A hybrid reed instrument: an acoustical resonator with a numerically simulated mouthpiece

Kurijn Buys (1) , Christophe Vergez (2)

1 DALEMBERT - Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert
2 Sons

A study on the development of a hybrid wind instrument is carried out. An acoustical tube interacts with a numerically simulated mouthpiece in real-time, with the aim to propose in the long term both a tool for objective measurements, and a new musical instrument, easily playable, with unique timbral capacities. This preliminary study focusses on a first prototype, to verify the physical meaningfulness and estimate its potential. A microphone at the tube entrance feeds a numerical model of the reed used to compute the volume flow through the reed channel. This is the output of the numerical part, which is directed to an electrovalve that proportionally modulates the volume flow between the compressed air source and the tube entrance. The hybrid instrument is characterized by studying its parts separately (evaluation of the electrovalve characteristics, impedance measurement of the resonator), but also as a whole by analyzing its behaviour when the parameters of the mouthpiece are varied. Both transients and steady regimes are compared to a fully simulated instrument. We observed a coherent functioning for fundamental frequencies sufficiently below the electrovalve’s first resonant frequency. The foremost drawbacks are associated to the electrovalve’s mechanics and to noisy pressure measurements.

Mots clés: Hybrid instrument; electro-acoustic; simulation; reed

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]; Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Kurijn Buys, Christophe Vergez. A hybrid reed instrument: an acoustical resonator with a numerically simulated mouthpiece. Acoustics 2012, Apr 2012, Nantes, France. ⟨hal-00810658⟩