[sdiy] Essential listening? - Forbidden Planet soundtrack

[Colin Hinz]

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Scott Gravenhorst wrote:

> Bobinvertedsdiy at aol.com wrote:
> >
> >The Forbidden Planet soundtrack!
>
> I understand that some of the sounds were created by equipment that ended in
> self destruction.  Has this been tried since then with more modern equipment?
>  For example, take a common (and cheap so you can repeat it) transistor and
> build an oscillator, then operate it in an oven where the heat can be
> controlled and cranked until it starts doing something weird, then push push
> push.  Or perhaps running a transistor oscillator starting in a near
> destructive voltage/current environment.  Anyone?  Or is the resulting
> breakdown less of a continuum and than it is in the vacuum tube world?

Many years ago I built a Hartley oscillator using a hand-wound coil
(using wire-wrap wire and a core which was a big hunk of scrap steel
from a machine shop class) and a big old variable capacitor. I had
mechanical linkages moving both the capacitor as well as the coil
core -- in effect, a very strange MCO (mechanically-controlled
oscillator).

I dismantled it with the intention of rebuilding it in a fashion
that (a) looked a little less ugly, and (b) would withstand being
transported to gigs. Alas, this hasn't happened yet.

But getting back to the thread, an AF oscillator using these tuning
components required a fairly hefty amount of collector current, and
if I wasn't using a great big heatsink that TO-5 Germanium transistor
would have cooked itself in no time.

Hmmmm, I wonder what that would have sounded like....? Shades of the
"Burning Microphone" recording by the Tape-beatles, I suspect.

- Colin Hinz
  Toronto, Canada