Comments on: This Should be Played at High Voltage

This Should be Played at High Voltage

nthdegx — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:25:07 -0800

Steve Ward's Singing Tesla Coil video. Previously.

By: ItsaMario

ItsaMario — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:45:51 -0800

Mario Forever!

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:52:45 -0800

It's no Ella Fitzgerald, is it?

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 05:33:32 -0800

Wow.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:39:09 -0800

Hey! It's Euro-disco that speeds up and slows down! And it looks like lightning!

By: ibmcginty

ibmcginty — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 07:04:30 -0800

I thought this was a follow-up to the covers post the other day; but I expected Signs, not the Super Mario Brothers theme.

By: figment of my conation

figment of my conation — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 09:04:27 -0800

Very cool, nthdegx. I wonder how loud those giant tesla coils in Russia would be.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 09:20:53 -0800

More Tesla.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 09:31:36 -0800

Here's a 75-foot-tall Tesla coil, fortunately not being used to trigger a cheesy synth, but simply emitting the awe-inspiring sound of a massive amount of electricity: BIGGG TESLA COIL OF OKLAHOMA. You really don't wanna stand too close to this thing.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 09:36:15 -0800

Uh, sorry, that's 15 feet... Still incredible, though.

By: nthdegx

nthdegx — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:00:57 -0800

"Here's a 75-foot-tall Tesla coil, fortunately not being used to trigger a cheesy synth" That isn't accurate. "yes, it is the actual high voltage sparks that are making the noise. Every cycle of the music is a burst of sparks at 41 KHz, triggered by digital circuitry at the end of a "long" piece of fiber optics."

By: anthill

anthill — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:48:59 -0800

Needs to play "Better Harder Faster Stronger", not Freebird!

By: jlkr

jlkr — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:56:45 -0800

flapjax-- you missed the point. The Tesla coil is -singing-, not 'triggering a cheesy synth'. A couple of years ago, a friend of ours noticed that different sized sparks made different tones. Steve took it a step further and figured out how to make a Coil sing. They've done the big Tesla coils already -- Steve and a friend of his both have bigger Tesla coils (and smaller ones to play with inside), but sometimes size isn't everything.

By: pombe

pombe — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 12:12:12 -0800

Lots more info at Steve's web page, including how the coil is modulated to produce music.

By: es_de_bah

es_de_bah — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 12:14:33 -0800

musician's tesla coil

By: spiderskull

spiderskull — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 12:30:26 -0800

That is way too awesome. It might even be worth making a small coil just for this.

By: MythMaker

MythMaker — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:26:59 -0800

This is really amazing. I'd always known that tesla coils make a lot of noise, but I had no idea that it could be modulated into music. I want to see one of these used onstage at a rock concert.

By: brain_drain

brain_drain — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:26:59 -0800

Pretty cool, but extremely vulnerable to an Allied attack helicopter.

By: intermod

intermod — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:35:28 -0800

11-minute long, very technical explanation of how this works. Now, off to find where the next Teslathon is ...

By: eriko

eriko — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 16:02:53 -0800

I was wondering when this would make it here. The noise is generated by the arc. It is hard to explain just how *loud* this was. You get a sense of it by listening to the crowd noise, and how quickly it was swamped by the coil output. By being solid state -- hard to do until recently, because of the amount of power you're dealing with -- you can switch the coil at a high enough frequency that you can generate audible tones. Modulating that signal (in this case, it's simplistic -- just switch on and off -- hope you like square waves.) and this is what you get. The reason for the cheesy synth tones. The builder is an ee-prototype, not a musician. He's working on a midi controller, but for this demo, he had a simple box that would run through sequences. The tempo change is a knob on the controller that makes the switching sequence play faster or slower. It was a very, very cool thing. It wasn't quite running at full potential. We could only get a 20A power feed from the hotel, and both of the coils there could handle more. (Yes, I was there. No, I don't know Steve, but I do know the guy who built the other large coil (not solid state, but wow, wicked power levels -- he's using a pole pig as the input transformer....))

By: malocchio

malocchio — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 17:57:43 -0800

Sweet! Where can I get one?

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:08:42 -0800

That isn't accurate. flapjax-- you missed the point. Gentlemen, I stand corrected. But still somewhat vindicated by eriko's comment re: cheesy synth tones and the sequence (Like I said, reminiscent of Euro-disco). but sometimes size isn't everything So I've heard... And sorry to come off kinda negative before. In fact I'm all in favor of experimentation with crazy electrical devices and their potential for creating music. It's just that I found this one, musically at least, a little underwhelming. But carry on, fellows, and keep those big sparks a'flying!

By: jiawen

jiawen — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:28:52 -0800

Eriko, is Duckon GT's home con? Seems like the GTers are primarily concentrated in Chicago.