So I've been building a 100% analog polyphonic synthesizer with an unique twist. To use only vacuum tube era technology from the 1930s.
Over 300 neon gas diodes create the sound you hear. Pretty awesome for technology from 100 years ago.
Still a work-in-progress, but I wanted to post a video of it with the innards spread out across the workbench. : }
I call it the "Neon String Machine"
Yes, They are light sensitive ambient light can shift them up and down a good +/- 30 cents.
The way I got around that is not much different then what Telex was doing.
"Light biasing"
Each stabilized neon oscillator has a light bias (another neon bulb mounted next to it)
The stray ambient photons is what actually triggers off the avalanching ion charge between the cathode and anode. : ]
In complete darkness, gas diodes go into Geiger operation. (xray avalanche)
@AccordionBruce @BobTheBuilder
Yeah, it's a good title. #XRayAvalanche
A-side could be called Geiger Counter.
@AceArsenault @BobTheBuilder
I love those modern echoes of old tech. Somebody here mentioned #CharlesWheatstone, so I commented. Then yesterday I saw another mention of him
He was such a polymath!
So much technology was being developed in the 1830s it feels like he and those like him had their fingerprints on all of it
The #makers of their day
https://mastodon.social/@AccordionBruce/109732260166482091
@AccordionBruce @BobTheBuilder
Charles Wheatstone was a man ahead of his time. : ]
@AceArsenault @BobTheBuilder
Makes me think, maybe he Defined his time. The 2nd Industrial Revolution (where they invented all the stuff with the steal and steam power) would not have been what it was without people like him
And history without people like Nightingale and such. They are the exceptions because they were actually successful. They weren’t forgotten (like some) until years later
I think Wheatstone did pretty well, certainly better than ne’er-do-wells like Tesla
Andrew "Ace" Arsenault
BobTheBuilder
AccordionBruce