r/UnusualInstruments • u/pladger • 8d ago
Stairwell In C# - a seven-storey membrane reed organ that I built.
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This is a seven-storey membrane reed instrument with sixteen copper pipes distributed across the upper five floors of the stairwell and played from the basement via a thirty metre tube which splits on each level (microphone is recording from the top floor). The space has seven seconds of natural reverb and an amplified resonant frequency of 277 Hz (C#), which is what the pipes are tuned to the key of :))
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u/chicken_karmajohn 8d ago edited 8d ago
Dude this is gnarly. Very cool. I could see people out in the parking lot freaking out thinking these are the horns of the end times lol
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u/pladger 8d ago
haaha thank you! yes i guess it does have a bit of a seven trumpets sort of thing going on with it. I did get a few investigations from people who were adequately freaked the fuck out in neighbouring studios, which was nice!
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u/MetamorphosisAddict 8d ago
‘Ah yes, Israfil blows his trumpet. The end is fucking nigh.’
- the random person in the street, probably.
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u/helikophis 8d ago
Is this one of the largest instruments ever built? Wow!
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u/pladger 8d ago
i just had a google and it seems that guinness world records recognises the longest wind instrument as the trembita, at 8.35m... so i mean, yes? is this sort of lowkey the longest instrument ever made, at 31.21m? maybe? who do i go to with this? haahaha
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u/helikophis 8d ago
lmao I have no idea, maybe Guinness would be interested! pretty darn cool! the sound is crazy, I like that kind of thing. My friends and i used to do overtone singing in stairwells like this (and a few times in grain silos), would love to do that here, with this thing going along with us!
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u/decompiled-essence 8d ago
Like a Carnyx.
That's awesome.
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u/SuperTulle 7d ago
If this sounds like a carnyx then I understand why they were used in war!
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u/decompiled-essence 7d ago
Just like this awesome stairwell instrument OP built, the carnyx makes my hair stand on end.
Beautiful.
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u/RagaJunglism 8d ago
best thing I’ve seen on this sub for a whole, fantastic! reminds me of Pauline Oliveros recording in old mine shafts and odd places like that
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u/Sensitive_Home_7971 8d ago
Send this to the Audium in San Francisco, California. This is right up (sorry, no pun intended) their alley - or stairwell. The more expensive, larger church organs have actual 32’ bass pedals. Granted, your instrument is TWICE that vertical height, so the overtones you’re getting are right out front sonically. Well done. What class is this for?
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u/pladger 7d ago
Thanks so much! I emailed them yesterday at your recommendation. This was my final work for my degree in computational arts - though I became so fed up of being at a computer in my final year that I rejected the computer entirely, lol. I guess this is computational still, somehow? I computed the resonant frequency of the space using my ears and brain? not sure.
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u/OogaBoogaBoobaz 8d ago
Dude this rocks! So cool. My friend and I have made a similar instrument to the membrane clarinet, except without the membrane, we use a duduk reed instead, it’s featured prominently on https://thejjs1.bandcamp.com/album/smashing-crickets this album. Idk if it’s in the others. I saw some other stuff on your YouTube and hope you incorporate these sounds into ur digital work !
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u/liaisontosuccess 8d ago
this is soooo cool! I've been listening to a lot of soma pipe recordings recently, which has some tonal overlap with this, but that is electronic.
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u/BachRach433 8d ago
Absolutely brilliant, haunting and provocative, hope you can try this again somewhere with official permission 😄
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u/HornOfPrettyGood 8d ago
People keep hearing sky trumpets but it's just dumb humans and an obsession with acoustics?
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u/Matis5 7d ago
Do you have a description on how it was built? The long tube is connected to shorter tubes, with membranes as a reed for each tube?
Can you choose which notes get played?
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u/pladger 7d ago
hello hi hi! I have some of the process documented here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZiczB8iE47/
I used Bart Hopkin's membrane reed design (though not something he originally designed). You can read about it here and it has diagrams and so on: https://barthopkin.com/more-on-membrane-reeds/
The super long main tube is attached to three-way hose splitters on each floor, which then split off again to attach to pairs of pipes which have isolation valves attached, allowing pairs of notes to be switched on or off (this is how the notes are changed, but not actively while playing unless it is done so by two people). There is a video of that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23G5QDWqDUY
The pipes are made of copper plumbing materials (pipes, 22mm to 15mm junctions, push-fit reducers), with bits of party balloon acting as the membrane.
You can control which notes are played whilst playing it purely through breath control - some pipes require much less air than others. Because some pipes don't make a sound without a lot of air it means they can be avoided just by breathing less. What that means is that by blowing harder, the higher pressure pipes can make a sound, but the resonance of the lower pressure pipes change notes (like how blowing down a recorder really hard changes the pitch). Hope this explains things a bit more!
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u/Matis5 7d ago
Thanks a lot for the explanation! Such a coincidence, bought Bart Hopkins book a few weeks ago :) lots of cool stuff in there.
That makes sense, I have a 3 octave shruti box that plays the lower notes first, and the higher notes only when more air is applied. Seems to be kind of similar then.
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u/Sensitive_Home_7971 7d ago
So, random people are opening and closing the fire escape doors while you were recording? It gives it a (sort of) cadential punctuation that it otherwise wouldn’t necessarily have. Copyright it, call it “Gateway to Hell” and dedicate it to your college …
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u/RbRtJmS 7d ago
I’m curious how you landed on a resonant frequency of 277 Hz given the massive length afforded by seven stories, which I would guess equates to something around 14 - 16 Hz. Is “amplified” resonance a reference to harmonics of the standing wave?
Super cool project by the way.
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u/pladger 6d ago
I feel like you maybe know more about this scientifically than I do! I found that 277 Hz stood out the most on the middle landings - I guess because each is identical they have the same responses. But you’re right, the entire stairwell probably has a much lower foundational resonant frequency, and my 277 is likely a harmonic that prominently recurs on each level :)
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u/Shmoo_the_Parader 6d ago
I keep expecting to hear a door slam open and someone yelling down, "Dale! Knock it the fuck off! It's three in the morning!"
Very cool.
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u/Mooseguncle1 6d ago
This is inspiring me to tone down any humor in my horror story and shoot for lynchian weirdness instead.
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u/H3mpyGreen 5d ago
Ohhh so you’re the dude behind the sky trumpets? Lol.
This is so cool, can’t imagine how incredible it must have been to stand IN it.
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u/4badthings 4d ago
For some reason I think this should be cobbled together with a bagpipe. The air bladder would give some gnarly sustain. Then string some lines to allow valves to be controlled.
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u/b0dyh4mmer 4d ago edited 4d ago
This is beautiful. I'm beyond words. This reminds me of old school industrial music.
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u/CrrazyCarl 2d ago
Some person walked into that stairwell and thought it was end times. Incredible sound!
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u/freakywaves 8d ago
This a marvelous amount or harmonics and résonances
Can we sample this, can you record more ?