About Drums: the physics of overtones
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About Drums: the physics of overtones
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Re: About Drums: the physics of overtones
#2If you want to learn more about sound design[0], you should check out Syntorial http://www.syntorial.com/#a_aid=AudioKit. It's an interactive software synthesizer that teaches you in like an afternoon more than just about any book or video on the topic.
This tutorial series is also illuminating but it's almost too detailed http://sonicbloom.net/en/63-in-depth-synthesis-tutorials-by-...
You might also be interested in AudioKit https://github.com/audiokit/AudioKit, a (macOS|iOS|tvOS) framework for audio synthesis and processing.
[0] sound design is such an interesting field, as it's both vary artistic but also extremely math/physics/cs/stats if you want.
Re: About Drums: the physics of overtones
#3It's a great article, but the piano tuner in me must correct a detail about "typical musical instruments" such as pianos. The overtones are not necessarily perfect multiples of the base waveform and this is called inharmonicity.
In fact, this is part of why a piano sounds like a piano and guitar sounds like a guitar.
For any piano and especially the upright, the bass strings are actually too short to produce any vibration of the main frequency, the only thing you are left with are the overtones and our brains fill in the rest.
And that brain fill is actually happening across the entire range of the instrument, our brain latches on to specific overtones depending on interval, and the piano tuner (electronic or human), must compensate for inharmonicity in that range.
This means the bass must be tuned lower than the middle which in turn is tuned lower than the upper regions.
Re: About Drums: the physics of overtones
#4A bit related (though much more theoretical): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_the_shape_of_a_drum
Re: About Drums: the physics of overtones
#5Folks at University of Edinburgh are doing some super cool stuff on physically modeled audio, including drums.
http://www.ness.music.ed.ac.uk/archives/systems/3d-embedding...
Re: About Drums: the physics of overtones
#6It's a great article, but the piano tuner in me must correct a detail about "typical musical instruments" such as pianos. The overtones are not necessarily perfect multiples of the base waveform and this is called inharmonicity. In fact, this is part of why a piano sounds like a piano and guitar sounds like a guitar. For any piano and especially the upright, the bass strings are actually too short to produce any vibr…
This is Stretch Tuning, right?
Re: About Drums: the physics of overtones
#7It's a great article, but the piano tuner in me must correct a detail about "typical musical instruments" such as pianos. The overtones are not necessarily perfect multiples of the base waveform and this is called inharmonicity. In fact, this is part of why a piano sounds like a piano and guitar sounds like a guitar. For any piano and especially the upright, the bass strings are actually too short to produce any vibr…
This is Stretch Tuning, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretched_tuning
To my understanding it's more like Equal Temperament vs Just Intonation..?
Re: About Drums: the physics of overtones
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is Stretch Tuning, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretched_tuning
To my understanding it's more like Equal Temperament vs Just Intonation..?
No, those work even with sine waves. What the piano tuner is talking about is timbre: overtones can be not-perfectly-in-tune with the fundamental.
Has to do with the thickness of the core windings, I think? Something to do with the string acting partly as a rigid rod, not just an idealized wire. I hear this also in electric bass strings with super-heavy core wires.
Re: About Drums: the physics of overtones
#9If you want to learn more about sound design[0], you should check out Syntorial http://www.syntorial.com/#a_aid=AudioKit . It's an interactive software synthesizer that teaches you in like an afternoon more than just about any book or video on the topic. This tutorial series is also illuminating but it's almost too detailed http://sonicbloom.net/en/63-in-depth-synthesis-tutorials-by-... You might also be interested i…
is syntorial worth $129 ? Also I was not clear from the website what kind of synthesis you get to learn.
Can you build vst/au with audiokit for integrating with your daw?
Re: About Drums: the physics of overtones
#10OK, now I have a Cowboy Mouth song stuck in my head. Is there any better live drummer than Fred LeBlanc?