El MuCo: PC PicturePhone Janked (plus a little Kidtunes)

On the 27th of June, in the year of our Lord (his Noodliness the Flying Spaghetti Monster) 2009, a PC Picture Phone was janked into greatness. Additional functionality was also added to the KidTunes Keyboard with some soldering and the assistance of “The MegaPot.”

The creation of the PC Picture Phone JankoCircuit ™ on the otherwise uninteresting device yielded splendid sonic results. On this page are pictures of both the Kidtunes setup, and two setups of the PC Picture Phone. Additionally, audio will be added as it becomes available (it’s being pressed onto vinyl as we speak.)

The below picture shows the new “hands-on” wiring of the Kidtunes with the megapot and the necessary switch settings.

KidTunes_with_JankoCircuit

Here is a close-up of the switch settings: from top to bottom, the settings are On/Off; Demo; Organ/Piano; High/Low volume.

Kidtunes_JankoCiruit_SwitchSettings

A close-up of correct hand technique.  Note the left hand holding down a key…

KidTunes_JankoCirtuit_Hand-Technique

By using the technique pictured above, the kidtunes produces a strange pitch-sweeping effect. Is some capacitor being charged and drained in this short circuit? Who the *?&# knows!

Sweeping Up and Down

And finally, the good stuff!  The PC Picture Phone was harder to get any really interesting sounds out of.  Many connections had to be made before the standard “Call the Doctor” siren call was rendered listenable.

Below is the circuit board for the PC Picture Phone as mod as we could make it after a meal of red meat, two games of Bocce, and 4 boxes of sparklers (and 11 beers).

Nodes:

1: the timing resistor (connected to node 4).

2: many points on the board cause the timing circuit to slow down, here there is a single node 2 shown next to 1, and the blue polygon also marked two shows an area of the board in which all nodes produce this same effect.

3: the JankoNode.  Integral to the JankoCircuit, it is this connection (or another connection on the same path not visible in this picture) that causes the Jank Effect.

4: this is the other end of the timing resistor (node 1), which causes the circuit to either speed up or slow down. The MegaPot is connected between nodes 1 and 4. 

5: i’m going to call this the LFO node as its effect is similar to modulating the circuit with a frequency of 15 Hz or so.  (with the correct resistance)

6: I can’t remember what these do… more Janking I suspect… (Kane: I remember! If you run some alligator clips between nodes 3 and 6, you get the Jank-O-Rama Effect! That’s what is pictured below–check out the audio!)

PCPicturePhone_CB_Annotated

Jank-O-Rama Warning: Repeated listening may cause psychosis.

Below shows the circuit board of the PCPP with resistors removed and wires soldered into the board for ease of clipping.  Notice the black wire at the lower left hand side of the board.  This is the other JankoNode mentioned in the description of the circuit board above.

Original_PCPicPhoneCiruit

Here is a view of the whole mess.

Original_PCPicPhoneCiruit_2

Top view of whole mess.

Original_PCPicPhoneCiruit_3

The pot on the right is connected via the bread board to the timing node on the circuit board.  The pot on the left is controlling the amount of “Jank” from the JankoCircuit. We even captured low, clicky sounds by working these two pots in conjunction–very Kontakte!

PCPicturePhone_Rigged-Up

Assorted clicks and clacks

The below resistor is the correct resistance for the PWM node (red6) as shown below.

Resistor_FromPCPhone_Orig_Ciruit

The circuit with Jank pot control.

PCPicturePhone_Diff-Angle

A close-up of the breadboard connections.  The PWM node is not plugged into this circuit.

PCPicturePhone_ClsupOfBrdBoard

Below are some voice notes taken after the session.  Please note they are tedious and mumbly (too… tired.. uh… to … uh… think…) and contain no cool noise.  They’re here more for us than for you 😉

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3