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Engineering Brief

Evaluating the accuracy of musicians and sound engineers in performing a common drum tuning exercise

Authors: Toulson, Rob; Hardin, Marques

AES Convention 149 · Paper 629 · October 2020

Abstract

A listening test was conducted with particular relevance to the scenario of tuning a drumhead to have an equal or even overtone frequency response around the perimeter of the drum. If the sound of one drumhead location is identified as higher or lower frequency than another, then tuning adjustments can be made to achieve a uniform vibration profile. A subject group of 24 experienced musicians and sound engineers were asked to compare 18 pairs of A and B drumhead sounds. In total, only 45.4% of A-B comparisons were correctly identified as higher, lower or equal frequency.

Details

Published in
AES Convention 149
AES Convention
149
Paper number
629
Publication date
October 6, 2020
Session subject
Perception
Affiliation
RT60 Ltd, London, UK; Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK (See document for exact affiliation information.)
Type
Engineering Brief