Tesla coil synth

[Sasha]

Thanks to Nikola Tesla (Serb as myself  :)) this guy made this super cool "synth".

Imagine gig with this and SEQ3  8) Check it out.

[stryd_one]

BUMP!! That's awesome.

[Therezin]

That's truly insane.

And awesome.  :o

[MTE]

Wuuuuoah....i wanna touch it  ;D

[TheAncientOne]

Tesla is one of my heroes too. I've built coils a while ago, getting up to about 1 metre of spark using thyratrons instead of the more usual spark gaps. Not in that guys league however. Ther have been quite a few 'singing Tesla's' on youtube, but never one that big before.

Before starting with the 'MIDIbox Tesla', do give a though to keeping that level of EMI out of your PIC .... I just have this scary vision of Sasha combining a few of his ideas, and doing  "Pirate broadcast Lightning SID Music", from something like an Eiffel Tower with a ball on the top, fed by machinery with lots of shiny brass and ebonite, (and of course polished wood casings).

If you want to see what can be done, take a look at http://www.lod.org/ for guys who built a huge one, and in the UK http://www.hvfx.co.uk/, do some good stuff. If you want a scary thought, check the video of "Voltini" doing the 'Lighning Man' act, (and no, deffo don't try this one at home, a few people have died!) - he's not in a Faraday cage suit like 'MegaVolt'. http://www.hvfx.co.uk/video/lightningman.mpg

But Tesla did it all first.

[TheAncientOne]

For Sasha....

[Sasha]

Cool!  ;D

[ultra]

how is the sound actually being made?

[TheAncientOne]

Here are a few links - Mr google may have more

http://www.richieburnett.co.uk/cwsstc.html

http://www.roger-russell.com/ionovac/ionovac.htm

http://www.laborantes.com/iono2.htm

Basically you modulate the primary drive to the coil, and the air moves as the arc changes.

Generates a lot of ozone, and can erode the terminals very fast.

The Ionophone speakers mentioned above kept the arc in a quartx envelope to reduce ozone and get better air modulation.

A big one would be wild at the right rave. I would fancy getting dancers in faraday cage suits in the cage with it....

Guess I just watched too many Frankenstein films as a kid.

Mike