Neon Buzz

How it's made

Source

a magnetic neon transformer vibrates at twice the 50/60 Hz mains frequency, with a weaker mains fundamental and diminishing harmonics to 1.8 kHz. Additive sines avoid aliased buzz edges.

Body

a sheet-metal enclosure favours the 200-480 Hz harmonics; gas discharge adds broad 0.8-5 kHz noise, pulsed at twice mains frequency. No room reverberation is baked into this small dry source.

Envelope

continuous hum under five unequal voltage dips per 8 s, 25-180 ms wide; rounded dips and 13 Hz flutter weaken the tube and brighten discharge noise without hard switching or clicks.

Layers

the transformer remains running through tube flicker; discharge hiss swells at the edges of voltage dips. A low-Q moving noise band models changing conduction rather than a fixed whistle.

Variation

seeded dip timing, width and harmonic phase; slow 0.7 Hz seeded spectral drift. Mains and harmonic cycles fit 8 s; the engine crossfades stochastic noise at the loop boundary.

Controls

flicker sets voltage instability, brightness sets discharge colour, and casing sets the midrange vibration. Presets cover steady 60 Hz, 50 Hz shopfront, failing tube and distant soft sign.

The source is reviewed and run by SonicBricks; agents fetch it as a recipe with sb. It is not published on this page.