[CAUT] Anechoic chamber - experiments

Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu
Fri Jun 18 13:35:16 MDT 2010


On Jun 18, 2010, at 12:12 PM, Jim Busby wrote:

> If any of you have ideas of things you might like to see studied,  
> please let me or Keith know.

Some ideas:
The nitty gritty on mated versus unmated hammers. Hammers can be  
"unmated" easily and precisely by using Andre Oorebek's plexiglass  
device (narrow strip of sandpaper on plexiglass, so you can see  
precisely where you are filing). So you could make changes while  
leaving the hammer and strings in precisely the same place. Mate 3  
strings, 2 strings (other one high), one string (others high) and see  
what that does.

Travel: de-travel a hammer significantly (you would need to make sure  
it hit the strings with the same part of the hammer)

Square of hammer on shank: burn shank to twist, then align hammer to  
hit the strings the same as it did.

Loose hammerhead (don't know how to do this easily).

Centerpinning - loose versus firm versus approaching too tight.

Different filing profiles: "egg-shaped" versus "following the grain"

Filed with different grits of paper: 100, 220, 400, 600, 1000.

Ironing.

Raw hammers of a few types, starting raw, then changed by shoulder  
needling only, by shallow crown needling only, by different patterns  
and numbers of needle strokes, lots of possibilities.

All of these with a range of different blows, from pp to FF. Also at a  
variety of points in the scale.

>
> These folks are also very grateful for our help, and the microscope  
> studies are also a go. Apparently that’s no big deal, but this  
> anechoic chamber stuff is. They are creating “acoustic maps” of many  
> instruments in a way that has never been done. 3D stuff or some new  
> thing. I’ll find out more as I go.


	On this particular subject, the book "Acoustics and the performance  
of music : manual for acousticians, audio engineers, musicians,  
architects and musical instruments makers" by Jurgen Meyer has a lot  
of stuff about 3D modeling of instruments, so your people might want  
to look at that. This was recent research done in German universities  
and conservatories, with recording or sound amplification applications  
as one of its focal points.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
fssturm at unm.edu
http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm

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