Have fond memories of Speak & Spells? Wish you could completely
warp them, then turn them into a musical instrument? Too
circuitry-challenged to circuit bend your own, and already got too many
weird gadgets in your mobile music bag? (I know you've been buying
everything mentioned on this site, so I understand.) Now you can
download a Mac, Windows, or Flash version of the Speak & Roil,
and play with original Speak & Spell sounds — or their horribly
violated warped versions — from the comfort of your iBook. What? You
think software is for poseurs? Roil Noise has plenty of real circuit bending resources, too, plus a Yahoo group.
I was a deprived child who never had the original toy, so I'm still in
love with the 'un-bent' Speak & Spell sounds. You know you want to
fire the vocalist in your band.
UPDATED: Okay,this is just a little Flash toy with some sampled
Speak & Spells (though it's fun to play with). Why didn't I
complain that this wasn't a full-blown, analog physical-modeled
circuit-bent Speak & Spell? I don't dream that big. Analog
Industries' Chris Randall had just that vision, though, before I wrote this story, as musicthing points out today.