Welcome to Bare Bends! >From the moment Reed began writing his EMI article series there came a common request...

"Could you just add the circuit bending switches to a (anything you can imagine) if I send it to you?"

This design service, Bare Bends, is now available for all three Incantors (Speak&Spell, Speak&Read, Speak&Math), the Trigon Incantor (Touch&Tell), and the SA2 Aleatron (Casio SA-2 mini-keyboard).

Once Reed receives the target device from you it is then powerfully bent to his time-tested specs.

While unpainted, and lacking the elaborate control arrays you'll see in the other galleries of these music engines, the Bare Bends versions use the very best of Reed's circuitry from the more complex models. The resulting instruments are very solid examples of circuit bending's alien character and unexpected musicality.

More from Reed's interview with Eric Cook of Allsound.org:

"I do routinely get reports of other designer's bends failing in the field. Especially with Incantors. This is to be expected; it happened to me too until all the circuit variants in the different series become familiar (Speak and Reads, for example have five main variants, all with different wiring needs). The wrong bends, or some bends switched on in combination, can eventually fry an instrument. I've now decades behind the many designs I offer. The bare bends series will represent a super-stable, fully-functioning and economical bent instrument collection for persons to work with."

The Bare Bends versions contain the following controls.

Bare Bends Incantors

All three Bare Bends Incantors include the exact same bending array: three bending switches (for initiating chance music and such), two looping switches (momentary and hold), master clock control (for pitch setting), gold-plated RCA output, reset switch, and body contact (touch for pitch bending). $350 plus shipping.

Bare Bends Trigon Incantor

The Bare Bends Trigon Incantor controls include three bending switches (for initiating chance music and such), master clock control (for pitch setting), gold-plated RCA output, reset switch and body contact (touch for pitch bending). Also included is a swath of textured black stage material (can be trimmed to fit if preferred to original overlays), and a vial of beads for setting the hidden stage switches. Steel balls are not included in the Bare Bends version, but you can use any heavy sphere(s) to position on the stage for triggering the sounds (glass balls, stone, such, are available at gift shops, rock shops... any smooth curved object with enough weight works). Pressing the stage by hand works as well. $350 plus shipping.

Bare Bends SA2 Aleatron

The Bare Bends SA2 Aleatron controls include a precision (short throw) triggering switch (for tripping the standard logic routines into chance tone and music production), a trimmer dial (for setting the strength of the trigger pulse), two body contacts (bridge these with fingertips to gently increment the chance sequences), and a gold-plated RCA output. $350 plus shipping.

All five of these now-extinct circuits can still be found here and there. If not in your local second hand outlet (Goodwill, Salvation Army, AmVets, St. Vincent DePaul) or yard sales and flea markets, there's always Ebay.

Devices sent for bending must work perfectly in the first place, need to be insured by you in transit, and shipped in a very secure box with sufficient packing material (it is in this box the finished instrument will be returned to you).


All Bare Bends models sell for $350 plus shipping. .
Particle Bay of the complexity shown would cost $350 plus shipping.


POB 20181
Cincinnati, OH 45220