The Steel Guitar Forum

It's been talked about before but it just bit me again today.
I'm tuning the 4th string open and there are beats. I say 'uh oh, this string is shot' and I'm just about to snip it off when I look up and remember that the ceiling fan is on for the first time this spring. I shut it down and observe that the beating slows down with the winding down blades. And disappears with the fan at a standstill. Definitely not an electrical issue. Purely acoustical. I'm sitting pretty much directly under the fan---I expect that if I move out of line of the direct reflections I can reduce, minimize or eliminate the effect. Or I can keep the fan off.
It's not mysterious or amazing but it still seems remarkable how something as innocuous as this can have such an affect.
Good thing I don't like the sound. Otherwise it would be yet one more thing I've got to carry and set up at gigs.

Jon...The motors on these fans add hum to the main electric line, also. If you are a fan of hum, these things sound like Johnny Cash on steroids.

I'm with you on that one. They drive me nuts.

Actually, I think, rather than reflections, it's a ripple effect in the air carrying the sound waves, caused by the fan's regular, rhythmic disturbance of the air mass. I've experienced the same thing from a box fan on the floor, though at a faster speed.

Jon - My amp isn't directly under the fan in my music room, but it still messes with the sound. I have to turn it off when I'm playing.

Lee

Well---it's an interesting question. My amp is not under the fan but I am. The fluctuation is audible even when the blade rpm is winding down to next to nil and the air disruption is negligible. Plus, the fan is running in reverse (pulling air up to the ceiling). All of this leads me to believe that it's a reflective acoustical thing. I definitely believe that Brint's observation is real----I expect that both physical factors exist, one more than the other in particular situations.

MY past experience with ceiling fans was it was hard to tune with one running over head or near by.Thats where an elcetronic tuner comes in handy.A fans motor is humming in some key.(cycles per second) like a tuning fork.So which string is out of tune?For instance if you are tuning your 4th string,is it really out or the one next to it?
I am repeating my self here but the best discription i ever read on electronic tuners (for a steel)
was a tuner is used to quickly retune to a tuning you decided on your on was an in tune sound.
A tuner for a six string or fiddle works putting the reading for every string on 440 which is not really 440.It is programed for the tempered tuning where a steel is tuned so many different ways.So you tune to where it sounds in tune to you and the band then write the readings down until you have them memorized to quickly retune to.This has always been a hassle with classical violinist as well.As was written in the same article,the human ear is very fickle.There will be times you cant seem to get in tune when you may really be in tune.Other times you may sound in tune to your self but are out of tune.Thus the term music theory.Wish i could explain this better.Tracy.

Maybe it is because of the change in temperature on the strings caused by the moving air from the fan and nothing electrical.
Larry Farrell

Yes, Jon. I've noticed the same thing. The fan can be just barely moving and the sound is also moving around. I'm sure it's an acoustic effect (or is that affect?), not electrical.

Jon, it is an interesting question. I am no physicist or acoustical engineer, so I'm merely speculating. Your idea that both reflection and air disturbance may be factors sounds reasonable to me.

I just tried a mini-"experiment" in which I turned on my ceiling fan to its highest speed, then turned it off and sat at the steel sounding long notes on the open fourth string, listening as the fan slowed down. It seemed to me (of course this is subjective perception) that the oscillation decreased not only in speed, but in intensity, depth, amplitude (don't know what to call it). If that perception was right, it might tend toward the "air disturbance" theory.
Or not--acoustics is an incredibly complex subject. Obviously, it's not really important, but it's fun to think about this kind of stuff (for me, anyway!).

Reflection phenomena are fascinating, too. I practice in the same room, with the steel and the amp in the same places, all the time. The double doors to the room are generally fully opened inward, against the wall. When one door is positioned at an angle away from the wall, the tone apparently, to the ear, originating from the amp changes!

You know, Brint--I think I agree with everything you've said.
In addition, your last observation actually takes this from a not very important anecdote to a more important fact----those sonic reflections do indeed have significant impact on tone. And of course since the tone we are talking about is the tone in the ear of the player, then this must mean that the tone in the ear of anyone else is going to vary depending on where they are situated. Which means how can you possibly nail down your sound when these other variables are part of the formula?
To answer my own question, I think that this discussion is all about bedroom picking. When you play in the world, you are playing at sound levels that totally alter the ratio of direct:reflected sound. If bedroom picking levels give you 70% direct-from-the-speaker sound and 30% reflected sound, bandstand levels give you 90% direct and 10% reflected. And then, of course, add the rest of the band and a room full of drunks and those double room doors half ajar don't contribute quite as much to the sonic profile. And I've played in bars in the middle of August with industrial fans cranking on full right next to me and the sonic disruption was the last thing on my mind.
I'm totally making this up. Anything there?

Amen, Jon. That's why my basic philosophy has become: Where tone or "sound" of one's own instrument/amp setup at gigs is concerned, some gigs you get lucky and it sounds great to you, and some gigs it doesn't--and who knows what it sounds like to the audience? Just do the best you can, and play, and hope for the best. Sure is sweet when you actually get the sound you want--savor it to the fullest, 'cause there's no telling when it'll happen again!

Here's the original post:
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/005698.html

It's nice that fan weather is back.

Jon do you have a hunter brand. My hunter is silent! and I have very high ceilings vaulted to be exact.

I cannot use my my Peterson VS-1 under my ceiling fan. I cannot get any of the strings to register with the built in mike.

I hate it. It's right up there with playing outside in freezing cold or playing with a swarm of mosquitos biting your hands and face while you're playing.The sound of the fan itself and the motor as well as any electrical ground hum can be zero and you still have the basic problem of the air being disturbed by the fan. It makes the room into a large warbling Leslie cabinet. I used to play a club in Long Beach with 3 large fans spread over the stage and the whole band sounded out of tune all night.I did that every Thursday for years. All you could do was get liquored up and play the blues.

I will try and explain what i was trying to get across a little more simple.A musician that has a good ear for tones will be bothered by the hum of a motor humming because it is humming a different key than they ae tuning to.Was reading once that a little girl who was born with perfect pitch could tell what key the vacuum cleaner was humming in.When i was young i could tune a fiddle to 440 by ear with out a tuning fork or pitch pipe.No way i could tune the 2nd string A to 440 sitting near a fan.This was years before electronics tuners,
For the ones with a tuner that has an out board mike hold it near a fan motor,etc and watch it read the freq it is humming in.You may be surprised.lol

change the fan

Even a Hunter will still stir the air; the hum may be gone, but the reflections from the tilted planes will cause a phase shifting at 1/4 or 1/5 the rotational speed.
It can create a nice effect, but for a piano tuner it's impossible.
It's why we have amps directly behind us--and don't walk in front of my amp.

Tony Prior :D wrote:change the fan

Maybe one that hums in the key you are trying to tune to.
ANd yes a fan can detune as it changes the tempt.Ain't this fun?

turn the fan off when you tune-up.

Just play the new (music?) and you do now have to tune up.End of problem.

We need to practice tuning and playing under a fan for about an 1 hr everyday so we get used to that out of tune sound that you get with most bands. Most of the time I have to retune during the first set somewhere between + or - 20 cents and then half the band will retune on the break and then etc. all over again. my solution tune up to 440 and use pitch sweep effect and set it to sweep -20 cents to + 20 cents.

Remember the Leslie? used often with a big Hammond organ. There is a fan inside the cabinet, that throws the sound around and around.

The fan pushes air around.

Trade off. Sound quality and comfort. Turn the fan off when tuning.

There is a fan inside the cabinet, that throws the sound around and around.

No, there is a motor that spins the speakers around and around.

Anyway, here's what I figure---if they can make machine guns that are sync'ed up to shoot between the blades of a plane's propellors, then I can learn to speed pick and place each note in between each pass of the fan blades. This would far and away be the simplest and most obvious solution and it is what I will do. End of story.