The Benjolin is a ‘noise box’ that is ‘bent by design’, meaning that it always has a definite amount of unpredictability while it is still intuitive to play.

In a one-day workshop conducted by synth builder Rob Hordijk and circuit bender Joker Nies, participants will build a analog sound-device, that is very different from what you usually will find with other DIY-kits.

After successfully building the instrument, workshop participants will take home a versatile and unique synthesiser that can influence the behaviour of other voltage-controlled modules through seven different control-voltages. It is also able to receive control-voltages for filter-frequency and both of it‘s oscillators.

The Benjolin features two eighteen-octave range voltage controlled oscillators that drive a ‘rungler’ circuit, circuitry that in essence uses a special interference technique feeding back into the oscillators to force them into wild chaotic behaviour. A special slightly chaotic filter is both excited and modulated by the signals from the rungler circuitry processes, producing sounds between fat drones to grungy noise havoc. The kit is somewhat challenging to build, but with a little patience and accuracy a beginner in DIY can definitely do it successfully.