Simulating musical instruments with tuning forks

[Isaiah Gray]

Hi,

Would it be possible to simulate the sound of a musical instrument such as a clarinet by finding the Fourier series of the waveform and then hitting a bunch of tuning forks with the corresponding frequencies and amplitudes?

 

[Vanadium 50]

No. The amplitude of the Fourier components is not constant.

 

[Bobbywhy]

No way can tuning forks simulate the sound of a clarinet...or any other instrument. Each tuning fork vibrates at one pure frequency, whereas an instrument generates many different complex harmonics while "playing one note".

For a great overview of musical instrument acoustical characteristics see this Wiki article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_acoustics

For a really detailed analysis of the mathematics, including how Fourier transforms are used to analyze sound, see: “Time-Frequency Analysis of Musical Instruments”

www.uwec.edu/walkerjs/media/38228 [1].pdf

 

[AlephZero]

No way can tuning forks simulate the sound of a clarinet...or any other instrument. Each tuning fork vibrates at one pure frequency, whereas an instrument generates many different complex harmonics while "playing one note".

The OP's version of this idea is too simplistic, but it certainly can be made to work, and there are plenty of commercial products that use it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additive_synthesis