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Declaration
I confirm that this paper is entirely my own work. All sources and quotations have been fully
acknowledged in the appropriate places with adequate footnotes and citations. Quotations
have been properly acknowledged and marked with appropriate punctuation. The works
consulted are listed in the bibliography. This paper has not been submitted to another
examination panel in the same or a similar form, and has not been published.
Signatur
Abstract
Musical instruments are complex physical systems. This paper deals with the class of brass
wind instruments especially the Tuba. Brass instruments are excited by the vibrating lips
of the musician and radiates the played tone at the end of the tube via the bell into the
acoustic room. How the sound is radiated, is determined by individual characteristics of an
musical instrument. One of these attributes is the directivity, which will be considered in
greater detail in this work. It defines how the sound is radiated as a function of position
and frequency. For this purpose an automatic measuring system was developed which allows
stimulating a brass instrument and measuring the radiated sound pressure in different angles.
So a complete sound pattern can be created. This was realized by a turntable system which
is driven by automatic controlled stepper motors.
By the measurement of two different Tubas the system has been successfully tested.
Thereby, useful diagrams were obtained that represent the angle-dependent sound radiation
of the instruments over a number of frequency bands. This success serves as a basis for
further acquisitions which could be done in one plane at least. The developed system consisting of hard- and software is simply adaptable for almost all kinds of musical instruments
for further purpose.
Kurzfassung
Musikinstrumente sind komplexe physikalische Systeme. Diese Arbeit beschftigt sich mit
der Klasse der Blechblasinstrumente, speziell der Tuba. Diese werden durch die schwingenden
Lippen des Spielers angeregt und am Ende der "Rhre" wird der Ton ber den Schalltrichter
in den akustischen Raum abgegeben. Wie der Schall abgestrahlt wird, wird durch die individuelle Charakteristik des jeweiligen Musikinstruments bestimmt. Eines dieser Attribute
ist deren Richtwirkung, die in dieser Arbeit genauer betrachtet wurde. Sie beschreibt, wie
ein Musikinstrument den Schall in Abhngigkeit von Ort und Frequenz abstrahlt. Dafr
wurde ein automatisches Messsystem entwickelt, das es ermglicht ein Blechblasinstrument
anzuregen und den abgestrahlten Schalldruck fr verschiedene Winkel zu messen. Realisiert
wurde dies durch ein automatisierten Drehtischsystem, das per Schrittmotoren angetrieben
wird.
Durch das Messen von zwei verschiedenen Tuben wurde das System erfolgreich getestet.
Dabei wurden brauchbare Diagramme gewonnen, die die winkelabhngige Schallabstrahlung
der Tuben ber mehrere Frequenzbnder abbilden. Dieser Erfolg dient als Grundlage
um weitere Musikinstrumente zumindest in einer Ebene ausmessen zu knnen. Das
Systemkonzept von Hard- und Software wurde fr weiterfhrende Messzwecke so ausgelegt,
dass es fr nahezu smtliche Musikinstrumente angepasst werden kann.
Automatisches Messsystem,
Contents
1. Introduction
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5. Conclusion
30
Bibliography
31
List of Figures
33
List of Tables
34
List of Abbreviations
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37
C. LabVIEW-Screenshot of HAPAMv15
38
1. Introduction
The quality of musical instruments is designated by their acoustical characterisation. But
what are these characteristics? And what is meant by quality of an instrument?
"In the definition of the quality features you have to be clear that several aspects
have to be considered both from the side of the listener as well as the player, which
are two completely different viewpoints. Features of interest for the listener are
timbre, loudness, pitch, etc. in the far field, however, for the player it is important
how well a sound appeals besides how well the intonation of an instrument is and
how the instrument sounds in the near field.
In addition, it should be noted that in addition to objectively recorded measurement
data, the players subjective impressions but also the individual variation play a
large role in the evaluation of quality."
Winkler, W. and Widholm, G. 1996: 95 [1].
So this paper deals with the determination of such quality criteria of brass wind instruments. Since the author was playing the Tuba, the precise focus is on the low register of
brass instruments especially the Tuba. First of all, how a sound is excited on a Tuba and
how it is spread into room will be explained. The spreading is mainly determined by the
acoustical conditions of the ambient room and by the directional characteristic of the instrument itself. To measure the directional characteristic at least one microphone is necessary to
plot radiation in plane. If a stereoscopic acquisition of the directional pattern is preferred,
a microphone array will be required. This array can be arranged equally around the testing
object[2]. Therefore a high amount of microphones will be needed to allow recordings in as
many directions as preferred besides a high-capacity processing unit will be required. If the
amount should kept low, the object to be tested should be moved around and recorded separately. For this procedure a rotating platform, which turns automatically, is advantageous.
In the course of a project announced and supported by the Institute of Music Acoustics (Institut fr Wiener Klangstil - IWK ) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna,
a turntable system had to be implemented which is able to carry musical instruments up to
several kilograms weight (finally a grand piano should also be turned) and rotates the load
automatically. It is controlled by a supervising system, which also executes the acoustical
measurements, over a serial interface. The acoustic radiation is captured either with one
microphone for one plane or with a arched microphone array, which completes the recording
to a half globe by a 360 degrees turn.
Knowledge of this characteristics will be explained, discussed and experimentally proven in
the following chapters step by step. First, the paper will explain the theoretical background of
brass wind instruments especially the Tuba and its selected characteristics like the directional
sound pattern or the input impedance. The impedance is important for the intonation of an
instrument [1]. The next topic will deal with the technical preparation of the turntable and
the measuring set-up. In the last section the resulting measurements of an elected number
of Tubas will be documented.
(2.1)
Resonant frequencies are also called natural tones by musicians. Although the natural
tones have the same distance in Hertz to their harmonic neighbours, they do not fit the
common musical (chromatic) scale. This is due to the fact that human sense of hearing
and as a consequent of that the musical scale is not linear but logarithmic. Therefore a
chromatic scale seems to be consistent in advance. Actually, the interval between the first
and the second resonant frequency is a musical octave, for example, instead it is only a
quint between second and third resonance and so on. The higher the compared frequencies
lies the closer will be the musical distance (e.g. see the measured resonant frequencies of a
Tuba in Figure 4.1). So additional tones have to be produced for lower octaves to fulfil the
complete scale. In this case valves with additional tubes are applied on Trumpets or Tubas
for instance. This extends the length of the whole tube and lowers the resonant frequency
adaptively. On Trombones the variation of notes is realized by pulling the Trombones slide
[3].
Figure 2.1 is an image of one tested contrabass Tuba in B[. It highlights the basic elements
and the run of the 5.8 m long conical brass tube. The basic elements of Tubas usually
consists of the bell mouth (or simply called bell) with a diameter of about 40 cm, a coneshaped tube with a total length of about 5.8 m (see the calculation in Equation 2.2) and
a mouthpiece with a semi-spherical cup. Additionally, there are 4 valves which are able
to alter the natural tones variably. The natural tones are determined by the first harmonic
frequency of the instrument. It is also known as fundamental or pedal tone (f1 ). Usually, the
pedal tone is seldom played by the musician because the gap to the next resonance demands
too many intermediate tones and consequently more additional valves. Instead, the second
resonant tone (f2 ) is decisive as standard tuning frequency. It is a B[1 (German: Contra
B[) for the contrabass Tuba. Nominally this note should be at a frequency of 58.26 Hz in
normal conditions and with a reference frequency for standard pitch A4 (German: a1) at 440
Hz [5]. Higher natural tones (F2, B[2, D3, F3, etc. . . ) are harmonic integer multiples of the
fundamental tone. Comparing the resultant standard musical pitch ( f2 ) of Equation 2.2
with the theoretically calculated frequency of 58.26 Hz by [5] shows that the tuning pitch
cannot be defined generally, since the standard tuning frequency varies from instrument to
instrument or rather the surrounding condition have influence on the pitch.
Brass Tube
Bell
Mouthpiece
Valves
cs = f f =
cs
, where = 2 lBRASS ,
343 ms1
= 29.57 s1 ,
2 5.8 m
f2 = 2 f1 = 59.14 s1 .
f1 =
(2.2)
Formants in Hz
350
1200 - 1500
500 - 600
230 - 290
plays a special role for plucked- and percussion instruments, since in the absence of
continuing excitation there is no stationary state.
After all the most significant attributes of brass instruments are their resonant frequencies.
They define the intonation the musician has to deal with. For determination, they can
be caught by measuring either the acoustical input impedance or the acoustical transfer
response. Several scientific papers deals with these topics [1][7][8]. For simplicity, both
methods are contrasted in Chapter 4 of this paper by execution on two Tubas. Finally, the
Directional Characteristic which is the main topic as known, will complete this introduction
of brass wind instruments.
50
100
200
500
Frequency
2000
Hz
10000
value related to the maximum. For simplification sound pressure above the 3 dB limit was
supposed as quasi equal. Otherwise a level difference of 10 dB is perceived as approximately
one-half the loudness. Figure 2.3 illustrates the directional characteristic of a Tuba within
the 3 dB limit. As it can be seen, the effective radiation angle will narrow if the frequency
raises.
Figure 3.1.: Turntable system with a stable construction for fixing a Tuba.
327 mm
torques results in a high discrepancy, a convenient power transmission had to be found. For
this use a nearly 1:300 gear reduction was calculated by dividing load torque by the motor
torque. A geared belt drive was chosen to achieve the required power transmission.
Figure 3.2 hypothetically shows an example of a gear belt drive which connects the bearing
ring on the turntable-construction with a toothed belt wheel placed on the axis of the stepper. With 12 teeth and a belt pitch of 5 mm the belt wheel has a perimeter of 60 mm. This
leads to a radius of 9.549 mm. It was possible to attach a timing band with 411 teeth and
a length of 2055 mm onto the edge of the semi-trailers bearing ring. So a provisional "belt
pulley" was created with a radius of about 327.063 mm since the complete diameter of the
turning ring is 654 mm.
toot
h
ed b
elt
9.5 mm
bearing
ring
motor belt disc
Figure 3.2.: Example of a gear belt drive with a reduction of about 1:35.
As a result of this, the Gear Ratio (GR) which is also known as mechanical advantage, can
be calculated where the input belt wheel has radius ri and the output belt wheel has radius
ro , or rather the number of output teeth (No ) is divided by number of input cogs (Ni ):
ro
No
i
=
=
,
o
ri
Ni
327.063 mm
GR =
= 34.251,
9.549 mm
411
GR =
= 34.25.
12
GR =
(3.1)
As it can be seen in Equation 3.1 the resulting mechanical advantage (GR = 1 : 34.25) is
too less to drive the turntables bearing. Furthermore, the gear will not be able to stabilize
the system if the motor is turned off. For that reason, another gearing mechanism had to
be combined with the pre-designed system. In this case, a worm gear for further reduction
was selected. The self-locking feature and the property of achieving a high gear transmission
ratio are few advantages of worm gears. For this use, a worm with a module of 1.0 was
purchased. A module of 1.0 signifies dimension of a cog. The more force is applied on the
cogs the higher should be their module. Since the worm is a special form of a helical gear the
angle of the helical toothing is defined by the winds around the wheel axle. The cog/tooth is
referred to in this case as a gear or a start. One start indicates that one rotation of the worm
screw will rotate the worm wheel by one cog. A higher gear/start stands for a faster turn
and vice versa. To complete the worm gear an adapted worm wheel had to be combined.
Here, one with 20 teeth and a hub diameter of 23 mm was used. Comparing the amount of
teeth of the worm wheel (Nwheel ) with the starts of the worm (Nworm ) will lead to the gear
transmission ratio:
Nwheel
,
Nworm
20
GR =
= 10.
2
GR =
(3.2)
Equation 3.2 depicts that the mechanical advantage of the planned worm gear accomplishes
a ratio of 1:10. So the worm gear and the belt drive were united and finally, the collective
gear ratio reached a reduction of 1:350. Of course, this was only a ideal result because friction
losses of the advanced gearing mechanism derogated the transmission.
drivingstepmotor
wheel
bearing ring
bearing ring
worm
fixture
stepmotor
worm wheel
Figure 3.3.: Principle of the designed gearing mechanism. Left: ground plan, right: sheer
plan.
The principal composition of the gear unit is charted in Figure 3.3. This graph shows how
the torque is transmitted from the step motor to the terminal turntable ring in ground plan
on the left side. First, the force is transported over the motor shaft to the worm. After this,
it is converted 1:10 to the connected worm wheel thereafter, over an axis the power is finally
transferred to the turntables gearing ring by the driving wheel. This last transmission had
a ratio of 1:35. Thereby the direct transmission ratio of 1:350 can be calculated by simply
multiplying. In order to complete, the sheer plan of the gear mechanism is on the right side
of Figure 3.3. It also shows the transmission of power from the step motor with its worm
gear, via worm wheel and the connected axis, to the closing driving wheel connected with
the bearing ring. Lastly, there is an image of the worm and belt combined gear in Figure 3.4.
10
As aforementioned, the bearing ring of the semi-trailers coupling ring is not ideal and so
the outer edge of it is not circular because of the simple reason that such rings do not have
to be ideal for their actually defined use. That was a reason to deal with. To compensate
these unevenness of the ring the motor was not fixed stable onto the mounted driving belt
instead, it was pulled against the edge by a spring. However, this fixture raised a problem so
that the engine would block if the spring was too tight. But when the spring was too loose,
the drive wheel would lift off the guide belt and loss of degrees would be a negative effect.
So it was decided that an additional motor should reinforce the existing engine. The total
torque was doubled and the stepping losses were compensated by the mutual engagement of
both engines.
The translated torque of both engines (2 0.44 N m = 0.88 N m) on the driving belt
of the ring is now 308 N m (0.88 N m 350) which conforms the required expenditure of
energy (about 132 N m) more than enough. It has to be taken into account that the angular
velocity of the turntable system is slowed by the reduction of a factor of 350 (cf. Formula
of gear ratio with i as motor velocity and o as output velocity in Equation 3.1). That
leads to increasing the rotational speed of both motors simultaneously to balance the velocity
decrease. As mentioned above, increasing the stepper frequency leads to lowering the step
motor torque. In addition, unbalanced load could destabilise the system and induce disparate
force actions on the bearing. That would require a higher torque of the gear and accordingly
of the step motors. After all, it is of use to have a overpowered system which can deal with
possible force problems.
Value
535-0401
0.9
2.8 V
1.68 A
1.65
0.44 Nm
4 (corresponds to a bipolar
stepper motor with 2 coils)
11
Since the step angle is 0.9 degrees, the engine needs 400 steps for a full turn. With that
specification and the known gear reduction, the number of steps for one full rotation of the
turntable can be calculated. The following breakdown will analyse how often the engine has
to turn for one revolution:
(3.3)
1 worm wheel rotation = 1 belt pulley turn = 10 worm rotations = 4000 motor steps
1 turntable rotation = 34.25 belt pulley turns = 137000 motor steps
Moreover, other specifications of Table 3.1 are needed for mechanical, like holding torque,
or electronic design like phase current, rated voltage, etc. The electronic regulation of the
engines is handled by the step motor controller which will be described in the next section.
12
Feature
Micro-controller
Crystal Oscillator
Operating Voltage
Digital I/O Pins
Analogue Input Pins
DC Current per I/O Pin
Flash Memory
Programming
Program Memory/
Static Random Access Memory(SRAM)
Additional Features
ATmega328
16 MHz
5V
14 (of which 6 provide
Pulse Width Modulation(PWM) output)
8
40 mA
32 KB (of which 2 KB used by bootloader)
Per Serial Programming over
USB-to-Serial adapter or RS232
2 KB
Two available Timers,
one Serial Interface,
several Bus-Systems like
Serial Programming Interface(SPI),
etc. . .
13
A4988
VDD
microcontroller
GND
VMOT
GND
2B
2A
1A
1B
VDD
GND
ENABLE
MS1
MS2
MS3
RESET
SLEEP
STEP
DIR
Figure 3.5.: Wiring diagram for connecting a micro-controller to an A4988 stepper motor
driver carrier [15].
by a reference potentiometer. So the motor voltage only determines how fast the current will
raise in a coil until the current limit is reached. Therefore the rated voltage of the stepper
motor (see Section 3.1.2) takes no effect on this application because the given voltage rating
is just that voltage at which each coil draws the rated current.
How the stepper motor driver was supplied will be described in the Power Management
Section 3.2.5.
14
where the door is completely locked during the measuring process, the monitoring PC is
located outside this room. This allows laboratory personnel checking and controlling the
progress. For this communication serial lines with adapted ports already exists between inand outside of the anechoic room because a digital radio link could produce unwanted signals.
To universalise, the communication was defined in a protocol. Table 3.3 shows the communication protocol with all instructions, messages, and errors the SMC has to deal with.
Transmitting
Command
Rxxx
Lxxx
ON
OFF
INIT
CALI
OK
RST
CNT
CONT
Description
moves the turntable about xxx degrees to the right
(higher than 360 will return a value-error).
moves the turntable about xxx degrees to the left
(higher than 360 will return a value-error).
turns both step motors on (default: on).
turns both step motors off.
initialise the SMC again.
allows to re-calibrate the turntable manually.
confirms executed settings (used for continuing after calibration).
resets the degree count.
returns the current degree count.
continues the SMC program after an occurred failure with error message.
Receiving
Message
ACKxxx
Cxxx
END
RDY
OFF
WAIT
Description
is Acknowledge of last sent command.
passes the current degree count.
signals that the end position have been reached.
signals that the SMC is ready for new commands.
signals that the motors are still turned off.
signals that the SMC is busy.
Message
ECOM
EVAL
ESTEP
EEMER
Failures
Description
ERROR! Unusual command.
ERROR! Value of degrees is <0 or >360.
ERROR! Steps have been lost.
ERROR! Case of emergency has occured.
Table 3.3.: Communication protocol between SMC and the supervising computer.
15
(3.4)
One rotation of the turntable has 137,000 motor steps as known from Equation 3.3. Consequently, one degree is natural a 360th of it, namely 380.5 steps. Since one revolution has
400 steps, the tolerance could take a value of a full turn for example, which would detect
step losses approximately greater than one degree. This helps to identify where the failure
has occurred at a accuracy of nearly one degree.
16
(IC ) for driving seven-segment displays up to 8 digits. Its registers can be manipulated by
a serial bus like SPI which the operating micro-controller provides.
LM7805
2x
7 seg. driver
Others like
Pullup Resistor
MAX232
Schmitt Trigger
17
18
Port
Terminal
Finally, all listed devices above were composed to the final acquisition and measurement
set-up. This included the turntable construction with two stepper motors and gear, the StepMotor-Control device, the HAPAM excitation tool with an included reference microphone, an
additional probe microphone for measuring the directed sound pressure, several laboratory
devices like power supply and mic pre-amplifier, and lastly the musical instrument under
test. Figure 3.8 pictures the final measurement set-up with all involved components.
Door
Pr
ob
eM
ic
HAPAM
SMC
Step Motor
Anechoic Chamber
Figure 3.8.: Finale Test Set-up.
R
19
Initialisation
Origin reached,
Settings completed
Drive turntable
with command
Rxxx degrees
Calibration
Send Calib OK
Measuring
First
Measurement
Is end positionYes
reached?
Postprocess
the gathered
data
No
End
20
difference between the individual angles is 10 degrees and a full turn should be executed,
the gathering of acoustic information will be applied 36 times. For this use, the musical
instrument to be measured is oscillated by a logarithmic sine sweep which was outputted
over the Data Acquisition Output (DAQout) interface prepared by LabVIEW. That sweep is
defined by the pre-settings which consist of frequency range, measuring duration, sampling
rate and sampling buffer size (which defines how long a signal at a given frequency will
be analysed). Usually, the sampling rate in this LabVIEW program was at 50000 samples
per second and the buffer had a size of 5000 samples. This means that ten analysis per
second could be managed. One analysis considers one frequency step. In connection with
the duration which was 180 seconds by default, there were examined 1800 frequency steps per
one complete measurement. These steps were logarithmically interpolated over the selected
frequency range. Consequently, the output sine sweep was generated thereby, because the
magnitude were held on a constant level.
Then the actual measuring happened. The DAQ input device gathered two microphone
signals where one was firmly placed in the anechoic room which should acquire the relative
sound radiation at different angles. Another one was put into the HAPAMs cavity as near
as possible to the mouth piece plain as reference. Since the measuring is a transfer response
analysis, both input signals were compared in LabVIEW. First, the signals were put into an
input buffer where a Discrete Fourier Transformation (DFT ) analysed them. After that single tone information per channel with maximum magnitude were extracted. This simplified
further calculation because only one magnitude per channel was considered. Calculating the
transfer response was realised by dividing output by input where the corresponding frequency
was determined by the strongest signal. The result was recorded as a special Versatile Instrument Analysis System (VIAS) file which is commonly used on the institute. Additionally,
the phase, the real and imaginary part were calculated for the file. The frequency response
was also plotted on a display window of the LabVIEW panel which is shown in Appendix
C. For post-processing both input signals were put in storage as WAVE file. The current
direction in degrees was integrated in the names of both files. For simplicity the schematic
Figure 3.10 should explain this topic pictorially.
Settings
WAVE
file
Calculating
frequency steps
Generating
output
Catching
input
DFT
VIAS
file
Extracting
Single Tone
Information
Output
T (f ) = Input
Audio Input
Probe
Mic
HAPAM
Reference Output
21
LabVIEW
Graph Panel
22
Model
Pedal tone
Tuning pitch
Bell mouth diameter
Bore diameter
Unwound length of the brass tube
Valves
Bass Tuba in F
Gebr. Alexander Mainz, Germany, F-Tuba Modell 157
F1 (43.65 Hz)
F2 (87.31 Hz)
380 mm
18.5 mm
about 4 m
6
23
Bb0
30
25
Bb2
D3 F3
20
F2
Bb3
Ab3
Bb1
15
D4
C4
10
E4
F4
G4
Ab4
A4Bb4
Hz
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
24
passages. How well a sound appeals is evident by the size of the magnitude peaks. The
higher a peak of a resonance is the better a tone will approach [3].
Since there were two Tubas to be measured, their input impedances were compared and
are plotted in Figure 4.2. The contrabass Tuba in B[ is represented by the dark-blue curve,
the bass Tuba in F is displayed as orange function. It can be seen that the fundamental tone
of the F-Tuba is about 20 Hz higher than that one of the B[-Tuba. However, there are some
natural tones which harmonise on both instruments. That special notes are at several kinds
of F most. Only at the F1 the instruments are out of sync. There a peak from the F-Tuba
is opposed to a tale of the other one. This means that a F1 could never be forced on the
B[-Tuba without additional help instead it will sounds well and easily on the Tuba in F.
MOhm
40
F1
35
30
F2
F3
25
20
C4
15
F4
10
Hz
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
25
1000
22,809
20
-20
10
-21,747
20
30
56,67270
50
100
200
300
500
700
1000
2000
3000
5000
26
-18dB
-15dB
-12dB
-9dB
-6dB
-3dB
0dB
Figure 4.4.: Directional Characteristic of the Contrabass Tuba in B[.
As it can be seen, both Tubas radiate omnidirectional between 20 and 120 Hz. This is the
region where the pedal tone and its first harmonics are located. In the chromatic scale that
area corresponds the first and the second octave (or also known as contra and great octave).
The both spheres are little truncated opposite the bell mouth but their magnitudes lie barely
27
2000-3900 Hz
1000-2000 Hz
500-1000 Hz
240-500 Hz
120-240 Hz
20-120 Hz
-18dB
-15dB
-12dB
-9dB
-6dB
-3dB
0dB
Figure 4.5.: Directional Characteristic of the Bass Tuba in F.
28
below the -3 dB level. According to Meyer [10] such curve of the circle can be accepted as
a complete simple sound source at this frequency range. The second range between 120 and
250 Hz complies with the third octave which is also called small octave. This range differs
to the previous less but it suffices that the curves lies underneath the -3 dB level more and
more. So the instruments cannot be designated as spheric radiator any more. It should be
mentioned that the difference between the two curves is greater for the B[-Tuba instead of
that one in F. This can be deduced by the fact that the bell in connection with the diapason
of the F-Tuba are smaller compared to the B[-Tuba.
The next circle describes the last playable region (the fourth octave or one-line octave) of
Tubas. It includes the formant frequencies additionally which characterise the sound colour
of the Tubas. As it can be seen, this region from 250 up to 500 Hz keeps only above the -3
dB limit at a range of about 130 degrees for the Tuba in B[ and about 140 degrees for the
F-Tuba. Additionally radiating maxima and minima occurs at several points in both curves.
The magnitude decreases underneath the Tubas by about 9 dB. This is why floor reflection
will not influence the sound. Instead of that ceiling reflection should be considered because
the most radiated sound is directed against the ceiling vertically. This also applies to higher
frequency components whose radiation is increasingly narrowed to the axis of the bell. For
example, the 500 1000 Hz band is emitted only for a width of main radiation lower than
90 degrees for both Tubas. Besides the main radiation field for the 1000 2000 Hz range is
about 45 degrees for both Tubas too, but between 2000 and 3900 Hz it is only 30 degrees for
the Tuba in F where the B[-Tuba still achieves 40 degrees.
Appointing to Meyer, the -10 dB limit should be also analysed. So it should be mentioned
that this limit is exceeded at frequencies above 500 Hz. Hence, these spectral components
sound laterally and below the instrument at least half as loud as before the bell [10].
The reason why higher frequency components should be also considered is that they arise
as overtones when a Tuba is played very loud (ital. fortissimo). This makes the sound colour
of the spread tone brighter and more brilliant. If this components are cut off, the instrument
sounds dark and it is not possible achieving differently effective dynamic levels. This happens
when the narrowed directivity at higher frequencies is neglected. For instance, such problem
appears especially with Tubas at open air events since there is no ceiling which could reflect
that overtones in the direction of the audience. But even poorly structured ceilings in concert
halls can absorb these high-frequency components and thereby the Tuba sounds dull [3][10].
29
5. Conclusion
The acquisition of the directional characteristic of the measured Tubas was successful. The
developed set-up fulfilled all requirements. Only during the implementation of the automated
turntable, more attention had to be paid for the mechanical development because the input
torque of the step motors was too less. This was resolved by designing a convenient gear
system. The electronic device SMC worked without fatal errors by reason that the microcontrollers program code was always debugged while the testing phase. The ultimate version
also handled with predictable errors like step losses, wrong actuation by human error, etc. . . ,
and communicated warnings over the serial interface immediately.
The acquired results were meaningful and were confirmed by former publications of J.
Meyer [10]. Since the directivity measurements were taken by only one microphone, the
resulting diagrams were two-dimensional. But even these diagrams showed impressively
how the sound radiates. Besides the directional characteristic could be imagined threedimensionally by the reason that the radiation were accepted as symmetric around the bell
axis. However, to achieve a truly spatial pattern it would be necessary to design a arch
equipped with several microphone. Due to the fact that the automated acquisition system
was extensible, it would be possible creating 3D-plottings in the near future. It was also
designed to be universal since the measuring signals were independent of the test object. On
that account other musical instruments could be proven of their directional characteristic
by simply adapting a different excitation mechanism and a different mounting construct
respectively.
30
Bibliography
[1] W. Winkler and G. Widholm, BIAS - Blas Instrumenten Analyse System, in 15 Jahre
Institut fr Wiener Klangstil (1980-1995), E. Melkus, Ed. Wien: Institut fr Wiener
Klangstil, 1996, pp. 95106.
[2] G. K. Behler and M. Pollow, Variable Richtcharakteristik mit DodekaederLautsprechern, Fortschritte der Akustik, pp. 6768, 2008.
[3] G. Widholm, Musikalische Akustik 1. Wien: Institut fr Wiener Klangstil - Universitt
fr Musik und Darstellenede Kunst, 2013.
[4] D. C. Giancoli, Physik.
Springer-Verlag
[10] J. Meyer and K. Wogram, Die Richtcharakteristiken von Trompete, Posaune und
Tuba, Das Musikinstrument, vol. 19, pp. 17180, 1970.
[11] LabVIEW System Design Software, National Instruments Corporation, 2014.
[Online]. Available: http://www.ni.com/labview/
[12] RS Schrittmotor 0.9deg 2,8V 44Ncm 42mm, RS Components Handelsges.m.b.H.,
Gmnd, AUT, 2014, [Visited on 7.3.2014]. [Online]. Available: http://at.rs-online.com/
web/p/products/5350401/
[13] Arduino Mini, Arduino.cc, Italy, 2014, [Visited on 4.3.2014]. [Online]. Available:
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardMini
31
Bibliography
[14] Atmel 8-bit AVR Microcontroller with 32KBytes In-System Programmable Flash
- ATmega328P, Atmel Corporation, San Jose, USA, 2012. [Online]. Available:
http://www.atmel.com/Images/doc7810.pdf
[15] A4988 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier, Pololu Corporation, Las Vegas, USA, 2014,
[Visited on 4.3.2014]. [Online]. Available: http://www.pololu.com/product/1182
[16] MAXIM Serially Interfaced, 8-Digit LED Display Drivers - MAX7219/MAX7221,
Maxim Integrated Products Corporation, San Jose, USA, 2003.
[17] 3-Terminal 1 A Positive Voltage Regulator - LM78XX/LM78XXA, Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation, 2006.
[18] G.R.A.S. 40DP 1/8" Ext. Polarized Pressure Microphone, G.R.A.S. Sound & Vibration, Holte, Denmark, 2014.
[19] ROGA RG-50, ROGA-Instruments, Waldalgesheim, Germany, 2014. [Online].
Available: http://www.roga-instruments.com/sensors/measure-mic-rg-50/specification.
html
R SENSOR SIGNAL CONDITIONER, PCB
[20] Model 442B104, 4 CHANNEL ICP
Piezotronics Inc., Depew, USA, 2006. [Online]. Available: http://www.pcb.com/
contentstore/docs/PCB_Corporate/Electronics/products/Manuals/442C04.pdf
32
List of Figures
2.1. Image of a contrabass Tuba in B[ with its elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2. Spheric sound radiation of brass instruments by Meyer. . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3. Main radiation area of a Tuba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.
3.2.
3.3.
3.4.
3.5.
3
5
6
8
8
10
10
4.1.
4.2.
4.3.
4.4.
4.5.
24
25
26
27
28
33
.
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.
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.
.
.
.
.
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.
.
.
.
.
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.
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.
.
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.
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.
.
.
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.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
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.
.
.
.
.
14
17
18
19
20
21
List of Tables
2.1. Region of formants of several brass wind instruments [6]. . . . . . . . . . . . .
11
13
15
23
34
List of Abbreviations
BIAS
BNC
CMOS
DAQ I/O
DFT
EIA
FTDI
GR
HAPAM
IC
IWK
LabVIEW
PC
PWM
SMC
SPI
SVG
UART
USB
VIAS
35
RS-232
Power Supply
7 Segment Driver
Push Button
s
36
put
Hall Sensors In
Schmitt
Trigger
Driver
Stepper Motor
with Heatsink
MAX232
MSb
MSc
MSd
GND_b
GND_c
MSb
MSc
MSd
MSb
MSc
MSd
GND
GNDMOT
b
cf
cJk9
VDD
b8
bf
bJ
bY
bv
b8
b9
c$
cb
b9
f
9
Cc b$$n
b$$ Cb
JPb$
GND
VDD
c
b
c
b
JP9
HALd
d
c
b
JP8
HALc
d
c
b
HALb d
b$$n
bA
cA
bB
cB
CLK
DIG$
DIGb
LOAD DIGc
DIGd
DIN
DIGf
DOUT DIGJ
DIGY
ISET DIGv
SEGA
SEGB
SEGC
SEGD
SEGE
VCC SEGF
GND SEGG
GND SEGDP
c
bb
Y
v
d
b$
J
8
bf
bY
c$
cd
cb
bJ
bv
cc
b$k
Rc$
df
dd
d
c
b
dY
dJ
ICfc
CDvfACbfEEf
MOTd
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
LEDbGab
COM
DP
dc
CCJYLbbCGKWA
c9
c8
8
Y
J
d$
v
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
LEDbGac
COM
DP
db
CCJYLbbCGKWA
cJ
cf
bc
bb
b$
cv
cY
MAXvcb9CNG
b JPbd
c
d
f
MOTc_bA
MOTc_cA
MOTc_bB
MOTc_cB
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
LEDbGad
COM
cd
DP
bd
CCJYLbbCGKWA
GND
GND
C8
VDD
VMOT
b$k
Rbc
bk
Ab
Ac
Bb
Bc
ICb
Rb
A$
Ab
Ac
Ad
Af
AJ
AY
Av
3cfV
VDD
Cv
b$$n
STEP
DIR
bc
fkv
fkv
Rb8
fkv
Rbv
STEP
DIR
bd
ICfb
CDvfACbfEEf
RbY
bk
RJ
GND
GND
37
EN
RST
SLEEP
GND
GNDc
GND_d
GND_f
GNDf
Cb
ARDUINO_MINI_RJMINI
GNDd
GND
EN
RST
SLP
GND
GNDMOT
JV_b
ARDUINO
MINI
vJ
CJ
c
d
f
J
Y
v
8
9
b$
bb
bc
bd
IOv
b$$n
Rv
bk
RY
MOTc
MOTb_cB
MOTb_cA
MOTb_bA
MOTb_bB
ICd
Af988_STEPPER_MOTOR_DRIVER_CARRIER
GND
GND
GNDMOT
MSb
MSc
MSd
MOTb_bA
MOTb_cA
MOTb_bB
MOTb_cB
b JPbc
c
d
f
MOTc_cB
MOTc_cA
MOTc_bA
MOTc_bB
VDD
VMOT
STEP
DIR
bA
cA
bB
cB
Ab
Ac
Bb
Bc
GND
GNDMOT
STEP
DIR
VDD
C
RESET_b
RESET_c
3cfV
VDD
VMOT
VDD
VMOT
b$k
Rbb
b$k
BUTJ
EN
RST
SLEEP
JV
9V
9V
JV_c
TX_c
RX_c
DIOc
DIOd
DIOf
DIOJ
DIOY
DIOv
DIO8
DIO9
DIOb$
DIObb
DIObc
DIObd
DIOv_c
RESET
ICY
VDD
VDD
BUTf
JPbb
b$k
RbJ
VDD
Rbf
c
b$k
BUTd
JPv
TXc
RXc
JV_d
TX_b
RX_b
b$k
Cb3
Cbb
RESET
VDD
Rbd
JVd
GND
bJ
CbL
TX
RX
Rb
Rc
Cc3
Cb$
EN
RST
SLP
GND
JVc
bY
VCC
c
f
Y
SerialProgramming
GND
R8
V3
c
b
bk
b$k
GND
GND
CcL
BUTc
JPY
GND
b
d
J
JPd
VL
Rb$
b
JPf
b
GND
JPc
ICc
Af988_STEPPER_MOTOR_DRIVER_CARRIER
GND
Rc
GND
VDD
Y
9
bc
b$
bb
GND
RcIN RcOUT
RbIN RbOUT
TcOUT
TcIN
TbOUT
TbIN
GND
VDD
bf
8
bd
v
bf
bk
GND
Cbc
b
GND
MAXcdc
Rf
bk
Rd
ICYP
CbJ
GND
b
b$$n
GND
CbdC
Xb
Dd VDD
Dc
bNfbf8DOdJLv
bNfbf8DOdJLv
DJ VDD
Df
bNfbf8DOdJLv
bNfbf8DOdJLv
Gc RScdc
9
J
8
f
v
d
Y
c
b
Gb
VDD
VDD
GND
b$$ Cd
VDD
ICJ
v8$J
Cf b$$n
b$k
b$$ CY
JPb
OUT
GND
BUTb
JPJ
IN
C9 dd$n
R9
PWR3cfV c
3cfV
VDD
VDD
ICfd
CDvfACbfEEf
c$
b9
bv
bJ
bf
cb
bY
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
LEDbGaf
COM
cc
DP
b8
CCJYLbbCGKWA
C. LabVIEW-Screenshot of HAPAMv15
38