BACHELOR THESIS Turntable for an Automatic Acquisition System For
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BACHELOR THESIS University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien, Electronic Engineering Turntable for an Automatic Acquisition System for Measuring the Directional Characteristic of Musical Instruments Author: Martin Lahmer Student ID: 1210254005 Academic Supervisor: FH-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Christian Kollmitzer Company Supervisor: Ing. DI (FH) Alexander Mayer Vienna, June 4, 2014 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.“ Vienna, June 4, 2014 Place, Date 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 con- sisting of hard- and software is simply adaptable for almost all kinds of musical instruments for further purpose. Keywords: Brass Wind Instruments, Directional Characteristic, Automated Acquisition System, Step Motor driven Turntable, Arduino, LabVIEW Kurzfassung Musikinstrumente sind komplexe physikalische Systeme. Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Klasse der Blechblasinstrumente, speziell der Tuba. Diese werden durch die schwingenden Lippen des Spielers angeregt und am Ende der "Röhre" wird der Ton über den Schalltrichter in den akustischen Raum abgegeben. Wie der Schall abgestrahlt wird, wird durch die in- dividuelle 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 Abhängigkeit von Ort und Frequenz abstrahlt. Dafür wurde ein automatisches Messsystem entwickelt, das es ermöglicht ein Blechblasinstrument anzuregen und den abgestrahlten Schalldruck für 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 winkelabhängige Schallabstrahlung der Tuben über mehrere Frequenzbänder abbilden. Dieser Erfolg dient als Grundlage um weitere Musikinstrumente zumindest in einer Ebene ausmessen zu können. Das Systemkonzept von Hard- und Software wurde für weiterführende Messzwecke so ausgelegt, dass es für nahezu sämtliche Musikinstrumente angepasst werden kann. Schlagwörter: Blechblasinstrumente, Richtcharakteristik, Automatisches Messsystem, Drehtisch mit Schrittmotor, Arduino, LabVIEW Contents 1. Introduction1 2. Brass Wind Instruments2 2.1. Basic Knowledge..................................2 2.2. Characterisation..................................4 2.3. Directional Characteristic.............................5 3. Technical Implementation of the Automated Acquisition System7 3.1. Turntable-System with Step-Motors.......................7 3.1.1. Mechanical Design.............................7 3.1.2. Electrical Parameters........................... 11 3.2. Step Motor Control - SMC............................ 12 3.2.1. Stepper Motor Driver Carrier....................... 13 3.2.2. Communication over Serial Interface................... 14 3.2.3. Step Losses Detection........................... 16 3.2.4. Manual Control............................... 16 3.2.5. Power Management............................ 17 3.3. High Air Pressure Artificial Mouth - HAPAM.................. 18 3.4. Final Measurement Set-Up............................ 19 3.5. Supervising Computer Program with LabVIEW................. 20 3.5.1. Top Layer Architecture.......................... 20 3.5.2. Measuring Layer.............................. 20 3.5.3. Data Processing Layer........................... 22 4. Acoustical Measurements and Acquisition of the Directional Sound Pattern 23 4.1. Input Impedance.................................. 24 4.2. Transfer Response................................. 26 4.3. The Directional Characteristic of Brass Wind Instruments........... 27 5. Conclusion 30 Bibliography 31 List of Figures 33 List of Tables 34 List of Abbreviations 35 A. Assembled Step-Motor-Control (SMC) 36 5 B. Schematic of the Turntable’s Step-Motor-Control (SMC) 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 player’s 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 instru- ments. 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 instru- ment 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 sep- arately. 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 (In- stitut für 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. 1 2. Brass Wind Instruments Musical instruments basically exist of three parts: a stimulator, an oscillator and a resonator. The stimulator of brass instruments are the lips on the brass mouthpiece. They excite an air column in the instrument. These air column is limited by the brass tube which encases it. As a result of this standing waves occur. The oscillated standing waves determine the oscillator which vibrates at a frequency forced by instrument and player. Finally, the resonator has the task to transform wave energy into sound energy. Since the swinging air column of brass instruments has not to be transformed to sound vibrations any more the brass’s oscillator is simultaneous the resonator. Contrariwise, for stringed instruments the bow is the stimulator,