Handmade electronic music : the art of hardware hacking / Nicolas Collins ; illustrated by Simon Lonergan.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [317]-327) and index

Foreword / David Behrman -- pt. 1. Starting. Getting started : tools and materials needed -- The seven basic rules of hacking : general advice

pt. 2. Listening. Circuit sniffing : eavesdropping on hidden electromagnetic music (Art & music 1, mortal coils) -- In/out : speaker as microphone, microphone as speaker; the symmetry of it all -- The celebrated jumping speaker of Bowers County : twitching loudspeakers with batteries -- How to solder : an essential skill -- How to make a contact mike : using piezo disks to pick up tiny sounds (Art & music 2, John Cage--the father of invention; Art & music 3, piezo music) -- Turn you tiny wall into a speaker : resonating objects with piezo disks, transformers, motors, and more (Art & music 4, David Tudor and "Rainforest"; Art & music 5, drivers) -- Tape heads : playing your credit cards (Art & music 6, tape) -- A simple air mike : cheap condenser mike elements make great microphones

pt. 3. Touching. Laying of hands : transforming a portable radio into a synthesizer by making your skin part of the circuit (Art & music 7, the cracklebox) -- Tickle the clock : finding the clock circuit in toys -- Hack the clock : changing the clock speed for cool new noises -- Ohm's law for dummies : how to understand resistors (Art & music 8, composing inside electronics) -- Beyond the pot : photocells, pressure pads, and other ways to control and play your toy Art & music 9, circuit bending) -- Switches : how to understand different switches, and even make your own -- Jack, batt, and pack : powering and packaging your hacked toy

pt. 4. Building. The world's simplest circuit : six oscillators on a chip, guaranteed to work -- From breadboard to circuit board : how to solder up your first circuit -- Getting messy : oscillators that modulate each other, feedback loops, theremins, tone controls, instability, clocks for toys, crickets -- On/off (more fun with photoresistors) : gating, ducking, tremolo, and panning -- Amplification and distortion : a simple circuit that goes from clean preamp to total distortion, and an envelope follower -- Analog to digital conversion, sort of--modulating other audio sources with your circuits, pitch tracking, and sequencers

pt. 5. Looking. Video music/music video : translating video signals into sound, hacking cheap camera circuits, and extracting sounds from remote controls (Art & music 10, visual music) -- LCD art : making animated modern daguerreotypes and alternative video projectors

pt. 6. Finishing. Mixers, matrices and processing : very simple, very cheap, very clean mixers, and ways of configuring lots of circuits -- A little power amplifier : cheap and simple -- Analog to digital conversion, really : connecting sensors to computers using game controllers (Art & music 11, the luthiers) -- Power supplies : carbon footprints from AA to EEE -- The future is now

Appendices A, Resources -- B, Tools and materials needed -- C, The rules of hacking -- D, Notes for the DVD