"so be careful over here on this side because its almost mains voltage." *grabs bulb and repeatedly plugs and unplugs*

Came here just for a quick "oh let's see how the neon bulb sounds", stayed for the excellent talk and demonstration of all the other devices. Nice work!

Really cool non-conventional clipping element!

wow the tone was wayyy better then i expected amazing project🔥🔥🔥

It sounds like a very thick fuzz, really good .

You are amazing. You are such a good inventor and teacher. Set up a basic class live and I will attend, I want to learn about how to make circuits, inventive ones, useful and fun ones. Awesome!!

Best video I've ever seen in my life

Badass, thank you!

Brilliant! Simplicity and a fantastic sound. This is my next project!

GE published a 500 page manual on their little NE-2 bulbs with tons of circuits. They need light (or radiation) to work, which is why the orange lights on power strip bars flicker in a dark room. The amount of ambient light would probably change your distortion tone!

Huh, I'll be damned it actually sounds pretty good! The way that tiny tube lights up under load is pretty cool too!

I'm completely blown away ! that is SICK !

just finished building one of these .In combination with the amp I built based on yours I am pleased with the results. Going to try a diode valve👍

It's a cool little experiment. I'm a firm believer semiconductors do it better than tubes, but there's also a lot involved to get the circuit there. The compression of the control grid in the tube plays a pillar role in it's most desired characteristics, and so does the limited bandwidth in comparison since they tend to cut off at about 10 Khz when used with guitar. *The last few days, I've used a pair of diodes in a feedback loop on a very simple high gain transistor amplifier, and I'm getting the dead on distortion texture of a tube, but it needs significant refinements with some RC networks and truly, more architecture to be truly useful. About 9 years ago, I pieced together some of my original designs and I had a sound dead onto a 5150 and a Mesa Dual rectifier, but 100% semiconductors. I had the definition of tubes, the saturation and texture of tube distortion, and just needed more gain to shred metal. I'm restarting that journey and this time, I will complete it! Your experiment taps into what I've long since necessary which is very high voltage distortion. Most of us want that zapping, zinging froth and glassy buzz of tubes without the price, and I'm ranting just to say, it can be done.

Oh yes, I LIKE high voltage distortion! I want a little box like that with the clips so I can fiddle with different combinations all night!! Super frickin kin Cool!!!

pretty cool stuff. let's se what else is going on here, 'cause I'm up for a fun weekend project.

ur stuff is consistently brilliant dude

Oh man you nailed the 00s grunge tone without even trying hell yeah. Might have to build one of these into my amp project once parts start arriving- I’m using one of those “Tube Fever” kits off Ali in combination with a couple op amps and some clipping diodes to build a low wattage practice amp that still has some of the features from larger amps.

great video! I've been messing around with neon bulbs in audio circuits for a few years, but yours is the first I've seen about it online. my solution sounds different due to different components and layout, and also I'm using bass. I'll make a video and message you when it's ready :+)

Sounds divine man greatest distortion i ever heard, so musical.

Most excellent, my friend. Really gets the imagination going. Would love to see further exploration, perhaps to include analysis of existing commercial pedal circuits such as the Hudson Broadcast (and/or any others that employ small transformers). Thanks for sharing this ✌️🤘🤙🔌🎛🫡

I enjoyed you video because of the innovation you showed in getting those different sounds, You might also want to try a Diac, it is like a low voltage neon bulb.... Keep experimenting, it is good for both the mind and the soul!

I don't know if you will see my comment but I have beem making DIY pedals and this is a genius idea man. Keep up the good work!

This is so dope! Ended up buying some neon diodes to hopefully build one of these…thanks!!!

I’ve never smashed that like/sub button so fast. Cool vid, thanks. Cool fuzz tone too.

I like high voltage distortion!

Thanks. I think I might experiment myself after seeing what you were doing there. It's pretty cool

Pretty nice preamp pedal!!!, sounds like the 70's amps distortion. Grettings and keep it up!!!.

I would like to mention that getting shocked across some fingers on one hand cannot kill a person. However, it may cause burns if the amperage is high enough. Not sure how much amperage it would take to cause permanent nerve damage. I only shocked myself once on a hand with 120vac, and this just caused muscle spasms in that hand for an hour. Always be as respectful of high voltage as if it were a spinning blade.

Cool video! Well done! Higher voltage pedals sounds good.

Ok, I think I have to build this. Thank you for a great video!

Very cool G, thanks for the circuit and parts list

Next try MOV ( metal oxide varistor ) Very interesting sound! :)

Thats a really nice clipping behavior!

hell yeah, thats so interesting to watch!

Very impressive, it has that old timey lo resolution fizzy kinda sound. I think I might try to make me one. 😁👍🏽

Thats a good sounding distortion too. I like that.

That would be super interesting in eurorack format!

damn I enjoyed that video a lot! You should make more of these and consider selling some custome made pedals! I'm sure there's tons of people interested in that

The last configuration sounds pretty warm but still nice but of gain

Amazing as always Keep doing the great work Edit : sir could you please build a simple hall/room reverb pedal .

Awesome channel and video! My first flirtation with gas discharge tubes involved replacing the full wave rectifier tube with a mercury vapor rectifier in a few amps - with a time delay relay to ensure the filament had enough time to warm the tube. Never considered trying these tubes as essentially clipping diodes.

Cool device ... thanks a lot for sharing

Thanks you very much from Indonesian.

Just like to point out your a great player also . Hopefully you cash out before this gets to the big companies . Very interesting sounds

This is so great! Love your channel!

That was very cool and very interesting. Great job.

Could you share a sketch of the LED matrix you used at the end of the video? Also, what voltage is used for power? 9v? Thanks! This kicks ass!

This answers so many questions for me! Thank you, thank you!

Killer man

Great! I would love to hear that plugged into a Tube amp, like a Marshall ou something similar!

Very cool project! sounds amazing

I really like this pedal! Very cool idea.

Works well as a fuzz pedal

Great idea! Reminds me of the Plasma Pedal by Gamechanger Audio.

Thats a cool project man!

Wooooow man you are a genius. Subbed for coolest pedal idea ever 😁👍

I noticed you haven't put out a video since last year, but I just found this and thought it was amazing (though electronics is unfortunately completely over my head >.

This is fascinating! I'd love to see your schematics. I'm currently almost finished with my rat pedal cone, which I've modified to include a 9-way switch that will choose between different colored LEDs. The 9th setting leads to a row of 8 LEDs in a circuit borrowed from the Boss Heavy Metal. I'm looking forward to seeing if it works.

grandma: where are my food containers?

This is great! Do you have a schematic for the squelch network you used? Edit: found it on another comment!

Bro one word Eddie Van Halen Y E S❤❤❤❤❤

interesting. theres a minute capacitance when its not conducting... picofarads... still sucks some of the top end out. remember, it STRIKES at ~90V... but it CONDUCTS at much lower voltages once it strikes. about 20... so you clip the wave when it peaks out, and then... theres this interesting effect... it will always pull the waveform back down to the conduction voltage, only conducting whilst enough current exists to maintain ionisation. how much power is the amplifier delivering, resistance, frequency, etc... if the waveform reverses before ionisation decays... it will continue to conduct. if it doesnt reverse fast enough, then the neon will stop conducting and only strike again as it hits that 90v peak again... so the deacy characteristics as the amplitude and frequency and ionisation /deionisation rates all interact are particularly interesting... would have loved to see some scope traces? im assuming high amplitude high frequency signals will tend to "reverse conduct" far more... now i gotta throw this into a tube somewhere... this is only one of literally HUNDREDS of ways of messing with this concept... thought of before but never bothered trying?

Wow

I just referred this to Mattias Krantz as a suggestion of something to consider in his next project btw :)

Really cool!

This rules! 😺

Maybe split the signal in 2, with some slight difference like mod or delay, and then both signals have their own neon tube. Like eyes. Then put a skull or cat picture on it

Totally cool!

I already builded sounds perfect

would be cool to combine this with an LDR for a dirty compressor

Thx! Good stuff!

Alternates can also be (30-200) V mov's and transient supressor diodes..& other non- linear ones like diacs/tunnel diode/ujts'/put's/pin diodes also how about the effects with a conventional 50/60Hz fluorescent lamp starter..... it's not just about their breakdown level & behavoiur that can give different effects.... ..Trying various combos with different R/L/C you may discover something extraordinary.😅

Cool idea. Good results.

Fxxxxxxxxxxxxxg amazing ! Best video , Love this , peace man !

I was looking at these on mouser a while back and wondered if you could use them for a VCF. This is cool too.

Really good project. What is the power supply voltage value that you are using? Is it 9v or greater?

Awsome!

That’s so funny to me XD. Awesome

haha this is so cool! :-)

is it possible to put more than one lamp in series or parallel? You should put something like an LM386 in front of the transformer if that's possible so there's more gain o.o the transformer might be adding distortion in a way too

very good video!! What is the input voltage of the pedal?

I have a Nixie tube power supply I was thinking of using for the high voltage in a project like this. How would you go about that? I suppose I'll have to control the signal with a transistor? Conversely I could try to find a transformer but I'm not sure where to look for the right specs.

oh wow you answered my questions right there lmfao

So cool! Do you think this would work as a euro rack module? It could light up your setup in a dark performance

*output can potentialy hurt you* hold neon bulb for leads 😅 Cool circuit btw

Thanks for your educated containt, may i knor your schema please

hello, very good video. The project is phenomenal. I only had three questions. 1-Can a direct current of 15 volts be used for the TDA 2030? 2-If the transformer is T1=1:24 (5volts/120volts) what would change from the schematic in googledrive? 3-at time 5:42 you used a led bulb, can any be used?

excellent idea, patent your idea. The other thing is that, if the more detailed project could be published? I don't understand the schematic and I don't know about engineering issues. Or Photos of Proyect.

Uow, fantastic! How many volts was the circuit powered?

Big fan of the channel and your projects! Is the step-up transformer in the audio path in this circuit? I'm new to electronics and still figuring out how to read schematics. If it is in the audio path, does the frequency response of the 1:20 transformer matter? Like do I need to find a 1:20 audio transformer or power transformer or does it matter? Thanks!

Sounds like Deftones - 7 Words

Hi, thanks for another cool idea. Is there any reason why non inverting application of TDA2030 couldn't be used here? I have some small noninverting version PCBs handy, and maybe with input resistance much greater than 1K it wouldn't load guitar as much?

cool!

Love this video! I am trying to build one myself, but I can't seem to find a transformer that works for this application. Could you link the one you are using here?

You should try to make a boost style pedal from this

Can you link to the step up transformer you used.

Fuzz

How much for one of these but with everything inside an enclosure except like 2 alligator clips with 6" leads?? And how much for one with only a 12ax7 9 pin tube socket installed??

if those are high voltage leads... how are you now getting zapped handling them like their turned off?