ArcAttack Does “Iron Man” With 1,000,000 Volts Of MIDI-Controlled Tesla Guitar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBx2wkg9nhk

Austin’s ArcAttack on America’s Got Talent demonstrates how to do Iron Man with 1,000,000 volts of MIDI-controlled Tesla guitar.

Here’s what they have to say about their MIDI guitar setup for the America’s Got Talent show:

The fret board is 72 optically isolated switches. The fret board, instead of frets has 6 brass contacts per fret. When the string is pushed down to the contact, it makes a connection.
From there the signal is optically isolated, to protect from EMF and sent to a micro controller thats only job is to priority encode the fretboard, and keep tabs on which string is pushed down to each fret.
So priority encoding means this basically: if you are playing the 6th string on the 12th fret, then the computer ignores if say the 11th and 10th frets are pressed on that string also, since the 12th fret needs to take priority – just like a real guitar.

The fret board is 72 optically isolated switches. The fret board, instead of frets has 6 brass contacts per fret. When the string is pushed down to the contact, it makes a connection.From there the signal is optically isolated, to protect from EMF and sent to a micro controller thats only job is to priority encode the fretboard, and keep tabs on which string is pushed down to each fret.So priority encoding means this basically: if you are playing the 6th string on the 12th fret, then the computer ignores if say the 11th and 10th frets are pressed on that string also, since the 12th fret needs to take priority – just like a real guitar.

Now there is a second computer that is located on top of the fret board underneath the metal box. This computer detects when the strings are strummed, and is also updated by the first computer whenever the fretboard changes state.

It is also the second computer’s responsibility to process the fretboard and strumming data, and output midi messages accordingly. The midi signal is converted to a fiber optic light pulse, and is sent down as optical data to the Tesla coil’s main computer, which is responsible for processing the midi commands and outputting a pulse rate modulation signal to control the pitch of the tesla coils.

The end result: The most rock and roll display ever. Real lightning guitar, while the player plays the guitar, he is being struck by lightning that produces the melody that he is playing.

Pretty insane, eh?

via Gizmodo

3 thoughts on “ArcAttack Does “Iron Man” With 1,000,000 Volts Of MIDI-Controlled Tesla Guitar

  1. This. is. f*cking. AWESOME!

    I've seen quite a few ArcAttack video's and although I sometimes ask myself what this is doing for the environment (I wonder what their electrical bill looks like) one has to agree that this is way different and unique from your average performers.

    I'm into many different styles of music, one of them being hardrock and metal. I've had the luck many years ago to see the (IMO:) rock god Ronnie James Dio on stage with his band in Holland (the Ijsselhallen in 'Zwolle'). The most impressive song during that performance was IMO "Children of the Sea" (singing without hardly any backing and STILL keeping perfect good notes? Chilling!) and I've had the luck to see and hear Iron Man live too.

    ArcAttack does credit to the number Iron Man with their performance IMO. Its a number which should stomp right through you with the drums and bassline. ArcAttack does just that. Kudo's!

  2. our electric bill is actually pretty average 🙂 the coils since they have such a low duty cycle dont use that much power. they draw less than a washing machine.

  3. Hi, sorry that u didn't get trough, It was really amazing! What was the robot like (I dont think it was Speakonia) saying at the begining of the song? I can only listen "……Iron Man" xD. I think something was added from the original saying

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