Documentation to Introduction to Analog Circuits by Zakhar Komarov-Zelinskii
Introduction
This is my final project to subject module “Introduction to Analog Circuits” , a course during which we were introduced to the fundamentals of electrical engineering, including electric circuits and oscillators. My initial idea was to implement the concept of spring reverb in my own vision.
Idea and Inspirations
As the concept of spring reverb isn’t remotely new, it was invented in 1939 by Laurens Hammond. It’s a set of springs mounted inside a box, that can be used to not only apply an effect of “metallic springs” , that can be applied on the existing composition, etc., but also it can produce this effect as a standalone sound. The goal of this project to me is to find a way to present my vision of a completely different use case to spring reverb. With this in mind began my search for an interesting new concept, and with each india i was asking myself figuratively speaking “How does this idea sounds to me?” Maybe it’s ambitious to try to express any idea through a sound, but I believe the limitations are where the artistic vision of an individual is to be found, so I decided to play with this question and came up with this concept : A Violet bin, with the spring reverb in it, with multiple different springs, which I believed would produce different sounds alterations on it’s own upon triggering them with a piece of paper or carton, or any material that suits persons idea best. I thought that by triggering different springs with different materials it would produce a unique sound that gives the idea a different form of expression - sound. Violet bin is also a reimagining of the recycle system in Germany, and answers to a long life question, where our ideas are ending up.
Here is my visualization of this concept:
I chose violet as the color for the bin, because it has an association among other things with ambition and individualism, those in my opinion suit this concept, because what are ideas without these two components? Inside the violet bin I decided to put a wooden box to hold my future construction together(Speaker with couple springs attached in different directions in the middle part of the box and amplifiers at the bottom left. There should be also the battery and piezo element on this sketch, but i didn’t thought through it on this stage.
Principle of work/Example of the interaction
A person can write his idea on a material, for example a piece of paper or carton or anything else, that is more suited to his vision of his idea and then throw it into the bin, which then interacts with different springs and produces a sound of this idea.This i thought would help by being not only unique way to trigger springs, but also with producing random sounds, by not being able to control which springs specifically would be triggered, because every idea is unique, so is the sound.
This concept according to my vision can provide only one thing - being a different way to view your own ideas, but it is rather debatable if this project can bring practically beneficial to anyone, except the purpose of entertainment.
The Process of making
These two pictures are from 1st stage prototype of the project, In those pictures you can see a speaker, that i got out an old speaker of mine, also there was a different more powerful amplifier that was connected to PC, and to piezo element, than headphones to PC, and 2nd part was connected to my phone to play music and it worked, it produced an metallic effect from the springs that could be heard through PC Headphones.
I took a bin that i found on the streets, and 3d printed those hooks to attach springs in it.
Than to the second stage of my prototype i decided to replace powerful amplifier with small one, and power it up with power adapter, but it was burned, and to this moment i don’t know how, because power was in required limits 1.8 - 12 W.
Photo of burned amplifier, but you can barely see it on this picture
2nd Prototype with 2 amplifiers powered from batteries to 1 i soldered a jack out for headphones, to the second i connected jack to jack cable to input and my phone, at this stage it was playing sounds/music to speakers, but in headphones there were no sound at all, i tried resoldering and checking for power, but nothing helped.
Reflections
- originally i didn’t fully understood how original spring reverb functions and that mislead me into thinking that, springs could be triggered by itself, producing standalone sounds, but for it to work like this, there should be implemented a different way to set it up, which i wasn’t able to figure out yet.
- I was going into this project with intention of using springs that were due to recycling and I even found some of the springs in metal dump in Weimar, but due to the being to strong i wasn’t able to use them.
- I planned to use my friend's 3d printer to construct my bin, but I didn't realize that it would take approximately 20 hours + and potentially many attempts on top of that. Due to those factors I decided to not burden my friend with this commitment, considering that even if i would be successful it would not represent my idea fully and only serve as a prototype, because in my original vision this bin would have real life size.
+ - During the process of construction my prototype i was able to deeper understand how things working, also it helped strengthen the material of the course in my mind, but in the end the little understanding i have still didn’t help me to finish my prototype, because i still don’t understand why it doesn’t work now, although it was working before. Acquired experience can be later used to help realize my future ideas.
Conclusion
Due to me still lacking knowledge in basic electronics, I wasn't able to finish even a functioning prototype, although it worked 1 time, for my idea it should work as a second example + something on top of this for it to be able to produce sounds standalone. My next step in this journey will be fixing my 2nd prototype and doing further research to understand how to fulfill this main function : standalone sounds. I really am aimed to finish fixing my 2nd prototype and putting it all together in my bin.
Literature
Article on Spring reverb: https://ledgernote.com/columns/studio-recording/spring-reverb/
Guide to DIY Spring reverb: https://www.instructables.com/DIY-Spring-Reverb/