What is sound?

SOUND: Del lat. sonĭtus, infl. en su acentuación por ruido,

chirrido, rugido, etc.

1. The sensation produced by stimulation of the organs of hearing

by vibrations transmitted through the air or other medium.

2. Physics. mechanical vibrations transmitted through an elastic

medium, traveling in air at a speed of approximately 1087 ft.
(331 m) per second at sea level.
Structure of the Auditory System
The middle ear
The inner ear
From a physical point of view, sound is a vibration
of the molecules of a material, usually the air.
Hooke’s Law
F=-K·x
• F is the forcé oposing the movement.
• K is the elastic constant of the spring.
• x is the elongation of the spring
Simple Harmonic Motion
Trigonometry basics:
 f(t)=A·sin(w·t+f)
f(t) => f is a function in which t is a variable.
A => Is the amplitude of the oscilation.
Sin => Is the expression of the trigonometric function “sinus”
w => Is the angular velocity or “how fast it turns”
t => Time
f => Phase
And how does it sound?
Pure Tone 1000Hz
-18dBFS

Pure Tone 440Hz

-18dBFS

Pure Tone 440Hz

-6dBFS

White noise
Limits of the human hearing
Fourier Series
• Any periodic function can be expressed as the
ponderated addition of simple sinusoidal
functions of different frequencies.
• Thanks to this concept we can understand
any complex signal as formed by the addition
of many pure tones of different frequencies.

Jean Baptiste Joseph

Fourier (1768-1830)
 Espectrograma

Con un analizador de espectro podemos

analizar que harmónicos (sonidos puros)
contiene un sonido complejo tímbricamente
Links:
• Trigonometry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyhQnt5cgZs&feature=related
• SAM:
• http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/shm.html
• Musical Acoustic:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcHbm0vXFFE
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJijFXEAW4I
Waves
• Frequency
• Amplitude
• Direction of propagation
• Speed of propagation
• Medium of propagation:
electromagnetic waves,
gravitonal waves and
mechanical waves.
Types of mechanical waves
• Transversal waves

• Longitudinal Waves
 Propagación de ondas en el aire
Sound propagates as a transversal wave
Periodic compression of the air molecules.
Speed of propagation
• Depends on the médium it propagates
𝛾𝑅𝑇
𝑣=
Air 0º 331 m/s 𝑀
Air 20º 343 m/s
In the case of the air:
Air 40º 355 m/s
water 25º 1493 m/s g= 1,4 for the air (adiabatic dilatation coeficient)
R = 8,314 J/mol·K (universal gas constant)
Concrete 4000 m/s
T= 293,15 K (20 °C) (Temperature in Kelvin)
Steel 6100 m/s = 0,029 kg/mol for the air (molar mass of the gas)

• For each degree of increment, sound speed up aprox. 0,6 m/s.

Wavelength
• The wavelenght of a waves is the distance between two point with
the same phase.
• l = v·T = v/f
l => Wavelength
v => Speed of propagation
T => Periode
f => Frequency
Wavelength (II)
Wave interference

- Ex: Which is the wavelength of the A4, and the A5?

- Interference examples:
Waves propagation
• Waves can propagate as linear, planar or spherical ways.
• In any wave propagation there is a loss of energy: absorption.
• Loss of high frequencies.

Loss of energy density due

to the distance.
Waves propagation (II)
• Huygens principle: Every point on a wavefront is itself the source of
spherical wavelets, and the secondary wavelets emanating from
different points mutually interfere. Those wave have the same
frequency.
Waves propagation (III): reflection,
diffraction and refraction
• When a wavefront meets a change of medium, reflection, diffraction
and refraction occurs.
Type of reflections
Waves propagation (IV)
Diffraction: occurs when a wave encounters an obstacle. It is defined as the bending as the bending
of waves around the corners.

The size of the obstacle and the wavelenght Will determine

the behaviour of the wavefront:
If the obstacle size is bigger tan the wavelength then
diffraction occurs.
If the size of the obstacle is smaller tan the wavelength then
there is no effect on the wavefront. Diffraction refers to
various phenomena that occur when a wave encounters
an obstacle or opening. It is defined as the bending of
waves around the corners of an obstacle or through
an aperture into the region of geometrical shadow of the
obstacle/aperture. The diffracting object or aperture
effectively becomes a secondary source of
the propagating wave.
Waves propagation (V)
• Refraction: occurs when a wavefront meets a change of médium of propagation. It’s speed will
vary and therefore also the direction
Wave propagation(VI)
• Doppler effect: is the apparent change of pitch of a wave produced by
the relative movement of the sound source.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-
tymln0b1U&list=PLXyG7Q75hxNeMl4Y-AUH0ObmdWktvHC4d
Room acoustics(I)
Reverberation time (TR60):

• Excitamos una sala con un nivel de energía determinado.

• Si cortamos la fuente acústica abruptamente, el tiempo que tarda en decaer
la energía 60 dB se conoce como TR60.
36
What determines the reverberation time?

• Absortion coeficients of the room.

• The room size.
• Reverbration time depends on the frequency, as the absortion coeficients is a frequency
dependant magnitude.
• Tonal curve:
Cálculo del tiempo de reverberación

- Ecuación de Sabine:

V es el volumen de la sala
S es la superficie del material
𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑖𝑎 𝑛𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑙𝑒𝑗𝑎𝑑𝑎
a es el coeficiente de absorción 𝛼=
𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑖𝑎 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒

Wallace Clement Sabine (1868 – 1919)

 Absortion Coeficients for different materials and frequencies
Frecuencia
Material
125 250 500 1000 2000 4000
Ventana abierta 1 1 1 1 1 1
Hormigón 0,01 0,01 0,02 0,02 0,02 0,03
Placas perforadas de material poroso 0,44 0,57 0,74 0,93 0,75 0,76
Fieltro asbestos (1cm) - - 0,35 0,30 0,23 -
Fieltro de pelo y asbestos - - 0,38 0,55 0,46 -
Fieltros sobre pared (3cm) 0,13 0,41 0,56 0,69 0,65 0,49
Corcho (3 cm) 0,08 0,08 0,30 0,31 0,28 0,28
Corcho perforado y pegado a la pared 0,14 0,32 0,95 0,90 0,72 0,65
Tapices 0,14 0,35 0,55 0,75 0,70 0,60
Ladrillo visto 0,02 0,02 0,03 0,04 0,05 0,05
Enlucido de yeso sobre ladrillo 0,02 0,02 0,02 0,03 0,04 0,04
Idem sobre cemento 0,04 0,04 0,04 0,05 0,06 0,03
Enlucido de cal 0,04 0,05 0,06 0,08 0,04 0,06
Paneles de madera 0,10 0,11 0,10 0,08 0,08 0,11
Alfombra sobre cemento 0,04 0,04 0,08 0,12 0,03 0,10
Vidrio 0,04 0,04 0,03 0,03 0,02 0,02
Reverb and direct sound.
• Near field.
• Diffuse field.
• Critical distance
Which is the best reverberation time?
• Depends on the content (music, speech, etc) and taste!
• Some aprox. values:
• Speech: 0,7 seg.
• Chamber music: 1,5 seg.
• Choral music: 2,5 seg.
• Symphonic music: 2,0 seg.
• Polifonic music: 3 seg.
• “Modern music”: 1,5? -> Amplified music.
• Each musical piece is written for a certain acoustic.
General classification of the rooms:

• Depending on the usage:

• Use:
• Music
• Speech
• Science
• Mixed uses
• Variable acoustics
• Artificial acoustics
Hall types
And other acoustics