116 Nicolas Collins
Appendix 1: Resources
A few years ago I walked into the office of a technically-minded colleague at my
school to ask for a reference manual in which I could look up the pinout and
schematic of an unfamiliar chip. Clamping a large, Chicago-style hand to my
shoulder, Ed replied, “Nic, I could loan you the book, but let me ask you this:
give a man a fish and he’s fed for one day, teach him how to fish and he.....?”
“...wastes all his time fishing when he should be helping out around the house?”
I continued. “No,” sighed a disappointed Ed. “Type the part number into
Google and you will find the data sheet in the first hit,” he muttered as he closed
the door. The point I missed in his parable: it’s never been easier to hack.
In the early days of home-made electronic music, schematics and suggestions
were passed from hand to hand like samizdat books in the Soviet Union, or cures
for colicky babies. Then a few dumbed-down circuits crawled out of engineering
journals into music magazines, and one or two books appeared, written in
something like English rather than Technese. Finally Tim Berners-Lee birthed
the web and a hundred fuzztones burst into flower. Anything you want to know
is out there; all you need to do is find it and understand it. Finding it is easy,
even though understanding it may take some work -- you may have to teach
yourself a bit more of the vocabulary of electronics than was demanded in this
book. As Ed suggested, type part number or name of a component will usually
direct a search engine to a manufacturer’s data sheet -- the information you’ll
need to work with it. Enter a descriptive phrase, such as “‘Phase
Shifter’+schematic”, and you’ll be directed to any of a number of wacky websites
hosted by people who seem to have nothing better to do than compile vast
collections of circuit diagrams and links to like-minded fanatics.
I would be remiss if I did not mention here the fabulous Reed Ghazala, the
founding father of “Circuit Bending.” A hacker since childhood, Reed estimates
that he has taught millions of students through his articles for Bart Hopkins’
“Experimental Music Instruments” journal and, since 2000, his web site:
http://www.anti-theory.com. Go there right now!
PDF data sheets can be downloaded as you need them, but thick data books are
still available from the major chip manufacturers -- they’re expensive, but worth
it if you get in deep. There are a few books that can help fill in theoretical gaps
between the one you are reading now and the more engineer-oriented data you
will find on the web. Walter Jung’s OpAmp Cookbook and Don Lancaster’s
CMOS Cookbook are excellent, understandable references. Craig Anderton, the
grandfather of electronic hacking for musicians, published Electronic Projects for
Musicians back in 1980s and it’s still an excellent guide to basic musical circuitry
and general principles of design and construction.
What holds true for information also goes for material resources. Although
Canal Street no longer teems with the warrens of weird electronic and