h a l f b a k e r yLike you could do any better.
add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random
news, help, about, links, report a problem
browse anonymously,
or get an account
and write.
register,
|
|
|
A plate reverb consists of a steel plate attached to a frame, under tension. The sound travels along the surface from and to transducers placed on the plate. They're quite heavy: the EMT140 (an industry standard) weighs almost 600 lbs, most of which is the framework that keeps the tension on the plate.
So,
and I think you can tell from the Title where I'm going with this, if we make a sphere of the same material then pressurize it to give the proper tension, we have a device with, as far as I can imagine, superior qualities, for a very small fraction of both size and weight.
Math:
The plate in the EMT140 is 1m x 2m x 0.5mm.
The material it's made of (cold-rolled steel) weighs 7,850kg per cubic metre.
Therefore the actual plate weighs only 7.85kg/17.3lbs
2 square metres is the surface area of a sphere of .39m radius
Our Sphereverb will be about 2'7" in diameter and weigh less than 20 pounds.
(I haven't been able to dig up tension specs yet, so I have no data on the amount of compression, thus none on the possibility of using ovoid, ellipsoid, x-oid shapes which would give much more variety).
Please log in.
If you're not logged in,
you can see what this page
looks like, but you will
not be able to add anything.
Destination URL.
E.g., https://www.coffee.com/
Description (displayed with the short name and URL.)
|
|
Simple geometry is the enemy of good-sounding
reverb. |
|
|
I'ts important that the "tail" or decay of the reverb
be fairly uniform at all frequencies. It's unlikely that
a simple shape would show these characteristics. |
|
|
//simple geometry// but if I said "x-oid" then I couldn't make the semi-pun sphe-reverb. |
|
|
Easily solved by either manufacturing it with an irregularly shaped "cork(s)" of a different substance for the reflections to bounce off of, or to make it not-quite-a-sphere. |
|
|
I can't help thinking there's a perfect mathematical shape which would result in a perfect wash. |
|
|
A cylinder would be functionally the same, as far as reflections are concerned, as a plate, but there's gotta be something better. |
|
|
Just to rereiterate, this idea is the opposite of the one that doesn't work (and got all the buns) :D |
|
|
The sound travels across the surface of the tank, and the inside pressure keeps the surface taut and has no aural purpose. |
|
|
Like [csea] says, a simple sphere is much less than optimal (sorta crappy in fact). However a round-ended enclosed cylinder (ie: two halves of a sphere and a tube) gives the same overall acoustic results as a real plate, and there's probably even better shapes. |
|
|
Have a pressurised, reverberating bun. |
|
|
A high internal pressure would damp reverberation. |
|
|
I doubt it would be high pressure. I haven't found how much tension they put on plates but a modern grand piano has 20 tons. A plate reverb wouldn't come even close to that, but even if it's 10 tons on a 3x6' plate, that's only equivalent to an extra half atmosphere in a pressure-vessel with equal surface area. |
|
| |