Introduction

Greetings,

I just wanted to introduce myself to the class. My name is Matthew Carroll and I am a Masters student with Digital Worlds. I have bachelors degrees in both Computer Science and Mathematics. I'm with Digital Worlds to help gain some proficiency in creative media to compliment my software development skills.

When it comes to audio design I have zero experience. I played with Fruity Loops and Rebirth about 10 years ago but gave up very quickly. However, I do love techno music and hope that we can pick up some skills in that area this semester.

I read a bit about harmonics as requested but it seems the amount of it I understand has already been posted on this blog. There is one element, though, that might benefit from some clarification. We keep hearing this term "fundamental" and it wasn't clear to me what "fundamental" was. One finds that harmonics are multiples of this "fundamental" frequency - and a "harmonic series" is based on multiples of the fundamental frequency. In examples it seemed that the fundamental frequency was taken from nowhere - just some hypothetical number.

So I'd like to clarify how one arrives at a fundamental frequency. Consider a string. If you hold that string taught at both ends and pluck it, that string will vibrate in and out at some frequency - this frequency cannot be changed no matter how hard you pluck because its based on the length and type of the string. The longer the string, the more distance in its vibration, the lower its frequency. The shorter the string, the less distance in its vibration, the higher its frequency. Thus this "fundamental frequency" is that frequency at which a string will vibrate when held taught at both ends. However, this concept extends to other media as well - for example air in a cylinder has this concept of a fundamental frequency, and though I don't remember this for sure, my guess is that metal rods also have this fundamental vibration frequency (tuning forks?).

I hope that helps someone.

Matt