Bodhi Tin

I had the whole afternoon free, why the bankers were on annual leave, see. So, pottering in the studio I decided to do a spot of circuit bending and rehouse the mini chanting box that had been around for some time, thus making a super noisy fx pedal.


I had previously opened it up and searched about inside, only finding a small PCB board leading to two AAA batteries and a small speaker. The unit has pre-programmed chanting samples which I suspect are in the black blob on the PCB. The only other components are a capacitor and resistor.I started by exploring the circuitry with a wire, and seeing what will bend the sound. I found that joining the resistor to another part had the enchanting effect of super-speeding up the sounds. This was the only possible amendment using the parts on the PCB. So simple is best.


I already has stores of odds 'n' ends so she collected together two switches and a female jack. I decided that one switch would be to turn the unit on/off whilst the other one is to switch between the bent effect and the original chanting sounds. The chosen switches were rocker ones, where clicking back is on, whislt forwards is off. With the batteries already in place from the chanting box, I detached one side of the connecting wire and ran this via the switch. The two wires from the circuit bent points were attached to the second switch.


Then, I removed the speaker and replaced this with the female jack, to allow running the unit through other effects or straight into an amp. The wires leading to the speaker were replaced with new wire as they were really thin and frequently broke when working on them. The metal travel sweetie tin was chosen due to the lovely circle shape it has and citrus fruits on the front. This was drilled and cut to make the two holes in the lid for the large switches and for the jack input.

All electronic parts were soldered together and the first test run was held in front of Molten Gods 1 and 2. I then realised that to change between chants you had to stop and open up the unit to press the tiny switch on the PCB board. So came the next adjustment. I tested out with a push to switch on button if I could simply attach two wires from this to the points of the tiny switch on the PBC board. It appeared to work, makes sense eh?! So this was soldered inplace, an extra drilled hole was made and the switch put in place.


Presenting the Bodhi Tin. Named after the tale about Budda sat under the fig tree, known as the Bodhi tree. This little sweetie is perfect for amplifiying the chants and messing with the pitch, great fun to play through other effects too.

Om...