Reed Ghazala, the Father of Circuit Bending: Sound Builders

Listen up: We're running a special rebroadcast of the first season of Sound Builders, our show about noise (and the people rethinking how to make it), all week on Motherboard. We hope it tides you over until the forthcoming season of Sound Builders, which you can catch on Motherboard next month.

First, let's revisit Reed Ghazala, who's been called the father of circuit bending.

"I've been accused of starting the first electronic art movement," Ghazala told us back in 2010. "If that's true, that was better than the other things I could've done."

Clad entirely in purple, a sort of modular J. Mascis, Ghazala would show us his boyhood home in suburban Cincinnati—where the chance-driven sound generating technique was born in the late 1960s—before we holed up at his Anti-Theory Workshop on the other side of town. There, he played our flesh (seriously) and an array of other manipulated consumer electronics, all blipping and blorping to the rush of simply not knowing what you're going to get when you bend, say, a children's toy radio.

Stay tuned for the premiere of Sound Builders season two right here on Motherboard.

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[xiushobird]

Thanks for taking the time to make this. Reed needs to be reminded how much influence he has/had on the circuit bending community.

[watercolourmark]

This man encouraged me to circuit bend my laptop, he should not have done that - I am typing this comment from my phone.

[OrganGrindersSwing]

I have his book and have done several successful projects due to his knowledge. Thanks Reed!! Brilliant!

[Kaid_Studios]

Found out about Circuit Bending from Look Mum No Computer and now I've finally decided to give it a shot after seeing this. Time to dig through my shed for old electronics.

[BlackburnBigdragon]

I consider Reed Ghazala a mentor or sorts. I'm very honored to have even corresponded with him on several occasions. He's been a major inspiration on me and my art and my music for years. I was already an experimental synth musician and it was because of him, many years ago, that I ended up learning about short circuiting things to get amazing strange sounds to push my music to the next level of strangeness.

[XL]

"a lot of people build an incantor to enter the field".

Yep, with Reed's book as my guide and a speak and spell here. And that was that. Been hooked on a kind of cross over of synth diy and circuit bending ever since. He is i'd say something of a visionary. Where 99.999% would have just tossed that circuit malfunction in the bin, he took a walk down fascinaton street and opened a door for those so inclined to step through and explore.

[txcn]

What a beautiful soul, I can feel the wisdom and kindness of this man through my screen. A bodhisattva in disguise.

[salma-amlas]

i am studying embedded systems and i came across this on a wikipedia article! i am so excited as a music nerd to know such a thing exists. what a gift to humanity!

[OmeedNOuhadi]

Awesome, thank you Reed. Awesome work Motherboard. A comprehensive crash course on Circuit Bending in under ten minutes.


-ONO

[notrningwheels]

"Skrillex....I AM YOUR FATHER!!"


In all seriousness, the kind of glitch sounds he demonstrates here are more similar to grime, dubstep and other recent electronic music genres than pretty much anything prior 1995.  With a 30 year head start, it seems likely that circuit benders and their experiments were influential to these recent developments.   This guy really is a revolutionary!

[j_esford]

Great job! Enjoy your creations. Thanks for sharing your skills.

[AMOKIAN]

I always loved this video. I thought I had old comments on here?
We thank you Reed.

[SteveAcomb]

finding cool sounds by interpreting signals in malfunctioning electronics as sound is so magical! what a legend ❤️

[holdmeclosertonydanza]

I know it's late, but thank you for this treasure of a video.

[CookYourDog]

So this is what Richard Stallman does when hes not eating things off his feet.

[MrBenMcLean]

Way to make the Duracell battery logo way more noticeable than it otherwise would have been by censoring it.

[jakedyer]

I’m just getting into bending and I live in Cincinnati…!! I might see if he is still in the area and see if he would be okay with me visiting haha awesome stuff!

[Shinerfolk]

A real nice expirience in electronic music.

[handmadehearts]

*FABULOUS* Life work. Thank you, Reed!

[xLoxLoLex]

I've always admired this guy so much, since I was a kid, I started with mecano and now I'm a computer scientist but music is my true passion ;)