Capturing the sound of reed instruments via measurement of reed strain

Abstract

The sound from reed instruments (such as the bagpipe or the clarinet) is conventionally captured using microphones. Microphones capture all sound regardless of source, making it a volatile choice in live settings, where background noise (e.g. from other instruments) is prominent. As such, an instrument pickup for reed instruments is desirable for use in settings where an isolated signal is required. There are few existing reed instrument pickups and their installation often involves permanent changes to the instrument. A novel reed instrument pickup is introduced, which uses a strain gauge mounted directly to the oscillating tongue as the sensing element. The pickup is compared against a measurement microphone and the results show that after a filtering stage, the pickup sounds good enough to compete with the microphone.