The purpose of this experiment was to determine the most effective position and mass of a wolf tone eliminator for effectively suppressing the wolf so that it was undetectable to the human ear and, hopefully, completely suppressed.
All correctly-proportioned and good quality violoncellos create an unusual phenomenon called a wolf tone when a certain pitch on the instrument is played, and the pitch at which the wolf occurs differs between instruments. On a well-crafted violoncello, this tone usually is found between 170 and 190 Hz, or between an E or an F# on the g-string (Beament & Unwin, 2002). This note can sound scratchy, wobbly, like a howling animal, have harmonic overtones, or can jump to another pitch altogether when bowed. Another …show more content…
The suppressors were adjustable and could easily be slid up and down the string, as well as turned for maximum effect. These suppressors were known for the best quality tone, as the design was carefully crafted to keep the brass from making contact with the string so important overtones and harmonics were not removed. The other reason this model was selected was because of the different weights, which is unique only to this design. Also the low price of the suppressor was ideal, as many wolf suppressors are upwards of 100 dollars.
The main source of data in this experiment was gathered from an electronic frequency counter and an oscilloscope. Frequencies of the wolf tone pitch were recorded using the frequency counter and they were used as the raw data. The most successful wolf tone suppressor was the one whose frequency calculated by the frequency counter was the same as or the closest to the frequency of the actual pitch itself. The oscilloscope was used as a visual representation of the wolf tone’s frequency and to visualize the actual sound waves of the wolf tones
All correctly-proportioned and good quality violoncellos create an unusual phenomenon called a wolf tone when a certain pitch on the instrument is played, and the pitch at which the wolf occurs differs between instruments. On a well-crafted violoncello, this tone usually is found between 170 and 190 Hz, or between an E or an F# on the g-string (Beament & Unwin, 2002). This note can sound scratchy, wobbly, like a howling animal, have harmonic overtones, or can jump to another pitch altogether when bowed. Another …show more content…
The suppressors were adjustable and could easily be slid up and down the string, as well as turned for maximum effect. These suppressors were known for the best quality tone, as the design was carefully crafted to keep the brass from making contact with the string so important overtones and harmonics were not removed. The other reason this model was selected was because of the different weights, which is unique only to this design. Also the low price of the suppressor was ideal, as many wolf suppressors are upwards of 100 dollars.
The main source of data in this experiment was gathered from an electronic frequency counter and an oscilloscope. Frequencies of the wolf tone pitch were recorded using the frequency counter and they were used as the raw data. The most successful wolf tone suppressor was the one whose frequency calculated by the frequency counter was the same as or the closest to the frequency of the actual pitch itself. The oscilloscope was used as a visual representation of the wolf tone’s frequency and to visualize the actual sound waves of the wolf tones