Sound tutorial question

[deleted-84504]

I am trying to see if the price of a stand-up or bass viol will effect it's sound qualities.
What are some tutorials that you would recommend, any tutorial about analyzing sound waves? Right now my biggest issue is how I should compare the sound waves for the individual basses. Any Guidance is welcome!

Thanks!

[kgudger]

Hi - I hope you saw Craig's excellent advice in this post: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... 93c4080073.
I think you want to look up tutorials on how to read a spectrogram. Here's one: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~robh/howto.html. Here's the Wikipedia entry on spectrograms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrogram. If you're looking for something more basic about sound waves in general, try this: http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/sound.htm.
Let us know if you have more specific questions.

Keith

[deleted-84504]

thanks so much!

[deleted-71588]

By stand up bass violin are you referring to an electronic "stick" bass or a traditional accoustic instrument?

For an accoustic instrument, the person who fine tunes the final assembly (adjusts the thickness of the top to set the resonant frequency of the chamber, fits the bridge, places the sound post, etc) along with the choice of the strings can make a huge difference in the way two otherwise identical instruments coming off the production line sound. In other words, two instruments that have identical cost can have a significantly different sound.

For an electronic stick base, the strings, the pickup, and the electronics have the biggest effect on the sound. A large part of the cost of these electronic versions is related to how many are produced from the same parts and how adjustable the design is. It usually works out that the more adjustable the design, the higher the cost and the lower the yearly production. There are people that make a living by only doing customization of these for professional musicians and it is their time and their rates are based on what their experience allows them to charge that runs up the costs of the very high end instruments; however, that is a large part of what gives the professional musician a unique sound.

Sound quality of musical instruments is highly subjective and some professional musicians will have more than one instrument and choose which one they use for playing different songs.

I'm not sure how you are going to be able to afford enough instruments to get sufficient data points to statistically prove your hypothesis.

[deleted-84504]

For your last question I am borrowing basses from a very nice shop. For your other questions I am going to use a spectrogram to measure the sound waves, and compare the overtones and such.

Thanks!