The "Torn Speaker" fuzz... A crazy idea?

[deaconque]

this has turned into quite an OT discussion

[moritz]

i've had a very similar idea for months but haven't had time to box up.

i've been thinking about doing it with an old telephone mouth/ear piece for that tinny, distorted telephone sound.  same exact block diagram, although i was thinking about a few other tweaks as well...

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=56863.0

Very cool and very much along the same vein.

I'm thinking you could extend this general concept in in a few ways... How about using transducers/microphones suspended in different viscous substances?... thick oil... jelly... that sort of thing. Maybe with an added control to blend in clean signal as necessary. It might yield some pretty interesting, unique, crazy, usable(?) effects.

[foxfire]

I would like to put all of the rumors to rest.  It was me who first implemented the torn speaker idea.  In '87, while playing with my band, GOOD E 2shews.  My friend bob figured out what I had done and told everyone.  Then Ike Turner was like, "I was doing that way back when." Supposedly, between bouts of spousal abuse, wearing big sunglasses, and doing a whole lot of cocaine. He was a liar, among other things.  (I actually taught him the b^&%slap. He never knew how to do it right before me. Yet another thing he took full credit for.) Before 88 there was absolutely no distortion on anything.  Many albums were posthumously re-recorded with the new great sound I had come up with and a great lie was perpetrated on mankind.  The music was so good that people soon forgot what it was like beforehand and naively started believing it had been like this for a long time.     


Before me, Kashmir absolutely sucked.   

i believe you and, offer many thanks. though i have no use for Kashmir and the fear of my lady's b^$% slap haunts my every dream i still like to celebrate your birth whenever i can. rylan

[FiveseveN]

Put the speaker on a motor and you have the Mini Leslie Fuzz. There was another project involving speaker and mic distortion in an isolated cabinet, the Pipebomb I believe. I actually started building one with an old telephone speaker for that extra thin sound. Sadly, it's been waiting for a mic and preamp for some time, but it might just receive some extra attention these days.

[petemoore]

I think Petemoore was talking about something similar in the Kazoo sound thread elsewhere on the forum.
  Yupp,, and after tearing up speakers myself, cross cut, inline cuts, rips and tears, with/without fuzzbox assistance, and from all I've heard from anyone else who tried the same tricks: Do it on a cheep speaker you otherwise have no care for...yea, it'll flap and buzz a bit, but 'Fuzz'...
  I think my Kazoo idea has a lot more potential really.
  Think about the 'rattle' cymbals that have loose rivets through them, all made of metals, then transfer that to speaker and choose the rivet material...____lly

[StephenGiles]

I tried putting paperclips on a torn speaker cone once and it sounded awful, but in these days of fuzz fuzz fuzz.............

[frankclarke]

This is ye olde Homeland Security Fuzz:
http://www.montagar.com/~PATJ/pipebomb.gif

[trendyironicname]

Birthday's April 17th if anyone else is interested.
Quite a good idea.

[birt]

I think Petemoore was talking about something similar in the Kazoo sound thread elsewhere on the forum.
  Yupp,, and after tearing up speakers myself, cross cut, inline cuts, rips and tears, with/without fuzzbox assistance, and from all I've heard from anyone else who tried the same tricks: Do it on a cheep speaker you otherwise have no care for...yea, it'll flap and buzz a bit, but 'Fuzz'...
  I think my Kazoo idea has a lot more potential really.
  Think about the 'rattle' cymbals that have loose rivets through them, all made of metals, then transfer that to speaker and choose the rivet material...____lly

that is a cool idea. being a fan of "mechanical" effects i like it a lot. some goes for the transducers in liquid idea. i'm thinking oil bath reverb :p

[george]

Lord Sutch 1963!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zStiVCAHcuo

I think this is fuzzier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEdwH5WjnrU&feature=related

shows the influence of the Ike b^&%slap too.

[Elektrojänis]

I've been thinking of making something similar to this too. I think I just want to overdrive the speaker element and for that I'm going to use a driver from some cheap headphones/earbuds. They are easy to overdrive as their powerhandling is usually not that great (for headphone use the powerhandling does not need to be that big). On the other hand they don't break too easily from little bit of overdiving (in my limited experience). I'm also thinking of arranging the mic and the driver so that the acoustic coupling would be as good as possible so that all bass would not get lost.