Playing a Tesla Coil with an Acoustic Guitar

[profdc9]

I would like a way to turn any instrument into a Tesla Coil instrument.  So I am using a piezo disc as a contact microphone on my acoustic guitar, and amplifying this with a JFET op-amp (LF351).  Obviously very noisy and distorted.  I think it might sound better with horns or woodwind instruments.

Here's a video of me playing my guitar and the lightning issuing forth:

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Also, I have a demonstration of the AC-line interrupter which is an attempt to improve the duty cycle of DRSSTC Tesla Coils by interrupting only during the peak of the AC cycle.   I need to place a voltage and current meter on the line to check the power factor to see if the interrupting on the peak improves the power factor, but I made a video of it in action.  It makes a nice growl like an asynchronous spark gap tesla coil makes.

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Dan

[Mads Barnkob]

Its quite clear you need additional filtering or maybe do it in a analogue->MIDI->Spark way to get better control. Reminds me of the good old original video with Steve Conner that plays his bass on a small Tesla coil in his room.

It is an interesting sound it makes on the interrupted part, a downside to this method must be that you only have half the power available when cutting at the top.

[Hydron]

I agree that the mains sync interrupter sounds pretty good!

Also worth looking at Steve Ward's video:

I suspect from the look of the streamers (and given it says it's through his QCW coil) that this is serious power at a high duty cycle.

[profdc9]

I need to get an electric guitar.  I think by adjusting the pickups that the interrupter will work better than the acoustic guitar.  The acoustic guitar produces an extremely nonsinusoidal sound that is rich in harmonics, and I think the place that the piezo disc pickup is taped on the guitar changes which harmonics are picked up for which notes.  An electric doesn't have this problem because the body of the guitar doesn't resonate to produce the sounds for the pickups.

The reason I'm doing this is that I have a friend with a saxophone and I'd like to try to tape the disc on the bell of his saxophone and have him play.  I don't play woodwind or brass but the nice thing about a piezo disc pickup is that it is much less likely to produce feedback with the super loud Tesla coil sound because it is a contact microphone.  The Tesla coil is so loud is that if I turn up the gain of the piezo amplifier enough, the Tesla coil sound will be picked up by the piezo and the feedback is, well, incredible (see http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/CRM-114_amplifier).

Dan