In the fourth week of the research project at UNSW (July 23rd to 29) we did two sets of tests on a standard-system contrabassoon: a set of impedance tests and a set of live recorded samples. This made for a very intense week! Noriko Shimada, who plays contrabassoon in the Sydney Symphony was very kind to loan her instrument to us to do these tests. (Thank you Noriko!) I did two days of recording samples, but then discovered after the fact that one day’s recordings had a persistent hum in it, due to a microphone wire being positioned too close to a wall socket and the electrical grid behind the wall. I really wanted a clean set of data on the standard system contra so I spent another day re-recording an entire day’s worth of samples. Fortunately the impedance tests went very smoothly, thanks to Chen Jer Ming and his lightning speed with the computer.
At the end of the day of the impedance tests on the standard contra, we set up my instrument again and ran another set of tests documenting what happens when you reduce the size of a register hole. The machine shop had made a couple of tiny inserts for one of my register holes, which reduced the size of the hole. We ended up with a dozen impedance spectra charts which showed very distinctive results. These inserts will make for an interesting study, all on its own.
In the meantime I had been working up some charts of analysis using John Smith’s special program in Mathematica. With his help, I was getting more adept at using the program, and he offered that he could make it reveal even more things!
During this time there were four different projects going on at the same time in the lab, and it was a busy place. The computer work stations were always occupied. Sometimes it was even a bit chaotic, but there was a tremendous amount of work getting done. Joe Wolfe always kept a well-stocked bowl of fruit in the central hallway, which was very welcome whenever my energy level sagged, and a fresh cup of coffee was never more than two minutes away. Thanks for that, Joe!
In the off-hours, I was working on making arrangements for a car trip around Southeastern Australia with Anne my wife, who was due to arrive on Tuesday of the next week. In addition, the final week of the Tour de France was going on, and the Pyrenees mountain stages and the dramatic Time Trial on the penultimate day were very exciting to watch live on late night TV. The weather also warmed up during this week, classes started at UNSW, and it felt like spring!
No comments:
Post a Comment