hi all -
just wondering if anyone could help me out with the non-arduino side of a musical instrument design problem.
i'm designing an electro-acoustic vibraphone. instead of using air columns (resonator pipes) to amplify the metal bars, i want to use audio speakers.
the problem:
in order to resonate (and thus amplify the fundamental note of the vibrating metal bar) the sound waves traveling from the speaker need to arrive at the metal bar at precisely the right moment to complement its movement. if the sound waves from the speaker are out of sync with the vibrating bar, they might "cancel-out" the movement of the bar, therefore making the note sound "dead".
i can solve this problem in one of two ways. one way is to change the distance between the speaker and the bar, so that the sound waves arrive at the bar at precisely the right moment. i can't do this since i'm using one speaker between several notes, and i want to make the instrument compact.
second method: use some kind of audio delay, like this:
this is how i'd like the delay modules to work:
this way, i can "tune" the electronic resonator by adjusting the delay time so that the sound pressure levels from the speaker coincide with the bars' vibrations.
further problems:
- i don't know how to make a delay circuit like this, and
- i need many such delay modules, one for each note of the vibraphone, so they need to be cheap and easy to make.
is anyone able to suggest a suitable schematic, or point me in the right direction??
thanks!
jon