6 ms·

About Drums: the physics of overtones

99 points by camtarn 10y ago

exDM69 10y ago
One item on my TO-DO list is hooking up an electric guitar to an oscilloscope and frequency analyzer and do a video and/or blog post about the applied physics of heavy metal guitar sound. There are tons of tricks employed in guitar playing to create interesting sounds by manipulating harmonics, by both the guitarist and the effect and amplifier signal chain. Most guitarists that use these tricks are completely unaware of the physical phenomena involved. And the non-guitarist physics geeks always enjoy when I give a short demo with lots of distortion and artificial and natural harmonics tricks.
- djaychela 10y ago
  I'd look forward to seeing that - I teach music tech and having done that with a class singing a note and seeing the different harmonics in each person's voice is interesting, and seeing that applied to a heavy guitar sound would be interesting - as you say, there's lots that players do that they don't realise they are doing, and it will also give an understanding of what's possible to those who would then take that on board and use the techniques uncovered by it.
- jononor 10y ago
  Yes lots of tricks. Picking/strumming close to the bridge versus at the middle. Pinched harmonics. Strumming past the nut. Natural harmonics at nodes of overtones. Exciting the strings by hitting body instead of strings.
madengr 10y ago
Many similarities between drums and radio frequency cavities. The drums are more interesting due to the nonlinearities of the heads and air inside.
adamnemecek 10y ago
If you want to learn more about sound design[0], you should check out Syntorial http://www.syntorial.com/#a_aid=AudioKit 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-sound-on-sound/ http://sonicbloom.net/en/63-in-depth-synthesis-tutorials-by-... You might also be interested in AudioKit https://github.com/audiokit/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.
- dominotw 10y ago
  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?
  - adamnemecek 10y ago
    It definitely was to me. It's subtractive synthesis with some fm iirc. Audiokit is audiounit only but yes, yes it does.
- edejong 10y ago
  Cheaper solution would be to try the open source Pd (PureData) in combination with the free "Programming Electronic Music in Pd" book [1]. [1] http://www.pd-tutorial.com/english/index.html http://www.pd-tutorial.com/english/index.html
  - tel 10y ago
    Or SuperCollider or any demo of a standard synth plugin dropped into a free VST host (like dropping a demo version of Massive [0] into Reaper [1]... though Reaper technically not free). [0] https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/synths/massive/ https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/synt... [1] http://www.reaper.fm/ http://www.reaper.fm/
    - zdkl 10y ago
      Don't forget http://overtone.github.io http://overtone.github.io for (live) coding your synths, filters and effects!
algesten 10y ago
It'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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inharmonicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inharmonicity http://www.precisionstrobe.com/apps/pianotemp/temper.html http://www.precisionstrobe.com/apps/pianotemp/temper.html
- cannonpr 10y ago
  As a piano player you might find this guy interesting, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubomyr_Melnyk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubomyr_Melnyk His playing style focuses nearly exclusively in using harmonics and resonance to create his music.
- jasode 10y ago
  >For any piano and especially the upright, the bass strings are actually too short to produce any vibration of the main frequency, Not sure what you're talking about here. For example, the lowest guitar string is an E2 which is 82.4Hz. If you calculate[1] the wavelength, it is 13.7 ft. The string lengths from bridge to nut[2] are only ~25 inches long and yet it's reproducing the fundamental of 82.4Hz without requiring the brain to fill in the gap. I think that misunderstanding is similar to believing that a speaker can't reproduce 82.4Hz because the cone is not 13.7 feet in diameter, or you can't hear an E2 in a small room because the width and height of the walls is less than 13 feet. If this were true, when you listen on earphones, all 88 keys of a piano and entire range of guitar and vocals would be "audio illusions" of the fundamental frequencies since the physical sizes of the transducers and ear cavity are all less than 1 inch. The highest 88th key on piano is a C8 with a wavlength of 3.2 inches. [1] http://www.mcsquared.com/wavelength.htm http://www.mcsquared.com/wavelength.htm [2] https://www.guitarlessonworld.com/lessons/parts-guitar-learn-guitars-anatomy/ https://www.guitarlessonworld.com/lessons/parts-guitar-learn...
filmor 10y ago
A bit related (though much more theoretical): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_the_shape_of_a_drum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_the_shape_of_a_drum
dharma1 10y ago
Folks 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-embeddings http://www.ness.music.ed.ac.uk/archives/systems/3d-embedding...
bluetwo 10y ago
OK, now I have a Cowboy Mouth song stuck in my head. Is there any better live drummer than Fred LeBlanc?
wwer 10y ago
Fun fact: the waveforms shown are bessel functions, the daddy of sine (and cosine).
maheshp 10y ago
Well, Recently I’ve been trying to figure out what is special about mridangam and was wondering if I needed to do some analysis myself. Fortunately, I happened to run into CV Raman’s papers analyzing the physics/acoustics/wave forms of a mridangam that are well worth a read. He first wrote his short paper in 1920 in Nature (almost 100 years ago) http://dspace.rri.res.in/bitstream/2289/2042/1/1920%20Nature%20V104%20p500.pdf http://dspace.rri.res.in/bitstream/2289/2042/1/1920%20Nature... his fundamental thesis/analysis is that the way the mridangam is built is special in that produces harmonic tones (integral multiples of frequencies) which is highly unusual for drums therefore giving it the ability to sound uniquely special, accompany vocal well and to be played in a smaller, softer setting. A good blog delving into all of this including some cool youtube videos at the end on wave spectroscopy demos using talcum powder (related to raman) are at https://croor.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/cv-raman-on-drums/ https://croor.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/cv-raman-on-drums/ A longer version of his paper from proceedings of IIS published in 1934 is here: http://dspace.rri.res.in/bitstream/2289/2047/1/1935%20Proc%20Indian%20Acad%20Sci-A%20V1%20p179-188.pdf http://dspace.rri.res.in/bitstream/2289/2047/1/1935%20Proc%2... Figured some of you would be interested in this.
- sn41 10y ago
  I have always wanted to understand the result in this paper, since it is one of the first major publications of the first Indian to win a Nobel prize in science. Can you point out to some more basic acoustics? I've wondered about what similar results hold for Idakka [1], a drum played in Kerala, and the talking drums of Western Africa [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaozNblda54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaozNblda54 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oQJZ2TEVI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oQJZ2TEVI
gyrgtyn 10y ago
I was really in to Supercollider a long time ago, and I remember there were synths floating around on the mailing list that included big arrays of weird looking values, and they somehow made drum sounds. My brain is remembering that they were called eigenvalues, but I tried searching and didn't find much. No idea how someone figured out or calculated the values. I think they were impractical to calculate at runtime in supercollider.

99 points by camtarn 10y ago

One item on my TO-DO list is hooking up an electric guitar to an oscilloscope and frequency analyzer and do a video and/or blog post about the applied physics of heavy metal guitar sound. There are tons of tricks employed in guitar playing to create interesting sounds by manipulating harmonics, by both the guitarist and the effect and amplifier signal chain. Most guitarists that use these tricks are completely unaware of the physical phenomena involved. And the non-guitarist physics geeks always enjoy when I give a short demo with lots of distortion and artificial and natural harmonics tricks.

djaychela 10y ago
I'd look forward to seeing that - I teach music tech and having done that with a class singing a note and seeing the different harmonics in each person's voice is interesting, and seeing that applied to a heavy guitar sound would be interesting - as you say, there's lots that players do that they don't realise they are doing, and it will also give an understanding of what's possible to those who would then take that on board and use the techniques uncovered by it.
jononor 10y ago
Yes lots of tricks. Picking/strumming close to the bridge versus at the middle. Pinched harmonics. Strumming past the nut. Natural harmonics at nodes of overtones. Exciting the strings by hitting body instead of strings.

madengr 10y ago

Many similarities between drums and radio frequency cavities. The drums are more interesting due to the nonlinearities of the heads and air inside.

adamnemecek 10y ago

If you want to learn more about sound design[0], you should check out Syntorial http://www.syntorial.com/#a_aid=AudioKit 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-sound-on-sound/ http://sonicbloom.net/en/63-in-depth-synthesis-tutorials-by-... You might also be interested in AudioKit https://github.com/audiokit/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.

dominotw 10y ago
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?
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  It definitely was to me. It's subtractive synthesis with some fm iirc. Audiokit is audiounit only but yes, yes it does.
edejong 10y ago
Cheaper solution would be to try the open source Pd (PureData) in combination with the free "Programming Electronic Music in Pd" book [1]. [1] http://www.pd-tutorial.com/english/index.html http://www.pd-tutorial.com/english/index.html
- tel 10y ago
  Or SuperCollider or any demo of a standard synth plugin dropped into a free VST host (like dropping a demo version of Massive [0] into Reaper [1]... though Reaper technically not free). [0] https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/synths/massive/ https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/synt... [1] http://www.reaper.fm/ http://www.reaper.fm/
  - zdkl 10y ago
    Don't forget http://overtone.github.io http://overtone.github.io for (live) coding your synths, filters and effects!

algesten 10y ago

It'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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inharmonicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inharmonicity http://www.precisionstrobe.com/apps/pianotemp/temper.html http://www.precisionstrobe.com/apps/pianotemp/temper.html

cannonpr 10y ago
As a piano player you might find this guy interesting, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubomyr_Melnyk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubomyr_Melnyk His playing style focuses nearly exclusively in using harmonics and resonance to create his music.
jasode 10y ago
>For any piano and especially the upright, the bass strings are actually too short to produce any vibration of the main frequency, Not sure what you're talking about here. For example, the lowest guitar string is an E2 which is 82.4Hz. If you calculate[1] the wavelength, it is 13.7 ft. The string lengths from bridge to nut[2] are only ~25 inches long and yet it's reproducing the fundamental of 82.4Hz without requiring the brain to fill in the gap. I think that misunderstanding is similar to believing that a speaker can't reproduce 82.4Hz because the cone is not 13.7 feet in diameter, or you can't hear an E2 in a small room because the width and height of the walls is less than 13 feet. If this were true, when you listen on earphones, all 88 keys of a piano and entire range of guitar and vocals would be "audio illusions" of the fundamental frequencies since the physical sizes of the transducers and ear cavity are all less than 1 inch. The highest 88th key on piano is a C8 with a wavlength of 3.2 inches. [1] http://www.mcsquared.com/wavelength.htm http://www.mcsquared.com/wavelength.htm [2] https://www.guitarlessonworld.com/lessons/parts-guitar-learn-guitars-anatomy/ https://www.guitarlessonworld.com/lessons/parts-guitar-learn...

filmor 10y ago

A bit related (though much more theoretical): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_the_shape_of_a_drum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_the_shape_of_a_drum

dharma1 10y ago

Folks 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-embeddings http://www.ness.music.ed.ac.uk/archives/systems/3d-embedding...

bluetwo 10y ago

OK, now I have a Cowboy Mouth song stuck in my head. Is there any better live drummer than Fred LeBlanc?

wwer 10y ago

Fun fact: the waveforms shown are bessel functions, the daddy of sine (and cosine).

maheshp 10y ago

Well, Recently I’ve been trying to figure out what is special about mridangam and was wondering if I needed to do some analysis myself. Fortunately, I happened to run into CV Raman’s papers analyzing the physics/acoustics/wave forms of a mridangam that are well worth a read. He first wrote his short paper in 1920 in Nature (almost 100 years ago) http://dspace.rri.res.in/bitstream/2289/2042/1/1920%20Nature%20V104%20p500.pdf http://dspace.rri.res.in/bitstream/2289/2042/1/1920%20Nature... his fundamental thesis/analysis is that the way the mridangam is built is special in that produces harmonic tones (integral multiples of frequencies) which is highly unusual for drums therefore giving it the ability to sound uniquely special, accompany vocal well and to be played in a smaller, softer setting. A good blog delving into all of this including some cool youtube videos at the end on wave spectroscopy demos using talcum powder (related to raman) are at https://croor.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/cv-raman-on-drums/ https://croor.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/cv-raman-on-drums/ A longer version of his paper from proceedings of IIS published in 1934 is here: http://dspace.rri.res.in/bitstream/2289/2047/1/1935%20Proc%20Indian%20Acad%20Sci-A%20V1%20p179-188.pdf http://dspace.rri.res.in/bitstream/2289/2047/1/1935%20Proc%2... Figured some of you would be interested in this.

sn41 10y ago
I have always wanted to understand the result in this paper, since it is one of the first major publications of the first Indian to win a Nobel prize in science. Can you point out to some more basic acoustics? I've wondered about what similar results hold for Idakka [1], a drum played in Kerala, and the talking drums of Western Africa [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaozNblda54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaozNblda54 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oQJZ2TEVI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oQJZ2TEVI

gyrgtyn 10y ago

I was really in to Supercollider a long time ago, and I remember there were synths floating around on the mailing list that included big arrays of weird looking values, and they somehow made drum sounds. My brain is remembering that they were called eigenvalues, but I tried searching and didn't find much. No idea how someone figured out or calculated the values. I think they were impractical to calculate at runtime in supercollider.