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Hands-On-Physics
WAVES
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Core
Project
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- Introduction -
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Background:
Making music is one of the great human pleasures. Designing and building
musical instruments has been a noble human activity since before recorded
history, and there's always someone trying to make a better one. In any
age the best technology available has been applied to music making. Fine
wood working for violins, brass forming for trumpets and horns, and then
complicated mechanical systems for pianos and organs. In our era, electronics
has been pressed into the service of music making. The 555 timer chip can
be a starting point for building a "musical" instrument. Build
a "synthesizer" as this Core Project.
Questions:
- Which electronic components control the frequency produced by the
Tone Generator?
- In what way is the frequency changed when the value of one of these
electronic component is increased?
- How can the volume be increased?
- Is the timbre the same for all frequencies?
- How can a variety of notes be produced?
- Can several notes be generated at the same time?
Performance Criteria
- If you want to control the sound produced by your
Tone Generator, you need to establish performance criteria
- What pitch should it produce? If you would like to create musical
note, you must find out the frequency of that note.
- How loud must the sound be? Perhaps you will have to use an amplifier.
- You may think of others.
The design presented here has been tested and it works. There are many ways
to control the frequency which a 555 timer chip produces. Can you improve
the design?
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