Pinging to identify note

[malcolmbebb]

I've heard of people pinging a reed to give a first check on tuning. This isn't much use to my untrained ears, but I wondered about the possibility of using a mic and an oscilloscope to observe the waveform of an unknown reed.

 

The amplitude seems to decay pretty quickly, but does anyone know whether the reed has time to settle to its final frequency in the length of a ping?

[wes williams]

Pinging is useful if you use it to compare against another reed (usually a musical fifth), so its similar to the way a piano tuner works. A scope wouldn't have the resolution you need. Its best to knock up a tuning bench of somekind, and buy a cheap tuner.

[malcolmbebb]

Thanks - I've got the cheap tuner (our local Lidl still have a few) - just the bench then... I can get my hands on a scope much more easily!

[michael sam wild]

On my melodeon it was always the way I did it before electronic tuners, that and a mental or sung use of a Do Re Mi scale in the particular key.

 

A friend who started working life as a tuning fork maker said they had some very talented 'by ear' tuners and Geoff Crabb said the same about reed tuners in the concertina making trade.

Edited December 15, 2010 by michael sam wild