Wind Chime Length Calculator (2022)

6 days ago (snyderfamily.com)

Tuning matters! After my daughter complained about how the toms on her new drums sounded like crap, I bought a Tune-Bot (drum tuner), asked Gemini to help me make her toms sound like Dirty Loops, and got busy.

A few hours later, she pronounced them to be "not bad". Win! I wasn't going to get higher praise out of a teenager anyway.

https://leehite.org/Chimes.htm is the best source of information I've found on chime design and length. They go into great length about the lower octaves and how you can hear them (or not).

  • The linked site acknowledges Lee Hite actually. I suspect it's not a crowded field :)

    The suspension point calc is particularly neat, I suppose putting it at a null node in the tube vibration so it doesn't damp it.

If I was tuning wind chimes, I would probably use Just intonation, not equal temperament because a wind chime play in different keys.

Exceptional circumstances excepted of course.

  • > Exceptional circumstances excepted of course.

    ECEOC?

    I have used 'BOCTAOE' (but of course there are obvious exceptions) in the past, but, guilt by association, kinda stopped all that.

The clanky sounds of cheap bamboo or the high pitched screeching of tiny metal chimes are not pleasant. I have two sets of tuned chimes in my garden that are 1" diameter. They both have 6 chimes that are tuned as a set, but they are also tuned when heard together. One set has longer chimes than the other, so when heard together the chords are much richer.

I know it sounds bougie as hell, but it's really quite a nice effect.

  • Do they stay (relatively) in tune with temperature changes?

    • That seems like an argument for using the same material. Different metals will expand more or less with temperature variations. If they all chance a fixed percentage the tonal ratios should be preserved.

    • I'm in Texas, so we have warm, hot, hotter. I've never noticed a difference from temp changes. Whether it has an effect or not, I haven't noticed.