Chime Frequencies
MikeS
Posts: 131
Does any one know of a couple of FREQOUT statements that would make a good chime tone? I want my digital clock app. to chime on the hour. I have tried many combinations and can not seem to find the right one. Being tone deaf and not very musically inclined doesnt help any. The boss (wife) says if it does not sound like a chime she does not want to hear it!
thanks in advance
Mike
thanks in advance
Mike
Comments
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Sid Weaver
Do you have a Stamp Tester?
http://hometown.aol.com/newzed/index.html
·
On a BS2 or BS2e the units of frequency are in Hertz and the time is one millisecond, so,
FREQOUT 0,500,440,441
FREQOUT 0,500,586,587
FREQOUT 0,500,660,661
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Tracy Allen
www.emesystems.com
Start:
FREQOUT 10,1200,440,449
·· PAUSE 200
·· FREQOUT 10,1200,660,669
·· PAUSE 200
·· FREQOUT 10,2000,500,509
·· PAUSE 2000
·· GOTO start
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Sid Weaver
Do you have a Stamp Tester?
http://hometown.aol.com/newzed/index.html
·
I was playing around with two frequencies that were very far apart with long durations. Mrs. S. will like these. I fed these into my LM386 Amp circuit and they sounded great.
Thanks again
Mike S.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Sid Weaver
Do you have a Stamp Tester?
http://hometown.aol.com/newzed/index.html
·
I did not write my post very well. Before I got help from you and Tracy I was trying Freqout statements with frequencies and durations that were way off the mark. You dont need to hear any of the noise I was generating.
The ones that sound great are the ones you and Tracy gave me.
Anyway, one of the techniques used by organ companies in some of the older models was to use four frequencies:· A root tone, a fifth, an ocatave, and a third above the octave (I think that's a fifteenth).· The fifteenth is used as the strike sound, which is heard as a brief pulse and then is gone;· the other three tones are mixed together with a decay effect.· The root tone was slightly higher in amplitude than the others.
Frequencies involved would be like this, if you were striking an "A" note
Root=A=440 hz
fifth=E=659.2551 hz
Octave=A=880 hz
Fifteenth=C#=1108.731 hz·
I hope this helps.· Even if it doesn't it's fun to show off.
·
Does the ear have a "persistance" the way an eye does? Could you, for example:
for x = 1 to 1000
freqout pin, 1, 440, 659 ' integer only in PBASIC
freqout pin, 1, 880, 1109
next
I've only got the piezo speaker that came my kits so that wouldn't be a good test. I can hardly hear anything out of it.
Jim
I had to look up the 'freqout' command to try to understand it a little better.· It sounds like this is a good start, although the tones may be out of tune just enough to irritate the most sensitive of our perfect-pitched friends.· There are a couple of points that should be made, though.
For a more faithful reproduction of the strike effect, the 1109hz tone needs to have a pin of its own because it does not have the same duration as the other tones.· Its duration should be on the order of 1/10 second, to simulate the sound of a metal clapper striking the bell.· Try hitting a glass of water with a spoon, and you'll hear that there is a very brief harmonic -- a "tink" -- that is generated when the two hard surfaces meet.
Secondly, for the other tones there needs to be a means of creating a decay.· I don't think one could count on an aural persistance to help create the effect for the listener.· A simple keying circuit can be made using diodes and capacitors, which is how I did it on the chime tone generator I built·20 years ago or so.· The diode acts as a switch that conducts the tones when it is forward biased, and blocks them when reverse biased.· When the "bell" is "struck," the capacitor is quickly charged and then allowed to slowly discharge through the diode, reducing the amplitude of the tone as the voltage level drops.· This is a really cool circuit.· If anyone's more interested in this I will look for it over the weekend and scan it and post it here.· I think I have it somewhere in an old Wurlitzer service manual.
I once used this technique on a product I designed a few years ago based on the Intel 8751 processor.· The product required·an alarm for different events, and each event needed to have a different alarm tone.· So the 8751 generated a frequency on one output, and then triggered the keying circuit on another output.· It worked great.·
There is an entire science devoted to the sound and casting of bells, it's called campanology (some may argue that the correct term is tintinabulation, but that word does not describe it within the context of a science).· Real bells have many more characteristics other than the four harmonics and strike tones·that are·described here.· The chime sound replicated in some of the older organs were pretty realistic, but some did not accurately reflect the many harmonics created by a ringing bell.· I remember seeing a Nova program many years ago on the subject.· The harmonics of a bell that is cast in the standard way create a sound that actually has a minor chord element to it.· Some psychologists (who really ought to get a life) felt that this minor tone in a bell had a subliminal depressive effect on the human mind.· Experiments were done casting bells that would contain a major chord element to their sounds.· The results were interesting.· The bells didn't sound real, at least not to me,·though there was a definite major harmonic.· Even stranger was that the bells looked bizarre.· There was a bulge around the girth of the bell about midway up, making the bell look pregnant.· I don't remember what the psychological response was.
Well, I guess I've showed off enough for today.
I too have a hard time not chuckling whenever I type FREQOUT.
I don't know about Mike, who started this thread, but I'd sure like to see the circuit. I have another project developing in the back of my mind which will need alarms. While some events will need "Hey you! Pay attention!!!" alarms, others will be more of an "oh, by the way" type. The later would be really nice if they were a pleasant tone or chime instead of an electronic beep.
Jim
I will certainly look for that this weekend and hopefully can post it on Monday. If I can't find it I still have just enough remembery to do a rough sketch, though the component values will not likely be on target, but you can play with those on your breadboard.
The product of which I spoke is one that was a upgrade from a previous similar product developed by an engineer who was no longer with the company. He used a simple oscillator to generate an electronic beep, like you spoke of, and being the arteest that I am, I always found it to be very annoying. When I had the opportunity to redesign the product, that was one of the first things I changed. It was one of the few things I did in the 13 years I was with that company that earned a mildly enthusiastic attaboy from my boss, but we won't go there.
The tone was not a full chime sound, like we have been discussing here... just a single tone on the order of a doorbell. The 8751 allowed me to vary not only the pitch but the strike rate, so you can have a wide range of notification urgencies. I think I just made up that word.
Check back here sometime Monday, I hope I will have the info you need.
Old redneck hillbilly born and raised on a redwood stump
Thank you for your efforts.
Jim