This project is no longer active, the page has been preserved as a historical record.
¶ Arcophone
¶ Who
| Arcophone Software | skot |
|---|---|
| Coil-Driver Boards | bdowning atrophy |
| Laser-cutting | zignig |
| Solder Monkey | jmuirhead |
¶ What
The Polyplasmic Arcophone ("Arcophone" or more colloquially, "Mr Zappy") is a MIDI-controlled, 30,000V electric plasma arc instrument.
More info as this quinessential musical accessory to every mad scientist's laboratory takes shape.
¶ Where
The Arcophone has, in at least one of its incarnations performed at
- Euchronia 2010
- Australian Hackerspaces Meetup at HSBNE.
- Spiegeltent @ Perth Fringe Festival 2011
- Analogue to Digital 4, 6th March 2011
- Analogue to Digital 6, 14th August 2011
- The Harvey Lion's Nutty Professor Expo, 22nd October 2011
- Artifactory residency @ Northbridge Piazza, April 2012
¶ Current status
¶ Hardware
- 12 voices provided by automotive ignition coils & musicalcoildriver circuits
- MIDI in optoisolator
- Arduino Mega clone clone running our MIDI processing and spark trigger signal synthesizer software.
- One ATX power supply
¶ Software
- MIDI control via Arduino - Note on and off only at present, MIDI note stack, Voice allocation heat-load distribution algorithm
- Custom polyphonic digital pin oscillator (because arduino's tone function is mono! boo!)
- Variable duty cycle (to strike the arc on higher notes)
- Pitch bend
- Vibrato
¶ To Do
¶ Hardware
- Proper antennae for the arcs!
As someone dropped the Arcophone, the case is much worse for wear. Christopher Hall and John Parker are designing a new one involving glass sounding boards also known as "Test Tubes". Current CorelDraw 16 files here:
¶ Software
- Voice stacking + detune
- Choreographed voice allocation modes, selectable by MIDI CC.
- Frequency dependent duty cycle (to help charge the coils for the higher spark rates)
- Velocity sensitivity by recruiting extra coils for notes
- Mod wheel support
¶ Video and Photographic Evidence
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20th October 2010:
