Re: [Harp-L] Stainless steel reeds - do they sound different? Some data

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Vern - 

I agree with your qualifications, but it's nice to see a step in the
right direction.

As to the question of stiffness profile having an effect: to the extent
that such differences are required by differences in the properties of
the materials, they could perhaps be seen as secondary effect of
differences in materials.

Winslow


--- Vern Smith <jevern@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> I applaud the person who made and published the spectrograms and to
> Winslow 
> for bringing them to our attention.  This sort of thing will
> contribute to 
> our understanding of reed function.
> 
> Especially, I applaud Seydel for making harps with SS reeds.
> 
> That said, here are some cautions on drawing conclusions from the two
> 
> spectrograms.
> 
> I found that the spectral differences of supposedly-identical but
> different 
> reedplates on the same comb material were surprisingly great.  I
> believe 
> that differences in the gaps and the clearances between the reeds and
> slots 
> can show up in the spectrograms. That means that you can't attribute
> all of 
> the differences in the spectrograms to differences in materials.
> 
> It would be interesting to see several spectrograms of  sets harps
> with 
> brass and SS reeds.  That would let us assess how much of the
> difference was 
> attributable to the difference in reed materials and designs and how
> much to 
> other variables.
> 
> The other thing that would be interesting to know is how much the
> stiffness 
> profile (the resistance to bending at each point along the length of
> the 
> reed), and the mass at the tip varied from brass to SS. If this was
> not 
> carefully controlled, the spectral differences may arise from
> differences of 
> reed design and not from differences in material.
> 
> The spectral differences may have arisen from differences of
> materials, 
> differences in reed design., or in differences of installation such
> as gap 
> and clearance.  It would require more data to sort that out.
> 
> Vern
> Visit my harmonica website www.Hands-Free-Chromatic.7p.com
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 9:21 AM
> Subject: [Harp-L] Stainless steel reeds - do they sound different?
> Some data
> 
> 
> > Bertram Becher of Seydel sent me an interesting link:
> >
> > http://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel.sf/en_GB/?ObjectID=211764
> >
> > He recorded two otherwise identical harps, one with stainless reeds
> and
> > one with brass reeds, then ran a frequency analysis on each. There
> are
> > differences that are both audible on the recordings and visible in
> the
> > frequency graph.
> >
> > Winslow
> >
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> 


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