Peter Davey Heater

[edelind]

Cylinders, bells  and really all ringing things make their own harmonics but I've never tried to analyze them in a computer. It's what most people would hear as a timbre in the sound. I've always done it by ear by hearing what would be the root of the harmonic series. Maybe if you record it and post it up here I can listen and tell you what the frequency is. That (I think) is the frequency you want to be at an octave harmonic of your mains frequency. The other harmonics will be in the mains also but I think it's the main vibration we want because it will be the strongest. I could of course be completely wrong since I haven't started to experiment with this yet.

Here is the recorded sound:
http://www.overunity.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=get65

And attached here is the spectrum analysis from Audacity.
As you can see, it sees 3 first peeks at: 1619-1624Hz, 4165Hz and 7150Hz. So the main frequency seems to be 1620Hz (but it does not resonate on that emitted from speakers). I am really curious what you hear too.

Thanks

[storre]

It's a G but a little sharp. 1620Hz more or less If you are using 60Hz mains then you need to make the bell a little larger to get to 1920Hz. If you are using 50Hz mains then it needs to be 1600Hz so you would be very close and would just need to grind it down to get to 1600Hz.

If you want to test it to see if it works the way it is (1620Hz) then generate a loud frequency at 50.6Hz and move up a little up and down from that until the bell rings by itself after turning off the sound. You could also try 810, 405, 202, 101. If none of those produce a ring in the bell then slide up and down the frequency range until you find what rings it. Something else that just came to mind so you could do it visually is to suspend it (careful that you suspend it without hindering it's vibrations) and let the very end of the bell touch a bowl of water. Then maybe when you hit the right Hz with your oscillator it should show up in the water as vibrations. Just a guess but worth a try.

Something that I've never understood exactly is why Thrapp and Keeley talk about tuning to the dominant. The 5th is a very strong harmonic so it may be that we have to work with the 5th harmonic instead of the octave harmonic.

What size is this bell approximately? Near the size of the pictures of Davey's bell?

[edelind]

Thank you for the suggestions. I will test further and let you know (I have 50Hz here )

Regarding the 5th harmonic, I honestly does not know what this is exactly (maybe you brief us). My knowledge about resonance came not from music, but from self developing traditional theories. As our ancestors knew, everything is based on resonance in this Universe and works by getting energy from it when resonating. Following this theories, the human being is the most advanced OU device (when he resonates at his peeks, huge quantities of energy is drawn from the Universe into the inner being, making miracles possible). Anyway, my point is that all of those traditional (meaning old and proved) theories mostly use octave harmonic for getting resonance outside the base frequency. Maybe this is just the way things work. See some complex theory regarding octave harmonic, the law of 7 and the music at Gurdjieff.

The size of my bell is about 5-6cm (aprox. 2 inches) (almost identical with this one - using only the top cover: http://www.amazon.com/Dimension-Classic-Bicycle-Crown-Emblem/dp/B000WW206S )

[epeirce]

hello,
first time poster here.
as a musician, this topic really grabbed my interest. yes, if you tune your guitar properly, your low E string will make your high E string vibrate. it is two octaves higher. the b string will also vibrate and also the A string. this is what makes acoustic instruments sound so beautiful. but there is a couple things to consider:

1. on the guitar, the harmonics get more sharply out of tune as you move down the neck towards the nut. if you tune a piano, which has a much bigger range than piano, you don't tune the octaves exactly. in other words, your A above A 440 is not tuned 880. you tune it a little sharp. and as you work your way up the keyboard each note is tuned a little more sharper than the last. so...do we want the bells tuned exactly one or more octaves up or down or do we tune our bells like a piano? do we need to tune them to each other at all?

2. is 50hz a magic number for water? will 60hz do the same thing here in the states?

thanks,
e

[storre]

hello,
first time poster here.
as a musician, this topic really grabbed my interest. yes, if you tune your guitar properly, your low E string will make your high E string vibrate. it is two octaves higher. the b string will also vibrate and also the A string. this is what makes acoustic instruments sound so beautiful. but there is a couple things to consider:

1. on the guitar, the harmonics get more sharply out of tune as you move down the neck towards the nut. if you tune a piano, which has a much bigger range than piano, you don't tune the octaves exactly. in other words, your A above A 440 is not tuned 880. you tune it a little sharp. and as you work your way up the keyboard each note is tuned a little more sharper than the last. so...do we want the bells tuned exactly one or more octaves up or down or do we tune our bells like a piano? do we need to tune them to each other at all?

2. is 50hz a magic number for water? will 60hz do the same thing here in the states?

thanks,
e

One problem with the piano is it's designed to play in 12 keys so the intervals are not exactly according to perfect ratios unless you use 'just' tuning which a piano doesn't. I think this is partly why they stretch tune it. I also use to tune pianos and it's done this way to make the harmonics more harmonious I guess. It would just sound richer when tuned correctly but I think it's all a set of compromises to allow an instrument to play in all 12 keys. I think people's ears have mostly gotten use to it and I've wondered if some players compensate for it when playing solo or with a few other instruments that can be played in a more 'just' type of tuning such as fretless string instruments or wind instruments that have flexible tuning. Well getting off topic here a little but I think we need to just test these bells with the objective to get them to ring when hit with a lower frequency that I think is on octave harmonic but something I haven't confirmed yet with testing. As you say, it works clearly with pianos and guitars and for my ear it works best when they are exactly in tune either in unison or octaves. The second string seems to ring louder that closer it is in tune to the first string.

I don't think 50Hz is a magic number for water but I think the electricity connected to the bells needs to be in a frequency that some how matches the natural frequency of the bell. So far we are assuming that it's an octave relation since his bells seem to be 1600Hz or the 5th octave of 50Hz but there could be more to it than this. Maybe 50Hz will connect with another upper frequency/different harmonic better. Maybe something to what we keep hearing Keeley and Thrapp say "tuned to the dominant". I know the dominant chord in music really strongly pulls to the tonic or root of the song so maybe that is our ears way of hearing what might be a strong attraction of the 5th/dominant harmonic to the root.

What I plan to do when I get my bells is start testing as if it's an octave relation but if it doesn't work then I will try them all until one causes it to ring the loudest and then try to figure out what the ratio is between the two frequencies. Then we can make it work at any mains frequency or any frequency if you want to generate your own via electronics.