Just a simple hack that some may know, but maybe interesting for others?
An old telephone dial used to cut the signal.
A passive stuffI, and Input and Output work in both directions.
Could also be used with a modular and an incoming CV/Gate/Trig signal
test with a diy theremin at 1m (sound from the camera microphone so sorry for the mechanical noise of the object, but we can still realize the effect produced 
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Maybe it could be connected to a circuit that produced a more gradual on / off effect (or even a variable effect)? Maybe something like a 555 circuit, so it could become a control on an fx box, rather than the effect its self… if you get what I mean?
For some reason this reminds me of the track “Pulstar” (sic) on the Albedo 0.39 album by Vangelis with the speaking clock. But I checked and, contrary to my memory, you don’t hear the dialling pulses there.
Heh… noooooo… just so funny! The rotary dial just hangs up / picks up quickly, it does not send pulses down the line. That’s why you can dial numbers just by mashing the hooks quickly.
Combined with the reverb in the sound the telephone gives a nice effect!
Ha, some people had a small lock on the rotaty dial so that only insiders could use it who had a key. They did not know that pressing down the hooks in a repeated fashion boils down to the same thing as dialing. The thing to remember is that for 0 you press 10 times.
Here’s an idea that just occurred to me. One of the first operating computer designs was the secret Colossus design by Tommy Flowers which was used to decode Lorenz teletype ciphers from the German high command as World War II drew to a close. In 2006 I visited the Colossus rebuild project at Bletchley Park. It was a fascinating place to be, so much so that I spent nearly an hour there just drinking in the beautiful sights and sounds of the paper tape loop whizzing around on the “bedstead” (that was Colossus’ read-only memory) and the hundreds of strowger relays clicking and whirring. It was like being in computer heaven. It was summer and the heat of the valves made the room even warmer. The people working on it kept the hut door open.
Strowger switches were used in electromechanical telephone exchanges until the seventies introduced solid state switching on a large scale. Tommy Flowers was a General Post Office electrical engineer and during the war he and his team had unlimited access to the GPO’s inventory of parts, which included cabling, valves, passive components and electromechanical relays of all kinds including strowger switches.
They make a unique sound when activated, being composed of both linear and rotary elements. It might be fun to get some of those and use them to make music. This video shows a demonstration version of a phone system design, with switching greatly slowed down for demonstration purposes. I think you can still get the beautiful percussive possibilities of this device.
That has the same effect. The current is broken for a brief instant and this propagates as a pulse to the exchange.
Ah yes, the small pleasure of defeating your landlady’s dial lock in a guest house. I fear this thread could so easily turn into a nostalgia-fest. And let’s face it, nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be.
Yeh, 0 is a right pain to dial manually! It’s possible though… maybe a manual dialling robot would have been a cool project. A battery, a rotary dial and a solenoid! Maybe a relay in there too, so to stop the rotary dials contacts from welding together?
Another unlikely solution to a non existent problem!
Otherwise known as LD dialling… modern exchanges have to still be able to talk LD. Incredible that it still lives in the world of DTMF.
One extra mechanical mod is to mount a foam block beside the wheel then you can slow the mechanism down without friction causing a stutter. Wool works too. (Had to debug a telex machine dialer memory once…telex? Ask your dad) enjoy!
Elegant solution! Telex… lol… I did my basic exchange training using a teletype machine to enter commands and data. They made a cool noise when you typed. Yes, I do feel like an old git…
God I miss proper keys on a keyboard. I still have my bus IBM “klacky” keyboard from the 80‘s complete with 3090 terminal emulation pen scribble DIY overlay. Sigh! The RSI was worth it. Enjoy
otherwise only go through an envelope to manage the curve as desired
i find this vid
and this one
