Experiment Timbre and Pitch Analysis

Topics covered:

- Notion of pitch

- Notion of timbre

- Construction of a spectral representation

- Spectral analysis by Fourier transform

- Notion of harmonics

Principles and objectives:

Musical instruments produce complex sounds that are perceived by the human ear. By analogy with these instruments, the student configures the Spectrason and listens with a speaker to the sound result produced by the complex ouExperimentut. In 3 steps, the student will understand how to characterize a musical sound by its pitch and timbre. First, they acquire temporal data of simple sinusoidal signals to characterize them (amplitude, period, frequency).

Then, with the help of these temporal acquisitions and the dedicated sound module of the Atelier Scientifique software, they discover the principle of constructing a spectral analysis. Finally, they proceed to the spectral analysis of a complex signal or a real sample of a musical instrument and highlight that these signals differ in pitch and timbre.

Comments:

The dedicated Sound module of the Atelier Scientifique software includes an activity to characterize sounds produced by musical instruments with an adapter/sound sensor. It also includes real instrument samples and a new tool for comparing spectra to identify and compare the influential parameters in pitch and timbre.

- Spectrason (ref 222054) - Foxy 2 Console (ref 485000) - A.S. Sup Software (ref 000131)