string termination

Geoff Sykes ivories.52@earthlink.net
Sun, 14 Aug 2005 23:34:47 -0700


Very very amazing videos! But I notice two things. First, (referring back to
my previous post), in the A#14 video I am not really aware of ever seeing a
wave for the fundamental. Does one actually exist? Second, there is
something funny going on in that you can actually see the waves on the two
strings go out of sync (phase) with each other. String length differences?
Slightly out unisons? Compare to the tri-chord video where the three strings
are dead on in sync (phase) for the entire time. 

In any case, very amazing video. Thanks Stephen.

Geoff Sykes
Assoc. Los Angeles



-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Stephen Birkett
Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 10:23 PM
To: Pianotech
Subject: Re: string termination


>I don't plan to hear or measure anything.  I only want to look and
>see what is happening to the string.

A commendable objective Carl.

To whet the appetite a bit take a look at the high speed images I 
have on my website...some strings, dancing dampers, and bridge pins. 
These were simply taken for interest and to test out the system, and 
definitely not under controlled circumstances, so they won't answer 
the detailed carousel (aka merry-go-round to those on the other 
pond-side) of questions about strings and terminations. They do show 
the complexity of the situation and the difficulty of making causal 
generalizations. There is a plan to tackle this question as part of 
our grand scheme of things here. First we have to learn how to be 
creative with the equipment, so we can get multi-directional 
synchronized images and see what's going on in 3-D with only one 
camera. My plan is to isolate single variables that can affect string 
motion (e.g. see Ron's long list), maintaining all bar one which gets 
adjusted and the effect on the string monitored. Needless to say this 
requires a precisely repeatable key actuation so comparisons at 
successive times are meaningful, but that one we have licked already.

The ftp server on my usual website is out of action at the moment, so 
best go to the mirror site I have. The high-speed stuff is at 
http://fortepianos.com/high%20speed%20imaging.htm Note carefully the 
instructions given for getting your system set up to play these. The 
compression is extreme (each video starts raw at 500MB and compressed 
to about 5MB) to make them manageable files, so you'll need to get 
the correct video codec installed if you don't already have it.

Stephen
-- 
Dr Stephen Birkett
Associate Professor
Department of Systems Design Engineering
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada N2L 3G1

E3 Room 3158
tel: 519-888-4567 Ext. 3792
fax: 519-746-4791
Piano Design Lab E3-3160 Ext. 7115
mailto: sbirkett[at]real.uwaterloo.ca http://real.uwaterloo.ca/~sbirkett
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