To start with I know nothing about music but am building a 38 key xylophone for my sons outdoor garden. 1" stainless steel tubes, the longest tube is about 24" long.
I bought a little tuning device to measure the note and ajust the length of the tubes, the majority of the notes I can get right on but there are several that seem to float a little plus and a little minus of where they are supposed to be. I am looking for an acceptable tolerance level. The scale measures up to 50 points below and above the note. My largest tolerance so far is about 5 points, is this acceptable?
My son also suggested yesterday he may want to have the keys hanging vertical. When I drill the hole to hang them does the hole have to be in the vibration node?
I assume by “points” you mean “cents” (hundredths of a half step). Most people can’t tell the difference at 5 cents. It’s probably not good enough for an orchestral xylophone (this suggests that for piano tuners, one cent is the maximum “acceptable” variance for unisons), but for an outdoor garden, I’d think it would be fine.
I don’t know much about xylophones, but I assume you want to hang it from a node if you want to avoid damping.
Thanks for the quick response. I originaly had planned to have them laying flat and laid out like a marimba but my son has suggested we hang them vertical now.
I’d think you’ll get bigger variations than 5 cents/points from temperature changes alone, so working to get it closer than that probably isn’t worth it. But that’s a guess; I can’t find a study on the effect of temperature.
I set them up on a bed of light foam with no holes drilled. When I went back and rechecked them only 2 were not perfect. The tone is beautiful but stainless steel seems to just go on forever, it sounds a bit too churchy. I am going to experiemnt with the foam density of the bed they lie on to see if I can slightly deaden them.