E.T. Phone (RIP)

E.T. Phone - A Fisher Price cordless phone with 'tude. It makes five different phone noises: dial-tone, busy signal, ringer, dial-sound, and er... another one.

UPDATE: The E.T. Phone is no more. It was a "black blobber," with no on/off switch as such. I took it out of the drawer one day to use it and it wouldn't make a sound. Despite my efforts I couldn't ressurrect it. However, it lives on in several recordings.

Modifications:
- Pitch up (x2) & Pitch down (x2) body contacts. Touching both sets at once can trigger a spazz loop.
- Positionable optical resistor with switch. When a spazz loop is triggered, the optical resistor can be switched into the circuit to control the pitch in theremin-like fashion. It can be used with the LED under the orange ear-piece grill, and is particularly impressive if you stick it next to a spinning fibre-optic lamp.
- Bypass switch. To switch between theremin-control and the spazz loop at the touch of a button. If the optical resistor is switched off it can also completely cut it out of the circuit (since it's wired directly to the pitch resistor it affects the pitch slightly even when the main switch is turned off).
- Output jack. To get the most out of the poor volume, I put a 180 ohm resistor across the jack.

This thing makes noises that range from Star Trek bridge ambience, bursts of white noise, lo-fi shattering glass, dentist-drill whines, and even alien gibberish.

Sound clips:

Button warp	One of the telephone sounds being messed-up by the body contacts.
Spazz	The kinds of sounds it makes when a spazz is triggered. Star-Trek ambience, bursts of white noise...
Bypass spazz	Messing with the bypass button in spazz mode. You can get some really cool bassy notes out of it, great for sampling.
Theremin	The optical resistor/theremin fully engaged.
Fibre optic theremin control	Some of the incredible noises it makes when you position the optical resistor next to a spinning & flashing fibre-optic lamp, in an otherwise dark room.

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