[sdiy] (simple) musique mechanique

[WeAreAs1 at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/8/04 1:01:24 PM, tparkhurst at siliconbandwidth.com writes:

<< 
NOW, the point I'm trying to make with all this is: I'm thinking your
striker should be set up so that it "snaps" the stick at the drum head, and
the stick is spring loaded to pull back. In other words, the solenoid should
not push the stick down AND then pull it back. >>

Hello Tim,

Of course you're absolutely right about how the stick should contact the drum 
surface and immediately bounce off.   I could be wrong here, but from looking 
at the pictures of his drum striker mechanism, it looks to me that he's 
already doing what you suggest.  It looks like he's got the stick balanced at a 
fulcrum point with the solenoid just behind the fulcrum (pushing up on the stick) 
and a spring in front of the fulcrum point (also pushing up on the stick).  
The solenoid kind of acts like the pinkie and ring fingers of a drummer who is 
playing with "matched grip" technique (or the right hand of a drummer using 
"French grip").  The same drummer's middle finger is the fulcrum point, and his 
thumb and forefinger act as the return spring (go ahead, grab a stick or 
pencil and try it in your right hand to visualize this).

Of course, this just might be my eyes playing tricks on me.  The pictures 
aren't really clear or close enough to show details of the mechanism.  Hopefully, 
Bobby will step up and clarify this for us.  It's not really a trivial thing 
to accurately emulate the way a musician would strike a drum, is it?  I guess 
that's why acoustic piano actions are such complicated (and clever) little 
engineering marvels!

Michael Bacich