Passive String Terminations

International Standard Book Number — Click for https://mathworld.wolfram.com/ISBN.html

The Fourier transform of a signal is a frequency-domain function — Click for https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/mdft/

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A filter is said to be stable if its impulse response decays to zero as time goes to infinity — Click for https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/filters/Stability_Revisited.html

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In physics, a wave is an oscillation that propagates through a medium (space-time, gas, fluid, or solid) — Click for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave

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In the context of linear time-invariant filter analysis, a zero is a point in the complex s or z plane at which the transfer function goes to zero. A pole is a point in the s or z plane at which the transfer function goes to infinity. The s plane is used to analyze analog filters while the z plane is used for digital filters. — Click for https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/filters/Pole_Zero_Analysis_I.html

The velocity of an object is the time derivative of the object's displacement. Velocity is a commonly chosen wave variable in physical modeling. — Click for http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/Mohonk05/Ideal_Struck_String_Velocity.html

A force is required to change the momentum of an object. In the absence of external forces, momentum is conserved. For a mass m in flight, the momentum is m v, where v denotes the velocity of the mass. Newton's second law, F = m a, says that force equals mass times acceleration, i.e., force equals the time derivative of momentum. — Click for https://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Force.html

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The wave impedance in a propagation medium relates the force-related component of the wave motion to the displacement-related component of the motion. — Click for http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/OnePorts/Impedance.html

The wave impedance in a propagation medium is the force variable (such as pressure for acoustic waves) divided by the velocity variable. In ideal plane waves and traveling waves, the wave impedance is a real, positive number. For spherical waves in air, the wave impedance is different at each frequency. — Click for https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/OnePorts/Impedance.html

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Passive String Terminations

When a traveling wave reflects from the bridge of a real stringed instrument, the bridge moves, transmitting sound energy into the instrument body. How far the bridge moves is determined by the driving-point impedance of the bridge, denoted

. The driving-point impedance is the ratio of the Laplace-transform of the force on the bridge,

, divided by the velocity-of-motion that results,

. That is, $R_b(s)\isdeftext F_b(s)/V_b(s)$ .

For passive systems (i.e., for all unamplified acoustic musical instruments), the driving-point impedance

is positive real (a property defined and discussed in §C.11.2). Being positive real has strong implications on the nature of

. In particular, the phase of $R_b(j\omega)$ cannot exceed plus or minus

degrees at any frequency, and in the lossless case, all poles and zeros must interlace along the $j\omega$ axis. Another implication is that the reflectance of a passive bridge, as seen by traveling waves on the string, is a so-called Schur function (defined and discussed in §C.11); a Schur reflectance is a stable filter having gain not exceeding 1 at any frequency. In summary, a guitar bridge is passive if and only if its driving-point impedance is positive real and (equivalently) its reflectance is Schur. See §C.11 for a fuller discussion of this point.

$\displaystyle V(s,0) \equiv V_b(s) \isdefs \frac{F_b(s)}{R_b(s)} \eqsp -\frac{F(s,0)}{R_b(s)}.$

Passive String Terminations

``Physical Audio Signal Processing'', by Julius O. Smith III, W3K Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9745607-2-4 Copyright © 2024-06-28 by Julius O. Smith III Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University

``Physical Audio Signal Processing'', by Julius O. Smith III, W3K Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9745607-2-4
Copyright © 2024-06-28 by Julius O. Smith III
Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University