Is this harmful? Open-ended cable for noise.

Started by varialbender, September 28, 2006, 05:27:38 AM

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varialbender

I'm gonna be playing a noise show soon, just pedal board, no guitar, so I've got a cable plugged into the start of my chain (fuzz factory) and nothing else at the other end of that cable. I found out that moving your fingers around the tip (no jokes) can get some different sounds, control the pitch of the oscillation, etc... Sorta like an expression pedal (btw plug an exp pedal into a fuzz factory, and you can control the oscillation with your foot... was fun to run this as an oscillator for my moog ring mod...)
Anyway, I bought a Diamond Memory Lane, and it broke, and I'm hoping it's not because I was messing with the cable. I doubt it is, but figured I'd check. Could that be the reason for its death? (PS don't worry, warranty, got an EHX DMM as a loaner in the meantime).
Thanks a lot

Paul Perry (Frostwave)

It certainly SHOULDN'T damage anything, holding onto the end of a jack. (I do a party trick where I run the tip of a cable over my bald head while plugged into my funk.a.duck envelope follower. Pretty alarming because the funk.a.duck can be set to the edge of oscillation).
Any properly designed equipment will be proof against failure by touching the input.
I suppose if something is run from the mains & not earthed, stray capacitance could lead the device to float up to a fairly high voltage & maybe you could do some static electric damage to a fet at the input, but again, only if designed wrong.

pyrop

Quote from: varialbender on September 28, 2006, 05:27:38 AM
I found out that moving your fingers around the tip (no jokes) can get some different sounds, control the pitch of the oscillation, etc... Sorta like an expression pedal
Sounds more like a poor man's theremin to me!

pyrop ;D