Patent Application
20210043178
This application claims the priority of Germany Utility Model Application, Serial No. 20 2019 104 371.7, filed Aug. 8, 2019, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety as if filly set forth herein.
The invention relates to a cymbal pickup apparatus used for faithful pickup of the tone of a traditional cymbal.
Normally, the sound of a drum kit, in particular at large concerts, is picked up by means of microphones and electrically amplified. The problem is that the individual microphones capture not just one but rather usually multiple sound sources at different levels, which means that accurate mixing of the drum sound, in particular across the different types of cymbals, is difficult in practice.
The prior art, such as for example EP 3 428 912 A1, discloses electric cymbal apparatuses in which an impact-sensitive area is coupled to a piezo sensor that captures the impact of a drumstick on the striking surface and triggers the generation of a synthetic cymbal sound from an appropriate tone generation unit. This has nothing to do with the capture and forwarding of a natural cymbal tone.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,920 discloses the use of a piezoelectric device in combination with a drum skin, wherein the vibration of the drum skin is captured and a corresponding electrical signal is forwarded to a preamplifier.
The invention is thus based on an object of providing a cymbal pickup apparatus by means of which the natural tone of a cymbal can be picked up directly without using a microphone and converted into an electrical signal representative of the cymbal sound.
This object is achieved by a cymbal pickup apparatus having the following characterizing features:
The pickup apparatus according to the invention has, despite its simplicity, been found to be particularly well suited to direct pickup of the cymbal tone with conversion into an electrical signal, so that it is possible to move away from the standard microphones for electrically amplifying the cymbal tone. The pickup apparatus is realizable in such small and compact fashion that attaching it to the cymbal, preferably by means of an adhesive layer on the contact wall, does not lead to a noticeable change of tone. Furthermore, the detachable connection of the signal cable means that the latter can be taken off and the actual pickup apparatus can remain permanently mounted on the cymbal. On a tour, for example, it is therefore no problem to pack the cymbals in appropriate cases without cable tangle, to dismantle them and set them up and accordingly to easily cable them after setup for a concert.
As such, the sound transducer is preferably a piezoelectric sound transducer, as is fundamentally already known per se for picking up a trigger signal from percussion instruments. In the present case, however, no such trigger signal, but rather an electrical signal representative of the cymbal sound, is generated by the sound transducer.
In order to mechanically decouple the sound transducers from the connection device, there is provision for an internal cable in the housing.
According to a further preferred embodiment, the contact wall and the housing are in the form of electrically connected, for example by soldering, metal parts that can therefore act as the earth terminal of the pickup apparatus.
A particularly clever embodiment of the connection device in terms of use is that it is in the form of a magnetic coupling to the signal cable. The latter can therefore easily be removed by overcoming the usual magnetic force between the coupling parts, which is high at short intervals, but reliably holds onto the connection device during playing precisely by virtue of this high magnetic force.
An embodiment of this connection device that is advantageous in terms of design provides for an annular magnetic earth contact, which is electrically connected to the housing, and a central, preferably pin-shaped, magnetic signal contact connected to the sound transducer and if necessary to the internal cable.
Good reproducibility of the cymbal sound by means of the pickup apparatus according to the invention is promoted by virtue of the housing being in the form of a domed hollow shell, the open side of which is sealed by the contact wall that has the sound transducer on the inner side.
Finally, the signal cable may be provided with a volume control for the electrical signal. This allows the percussionist to vary the volume of each individual cymbal individually, irrespective of the main gain at the mixing desk, and therefore to himself contribute to the balance of the drum sound.
Further features, details and advantages of the invention will emerge from the description of an exemplary embodiment below on the basis of the accompanying drawings.
As becomes clear from
Both the earth contact 9 and the signal contact 10 are produced from a permanent magnetic material, so that a signal cable 12 having a magnetic coupling 13 can be detachably mounted on the connection device 8 by means of the magnetic adhesive force. Said force is indeed large enough for the magnetic coupling 13 to be reliably fixed to the connection device 8 during normal playing, and thus for there to be reliably no possibility of the signal cable 12 falling off the housing 5 and thus a signal being interrupted. However, the adhesive force is also limited such that, when the magnetic coupling 13 is removed from the connection device 8, an adhesive bond between the housing 5 and the cymbal 1 in the form of the adhesive layer 14, indicated by dashes in
As is evident from
Arranged at the end of the signal cable 12 that is remote from the magnetic coupling 13 is a standard jack plug 24 for supplying the electrical signal to an amplifier or a mixing desk.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 2019 104 371.7 | Aug 2019 | DE | national |
