buffer into subsections who s amount is determined by the Repeats knob The higher the repeats the more subsections By sending modulation to Repeats moving...

Page 23: ...e complex oscillation while Prism dials in the vocoder esque timbres with the bandpass filter and decimator This patch is all about chaos for which Data Bender s Macro Mode is perfect CV is sent from...

Page 24: ...pletely free of charge Learn more about the lifetime repair warranty Issues that are excluded from the warranty but do not void it includes scratches dents and any other us er created cosmetic damage...

Page 25: ...via Shift Mode Fixed dry signal bleed issue when Data Bender is fully wet Fixed Micro Bend knob range issue and LEDs is now able to reach the 3rd octave via knob input Added default windowing Blue LED...

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