Circuit bent Josh Ruff

Hello, I didn't see you standing there you scared me. In 2007 I was working as a day janitor at an elementary school in southern California when I had an accident at work that caused me to be off work for a while, six weeks. I was moving a 300 lb cart full of textbooks by pulling it behind me down a slight hill, (smart move) and I looked up for a second to wave hello to a teacher (safety first)and the cart smashed against my right foot like my foot was a door stopper. Or, like when you are skateboarding and the wheel on your skateboard hits a little rock or a date pit and you go flying.  Well, the wheel hit my foot anyways and the sudden impact fractured two different little bones in my foot. It also hurt like eight bitches on a fuckin' bitch boat! I never told anyone the exact details of what happened. That I was waving at someone when I had that little accident. Only me and that teacher knew until now. I kinda feel like she always felt bad about that after it happened because her greetings in passing were always especially awkward after that, after I had returned to work. If you like noise you like circuit bending. I like noise. I always have ever since I was a kid. I'm not sure what exactly led me down the rabbit hole to circuit bending but time off work is kind of what started it all. Also, thank the maker for the Internet, because it gave me circuit bending and that definitely changed my life. Within days of discovering the comparatively few circuit bent videos there were on YouTube back then I was digging old keyboards out of my grandmother's garage and circuit bending them and putting it on youtube.

These are all re-posts on my secondary YT channel that were originally posted on the puff handy YT channel from '08-'09. This one is over six minutes long! I love keyboards like this one with a little digital brain that just responds to power starve by performing all these wonderfully unpredictable glitches. I did the paint job on that one with a bunch of leftover ironlak colors I had in the backyard from my painting days, (see "graff" archive). After that, all I did was add a power starve knob and a little LFO circuit with a 555 timer. It just keeps going and I sold it on eBay but while I had it I played with it every night and it never did the same thing twice it was amazing! The guy I sold it to said that he had an autistic son that loved it so that's something to feel all warm and fuzzy about. This project sent me into a frenzy out at the yard sales and thrift shops looking for all the electronic instruments to bend that I could find.

And here's another cool little power starve one:


Here's another really early one, a Casio MT-240. A circuit bending dream come true. so many bends. I actually still have this one it has about a million more switches now. I should make a new video of it; like a before and after. at the end you can see one of my first pedals, LFo/filter. I only made one of those and I don't know why it was awesome.



This one is my favorite. This is a mish mash of this Casio ML-1 I circuit bent. It's like highlights; a best of. Very short and sweet. As you can see I started getting really fancy with my demo videos at this point.



This next video is my piece de resistance. It's a circuit bent star trek communicator replica, re-housed in a radio shack project box, married to a circuit I built using a 4066 switch and a LFO so it pushes the button over and over again and the other knob adjusts pitch. Please don't ask me to build another one of these because I never will again but it was so amazing it still remains in my heart even though I sold it years ago. I hope you have enjoyed this brief, probably incomplete and possibly incoherent history of me and circuit bending. I have.

cherry sours synth in the lobby

Here's a demo of both my kermit lunchbox amp, (sold) and my cherry sours synth which is currently on ebay right now. This was shot in that really shiny lobby in between the golden harvest and the Kushite. The acoustics are great in there, and all the GH employees had gone home so I had free reign to do this while Jam closed up the shop. Enjoy!

Altoids low pass filter

Here's some more of my wonderful altoids tin modular low pass filter. After about four years of doing demo videos of the uniquely vexing atari punk console I've developed a style of playing it that has just evolved from trying my hardest to convey through youtube just how cool and musical the APC is. My routine goes as follows: I put a spool of thread on top of my head and make sure it balances there the whole time; this step is very important! Then I set the right knob all the way to low and then sweep through all the stepped tones, done. Next, I move the range knob up a notch and then sweep through all the tones from low to high again, check. Guess what I do next? You guessed it! I repeat that over and over again until my head explodes like that guy on scanners. Doing this whole routing with puffhandy's dandy modular altoids low pass filter has changed my life! It's made me grow a little taller and my greasey skin cleared up. My teeth are whiter and my lawn looks better, in fact, I am pretty sure that puffhandy's dandy modular altoids low pass filter saved my marriage!

I shot this In Arcata at the Kushite and at the end you can see G street out the window when baby Olive pulled the plug on the whole thing .