Circuit bending. The shop that takes what others won't.
A Speak & Spell screaming in a voice its designers never wrote. A Casio keyboard that stutters itself inside out when you touch the case. Circuit bending is the fine art of finding those sounds inside a battery-powered instrument and making the good ones permanent — done deliberately, on a bench, by people who solder for a living. We bend what you bring. Quoted after we look, one flat quote before any solder moves. Walk in or ship it in from anywhere in the U.S.
What we do on the bending bench
Quoted after we look. The number comes from the instrument and the bends it wants, not from a menu.
Diagnosis
$49The $49 diagnosis answers the real questions first: whether your instrument is a good bending candidate, which points look promising, and what the whole job costs. Free when you approve the work, and free when the honest answer is that this one won't survive the trip.
Bent mods
Quoted after we lookSpeak & Spells, Casio keyboards, toy synths, and the talking toys nobody else will open: probe points found with fresh batteries and care, the good ones made permanent with switches, the whole thing tested so it still plays like itself when the switches are off.
Body contacts & patch points
Quoted after we lookTouch pads, screws, and patch jacks that turn the case into part of the instrument — wired and strain-relieved to survive being played hard, not just photographed.
Line-out & controls
Quoted after we lookA proper output jack instead of the tiny speaker, a volume you can actually ride, and kill-switches where the chaos needs an off button. Speaker or headphone, your call, wired clean.
Bent repairs & rescues
Quoted after we lookA previous bend gone wrong, a switch that quit mid-set, the instrument that stopped working the week after the fair. Bends get repaired and cleaned up on the same bench that does them right.
Why bend at all
Three honest reasons the odd bench keeps this lane.
The sounds aren't in the manual
Shorting chosen points on these boards produces behaviors the designers never intended: glitched speech, droning loops, keyboards that play themselves. It is the cheapest door into genuinely new sound there is.
Cheap hardware, priceless noise
The classic candidates cost a few dollars at a yard sale. That low stakes is the point: the risk lives where it belongs, and the payoff is an instrument exactly one of.
Anyone can short two points
A paperclip and a dying battery make a bent toy that dies in a week. Proper switches, strain relief, and a real line-out make it an instrument — that gap is what a bench is for.
Walk in or mail it in
Instruments travel fine: batteries out, padded on all sides. However it reaches the bench, the quote comes before the work.
How a bend goes
- 01Walk in. 2224 Sunrise Dr, Longmont · Mon–Fri 9–6, Sat–Sun 10–3. Or ship it in from anywhere in the U.S.: request an RMA number online first.
- 02We look. The instrument gets probed with care, the candidate points get assessed, and one flat quote goes out by email or over the counter. You approve before any solder moves.
- 03The work. Points found, switches and contacts installed, line-out wired if you want it — then played, actually played, before it's packed.
- 04Home. Shipped back or picked up, with a 90-day labor warranty and the straight story of what was done.
What we don't do
Scope stated plainly, so you know before you ship anything.
Honest limits
- We bend what you bring. Bending happens on the instrument you bring us — we don't stock bent inventory and we don't sell a shelf of bent toys. Your instrument, your chaos.
- Bending is honest risk. It is exploratory work on 30-year-old electronics. We probe carefully and tell you plainly when a unit is a poor candidate — and in that case the diagnosis is free.
- Battery-powered is the classic lane. Toy instruments run on AAAs for a reason: low voltage, low stakes. Mains-powered gear gets looked at case by case before anything is promised.
- Other weird machines live on the odd bench. Vintage computers, test gear, synths, and the formats nobody makes anymore are that bench's daily bread. Console and handheld mods are the console and Game Boy benches; one-off commissions are the custom bench, quoted per project.
Circuit bending questions
The things people ask before they box up a toy.
Straight answers
Finding the sounds hiding inside a battery-powered instrument by touching the right two points on its board together, then making the good ones permanent with switches, contacts, and jacks. A Speak & Spell that talks backwards and screams; a Casio that stutters itself inside out. Done deliberately, on a bench, by people who solder for a living.
Honestly: it can. Bending is exploratory work on 30-year-old electronics — some candidates bend beautifully, some die trying. We probe carefully with fresh batteries and current limits, say plainly when a unit is a poor candidate, and the $49 diagnosis is free when the honest answer is no. Care, not miracles.
No. Bending happens on the instrument you bring us — we don't stock bent inventory and we don't sell a shelf of bent toys. Your instrument, your chaos, built to play the way you want it to play.
The toy is the point. The classic bending candidates — Speak & Spells, Casio keyboards, toy synths — cost a few dollars at a yard sale and hide sounds their designers never wrote. We bend them so they still play like themselves when the switches are off, and turn into instruments when the switches are on.
Yes, anywhere in the U.S. Request an RMA number online, take the batteries out, pack the instrument on all sides in a padded box, and ship it. We look within 3 to 5 business days of arrival and email one flat quote. You approve before any solder moves.
Yes. Bends gone wrong, switches that quit mid-set, the instrument that died the week after the fair: repairs and cleanups of existing bends are bench work like any other. Quoted after we look, with the straight story of what the last bend actually did.
That toy in the attic is an instrument that doesn't know it yet.
Call the shop any time: our AI receptionist answers around the clock and a human follows up. Or run the repair wizard for a first-pass assessment before you commit to anything. Walk-ins welcome at the Longmont bench, and the mail-in lane reaches every state.