Sunday, July 24, 2011

Elmo's World Phone

I could not resist when I saw it at; I had to bend this phone.

Circuit Bent Elmo's World Phone


This Elmo phone has a pitch control (yellow knob), a 1/8" audio  output jack, audio selector switch, distortion and loop/drone glitch.  The drone and distortion operate from the same toggle switch.  A three position switch ((ON)/OFF/ON) is used to select between the two glitches.  The Drone effect is activated with the momentary position as it only takes the slight signal to put Elmo in a crazy state.

Mattel did not leave much room for me to work with, so thanks to small components (potentiometers, switches etc) and a Dremel tool, I was able to outfit Elmo with these much needed effects!


Check out the video:



The pitch potentiometer completely replaces the pitch resistor on the circuit board.  There are several bend points that affect his pitch, but I saw no sense in repeating the same thing.  The distortion and drone effect mainly feed from the audio portion of the circuit but routed with some added capacitors and resistors of choice.
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2 comments:

  1. JoelJuly 5, 2013 at 7:44 PM

    I've bent my Elmo world's pitch and added a distortion and audio out, but can't seem to find a loop feature. I've attempted to use casper's transistor process, but to no luck (http://casperelectronics.com/finished-pieces/circuit-bending-tutorial/looping-with-transistors/)

    I'd love some advice/photos of your bends.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JoelJuly 5, 2013 at 7:45 PM

    ps. your phone is amazing!

    ReplyDelete

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