Participants: Antoine Lefebvre, Alexander Buckiewicz-Smith, Jonathan Abel and Gary Scavone

Funding: NSERC Discovery Grant

Period: 2005 - 2015

This research involved explorations with different techniques for measuring the linear acoustic response of wind instruments. CAML currently has a custom-built six-microphone impedance probe (zProbe) designed by former student Antoine Lefebvre, as well as the CapteurZ impedance measurement system from CTTM, Le Mans, France (designed by Jean-Pierre Dalmont).

The software interface for the zProbe system was ported to run in Matlab and a variety of useful functions for the processing and analysis of acoustic data are still being developed.

Previous research concerned an approach that combined elements of traditional “pulse reflectometry” with long-duration driving signals, such as swept sines. An apparatus was designed to measure shorter objects, such as saxophone mouthpieces and necks.

• Alexander Buckiewicz-Smith, "Methods for Measuring the Acoustic Response of Wind Instruments." M.A. thesis, McGill University, 2008. [2.2 MB]

• Lefebvre, A. and Scavone, G. (2008). "Input impedance measurements of conical acoustic systems using the two-microphone technique (A)." Journal of the Acoustical Soc. of America, Vol. 123, p. 3015, invited presentation (paper in Proceedings of the Acoustics '08 Conference).

• Lefebvre, A., Scavone, G., Abel, J. and Buckiewicz-Smith, A. “A Comparison of Impedance Measurements Using One and Two Microphones.” In Proceedings of the 2007 International Symposium on Musical Acoustics, Barcelona, Spain, September 2007.

• Lefebvre, A. and Scavone, G. (2006). "Input impedance measurements of alto saxophones with a calibration error analysis (A)." Journal of the Acoustical Soc. of America, Vol. 120, p. 3332, invited presentation.