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RE: [TCML] tcs as musical instruments...
Has anyone come up with a DIY kit (board and parts) yet for this that isn't
INSANE in price?
-----Original Message-----
From: tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Bart B. Anderson
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2012 8:59 PM
To: Tesla Coil Mailing List
Subject: Re: [TCML] tcs as musical instruments...
Yeah Mike, good points indeed. But hey, it's not like Tesla Coils are trying
compete with speakers and such. The fact is it's just a fun thing to do midi
on DR. To like play some Zeppelin on a Tesla Coil. Granted it's not
fidelity, but it's still cool to do it. And some songs come out awesome
where others really suffer. It just depends on the notes and frequencies.
Phils controller has a volume adjustment during midi that I find fabulous.
I've learned that more volume equates to more RF cycles and thus better
sound. One problem with that is more volume also means longer spark lengths
and in an environment where you have no more room, oops.. I covered up my
rafters with chicken RF grounded today.. well, basically it ended up as a
giant target.. sure rafters are now safe but spark formation is blah.....
Jeff Larson mentioned maybe just forming poly around the rafters and stuff..
I think I'll try that route...
Anyway, I tried to play some Jimmy Hendrix today with the rafter chicken
wire thing.. It kind of sucked, but hey... we learn by doing..... not by
arm chair cowboy'ing Tesla Coils... this midi kind of sucked. One thing
about midi, the coil is at the mercy of the midi itself...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JTw287YtAs&list=UUKTGJZAkKZlDLVS7g-9dIsg&ind
ex=1&feature=plcp
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JTw287YtAs&list=UUKTGJZAkKZlDLVS7g-9dIsg&in
dex=1&feature=plcp>
Take care,
Bart
On 3/31/2012 12:23 PM, Michael Twieg wrote:
> There's not a huge amount that can be done to change the tone produced
> by a DRSSTC. The peak-to-RMS power ratio they put out is very high,
> giving a sound that has many strong harmonics. This is especially bad
> at low tones but not so bad at high tones. This phenomenon is
> determined by the physics of how arcs form and give rise to sound; the
> breakout of an arc will always be sudden and powerful, and there's no
> real way to soften it (I have to mention that Steve's QRSSTC designs
> do this somewhat, but so far the QRSSTC doesn't seem to be suitable to
> music due to it low rep rate). Simply put, highly distorted sound is
> built into the physics of the DRSSTC. And while polyphonics are
> possible (either using one large coil or several separate coils), the
> result will always be underwhelming because the combined output will be
polluted with tons of harmonics.
>
> Amplitude modulated CW coils are capable of generating very low
> distortion sound, but they are monstrously inefficient, I kind of
> wonder if you could get a decent tradeoff between distortion and
> efficiency by operating a amplitude modulating a CW coil like a class
> B or class C amp. But I imagine it would still end up being too efficient
for real performances.
> And CW coils are generally less impressive visually, compared to high
> power DRSSTCs which produce very long arcs which act much more
> "lively" than the arcs or plasma "flames" generated by CW coils.
>
> -Mike
>
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 5:16 AM, Finn Hammer<f-h@xxxx> wrote:
>
>> Jim, all
>>
>> I almost choked on my porridge this morning as I read this mail of
>> yours, and my first thought was: "Where have you been these last 8
years?"
>>
>> The idea of using a DRSSTC as a musical instrument was originally
>> mine, as you ought to know, and I presented it to Steve Conner at
>> breakfast at the Derby Teslathon back in 1994. He liked the idea, and
>> modified a Roland synth. so that it would act as a combined MIDI
>> interpreter and TC controller for all 6 channels.
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Jjsv2zr-c [
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Jjsv2zr-c]
>> I went on to create 6 identical DRSSTC's and the rest is history.
>>
>> This was a time where both Daniel MCauley and Stephen Ward went
>> public with comments like "We don't think there will be any interest
>> in the harsh sound from a pulsed TC"
>>
>> Meanwhile, the Bach video was recorded, with a cheap snapshot digital
>> camera, so although the microphones clipped, and the echo in the
>> industrial hall was total, the sound was awesome.
>> Here you have _real_ 6 note polyphony, 1995 style, never done before
>> or, for that matter, by anyone after:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOXygoQkXsQ [
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOXygoQkXsQ]
>>
>> You brushed up on the lack of volume at low frequencies, here is
>> Thumper @68Hz. the key to volume lies in input voltage, a parameter
>> it should not be too hard to controll.
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-FAdM_5E-s [
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-FAdM_5E-s]
>>
>> Different voices are easy to produce, just sit down with the synth
>> and press the different instruments, some good some awfull, I
>> particularly like the stuff from 0:58 to 1:19 and forward
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrtu4uolTVc [
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrtu4uolTVc]
>>
>> Simple pulse trains can produce interesting sounds like this V-Twin
>> revving up:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0scx1WD3sU [
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0scx1WD3sU]
>>
>> And the sound of a MIDI saxophone is also interesting:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANiKSPtwTVc [
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANiKSPtwTVc]
>>
>> So you see, pulse trains, envelope curves controlling the ON-Time and
>> input voltage controll for macro volume changes, It's all been done,
>> and is just waiting for some young whizzkid to perfect.
>>
>> Cheers, Finn Hammer still lurkin'
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original meddelelse -----
>>
>>> Fra: Jim Lux<jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Til: Tesla Coil Mailing List<tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Dato: Lør, 31. mar 2012 03:47
>>> Emne: [TCML] tcs as musical instruments...
>>>
>>>
>>> As I was driving to my daughter's rehearsal this afternoon, I
>>> thought about Bart's videos (and all the other musical TCs).. and
>>> realized that we should think about what kind of instrument a TC is,
>>> and my best guess is that it's sort of like an organ that can play
>>> only one note at a time.
>>>
>>> There's not much in the way of dynamics. You have to have enough
>>> "bang"
>>> to get a breakout, and the sound from a small spark is not a lot
>>> different from a big spark. So it's like a pipe organ in that way.
>>> You
>>> get big changes in volumes by adding ranks of pipes.
>>>
>>> Can it do polyphony.. I think so, in a limited way. You're basically
>>> generating a pulse stream. And I could logically "OR" two pulse
>>> streams, one at "C" and one at "E" for instance, and I should hear
>>> two notes. Easy to test with some .wav files
>>>
>>> How many octaves range does it have.. you can go pretty low, but the
>>> loudness will drop off. The bang size is roughly constant, so the
>>> acoustic power as the rep-rate goes down goes down with frequency,
>>> and Weber-Fechner law means that lower frequencies "sound" less loud
>>> for the same power. What's the top frequency, maybe a couple octaves
>>> above middle C?
>>>
>>> Can we make a TC put out a sound that's different than the sort of
>>> buzz we normally get. Perhaps, if you send closely spaced double
>>> pulses?
>>> What does something that is, say, bang, 1 ms, bang, 9 ms, bang, 1ms,
>>> bang,... sound like.. Yes, about 100Hz, but there'll be some
>>> interesting harmonic structure that would sound different. Then
>>> there's all the old techniques from early synthesizers: Two pulse
>>> trains at the same frequency, one with a bit of FM on it (a sort of
>>> vibrato/tremolo
>>> effect)
>>>
>>>
>>> But here's the intriguing thing.. I've always wanted to build a
>>> setup with multiple TCs that can do real polyphony. Originally, I
>>> had ideas of multiple rotary spark gaps a'la a Hammond organ and
>>> tone wheels (someone actually did this at the turn of the 20th
>>> century, I have found).
>>>
>>> And, because I'm a spark gap kind of guy, I started building a
>>> multiple triggered gap.
>>>
>>> but these days, the DRSSTC is SO much more controllable.
>>>
>>> If you could control the RF phase (which I would imagine you could,
>>> with clever timing), you could phase multiple coils so that sparks
>>> would preferentially strike between toploads.
>>>
>>>
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