Photo from Casper Electronics

These Barbie Karaoke machines turn up at the dump every so often. A few weeks ago I dropped one off at Noise Night along with a few boxes of other seemingly bendable electrojunk. Maybe Barbie will cross your path at a yard sale, curbside picking or flea market. Apparently, they go for real money on Ebay.

Jimmie said that there was a good amount of information available on hacking Barbie's soundbox. Casper Electronics has some experience at the craft and shows the results of bending a variety of talking toys.

If I were to form some sort of experimental noise army, this piece would be standard issue. It's portable, versatile, and loud.

It has four different functions.

1. adjustable speed tape player
2. simple, amplified mixer
3. lo-fi echo processor
4. odd/pulsing/morphing/bleeping sound generator

All of these functions can be used together to achieve a variety of different sounds and effects.

More about circuit bending on the Casper Electronics site. If you are near Troy New York, you might check out the opening of their space, Casper Land.

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