Blog Entry

Fonoptera instrument

Dot matrix printer heads are very soft sounding. They are not powerful at all. The loud irritating noise we hear when they print away is mainly due to the printer enclosure, which serves as a resonator. The fact that the printhead actually hits the paper is another important factor in the amplification of the sound. Once the printhead is removed from the printer enclosure, the loudness is gone. Since I was not interested at all in keeping the enclosure of the printer, I needed to find an elegant way to recover the amplification provided by the enclosure. After trying a couple different things I ended up with the design in the image. It is essentially a double resonator: the first and most important is the plastic membrane/cone. The prinhead hits the membrane projecting the sound forward, exactly like a drum. The other part is the wooden base to which the printhead is attached.

Fonoptera instrument

Posted on:
2009.12.13 -0600

Tags:
Fonoptera , music , Tepozchiquilichtli