[sdiy] Brain filling in fundamental

[Andre Majorel]

On 2008-07-16 20:47 +0100, cheater cheater wrote:

> Isn't it that under a certain frequency certain to the object in
> question objects will stop vibrating at the fundamental but
> still 'pretend' to vibrate? Excuse my terrible language here,
> I'm not even sure how to explain this properly. I do believe
> that this is a less or more known phenomenon...
>
> Isn't that why electric bass guitars sound this 'harsh'

Harsh ? When unamplified, you mean ?

> - because the guitar body itself would have to be much larger to
> 'house' the fundamental?

It's the string that oscillates. The body just follows, and a
small body can be made to vibrate at 41 Hz, or 0.00041 Hz for that
matter, just as well as a large body.

The problem is that the "diameter" of the small body is small
compared to the wave length of 41 Hz in air (8.3 m) and as a
result, it is not good at making the air around it vibrate at that
frequency.

Now, if you place your head against the body of an electric bass,
you'll hear a very strong fundamental. Making contact with the
body eliminates the impedance mismatch at the body-air interface.

-- 
André Majorel <URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/>
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