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From: Douglas Tate
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 11:27:43 GMT
Subject: Comb sounds

Hi Vern!!!
############################
>>>I agree that otherwise identical vibrating parts made of wood, plastic, and
metal would absorb vibrations differently. Bells or stringed-instrument
soundboards of those materials would definitely sound different! We can walk
into the proverbial sunset in happy agreement on this point.
############################
Your tiny hand is frozen, let me..... (as we seem to be having more
singing on the list (BTW, has that been Voted off yet???) *-)

################

>>However, <<
Oh Dear, I knew it wouldn't last!

>>I still posit that the sound of the harmonica is not appreciably
affected by comb materials because the comb in the harmonica assembly is
constrained by the reedplates, covers and hands from vibrating. Even if it
should vibrate, its area is too small to couple any appreciable amount of
that energy to the air. <<

BINGO, I think!

You are saying about the body Vibrating.... I'm not, and I am fairly certain
Terrie isn't. I will just talk for me, however!!

The reed plate and reed are a composite system.

The reed vibrates and the reedplate vibrates because it is joined to it. I
likened this sometime back to two lumps of stuff on the ends of a plank,
vibrate one end and the other end vibrates as well with equal energy (if the
weights are equal.) Increase the weight on one end and although the energy
remains the same in both ends (I think) the displacement will be less in the
'heavier' end governed by some formula with a couple of constants thrown in,
As the weight approaches brick wall status to all intents and purposes it
is stationary. (although .... no I won't fling in that red herring)

Now .. the harp body is not as heavy as a brick wall (even my our
Renaissance is not that heavy, even Bobbie can lift it, (with a suitable
weight support belt))
This is where my theory gets a little hazy... (theoretical knowledge, not
the theory I have) In my opinion different materials absorb different
ranges of frequencies. They do this when coupled to a sound source. The
body is close coupled to the reed plate. The reed plate is vibrating (see
above). Therefore if the body is being excited by the reed plate it will
absorb some of the energy in some of the frequency bands and thus affect the
reed plate which is attached to the reed and the reed will also have these
frequencies absorbed, drained away, reduced, altered by some weird mechanism
with a long mathematical formula.

IF this is true, and I have a gut feeling that it could be, this would
partly answer my own basic question as to why I get a 'better' sound (one
more pleasing to my particular taste (nearly wrote Tate's !!) ) when using
stainless than when using plastic. This may be why I hate the sound (when
~I~ am playing it) of the CX12, The CBH 12 and 16, the 280 (new and its
derivatives) and love the sound of the Hering, 270, Mellow tone, old wooden
bodied 280 etc... Now by pure coincedence all the ones I hate are airtight
and have plastic bodies. All the ones I love are air tight to leaky
depending on what day of the week it is, and have wooden bodies.
Call me partisan if you like, but I seem to like metal and wood rather than
plastic. (Don't really like the Silver Concerto... but that is because it
is such a damned awful instrument!)

Oh... BTW, I haven't finished the argument yet Vern, you will be glad to
know. This has just been on a part of the sentence quoted above.!!!

Douglas t