Week #3 - January 23rd - January 29th

Individual Log - Zach

Research this week was focused primarily into determining which MCU and display would be a good fit for project idea #1 (Tuner). Tentatively, I'm looking into the Arduino Uno (R3 or R4) paired with an Adafruit display. There have been numerous examples of this combination being used to implement RPM gauges, which would be similar to the needle gauge typically seen in instrument tuners. This combination has also been successfully used to create a spectrum analyzer. Some issues with the spectrum analyzer may be the amount of deviation between frequencies displayed on the screen in comparison with frequencies associated with note values, such that notes (particularly in lower octaves) have a finite bandwidth between them, and this may lead to the spectrum analyzer generating similar if not the same output for two separate notes.

To improve the uniqueness of this project, some discussion was held with other musicians in my network to gain insight into how tuning instruments could be improved. This discussion led to the implementation of a tuner capable of not only automatically tuning a piano using a servo, but also maintaining it for the duration of a performance. This would be done by the tuner analyzing the frequency of the string and determining if the pitch has flattened or sharpened by, hypothetically, five cents. In such a case, the tuner would correct the string tension to bring that string back into tune. Similar devices already exist, such as the "Roadie", but this is currently only compatible with guitar tuning heads [9]. Currently, there is only one automatic pitch correction device for pianos I've been able to find through research. This particular tuner uses no mechanical hardware, rather it uses IR light to read the oscillation of a string, convert it into an electrical signal, and uses this data to heat up the corresponding string so that it expands and causes the string to drop to the desired frequency. Some limitations with this concept are that the piano would still require a technician to properly tune the piano before using it, is only reliable for a certain range of cent deviation, and only masks the tuning issue rather than correcting it. Further research will be put into this idea following discussion with Dr. Ejaz in Weekly Meeting #4.

In addition to the above, light reading and refamiliarization of course material and the textbook from Linear Integrated Circuits class, "Operational Amplifiers and Linear Integrated Circuits", was done. The book itself contains viable information regarding signal amplification, filtering, and analog-to-digital conversion methods, and will be a primary focus should this project move forward.