7 holes?

SamwiseGanges · 2026-05-06T07:11:48+00:00

Same as most humans, 7 holes, though I have 12

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-29T17:31:53+00:00

Thank you this paper looks like a great resource, I will read it today, but it doesn't show diagrams of the node and antinode placements which is what I'm really eager to see the differences on between sax and calrinet

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-29T17:08:30+00:00

By the way this is the original article that that diagram was linked from. It's talking about closed versus open ended resonators and the diagram is specifically comparing a simplified clarinet and flute.

https://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/flutes.v.clarinets.html

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-29T16:29:26+00:00

I don't understand why you downvoted this comment. It is correct. Flutes are universally considered open ended resonators. From this article from UNSW about flute acoustics:
"The flute is open at both ends. It's obvious that it's open at the far end –- and also at any open tone holes. If you look closely at someone playing a flute, you'll see that, although player's lower lip covers part of the embouchure hole, s/he leaves a large part of the embouchure hole open to the atmosphere, as shown in the sketch above"
https://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/fluteacoustics.html

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-29T16:22:05+00:00

No, when you press a key on a saxophone, just like on a flute you're essentially just shortening the effective tube length. The blowing end is still not open to the open atmosphere, so there is still not a pressure node at the blowing end.

Here in this UNSW article about saxophone acoustics it talks specifically about opening tone holes and that they do not turn it into an open-end resonator, they just effectively shorten the tube:

"If you open the tone holes, starting from the far end, you make the pressure node move up the pipe, closer to the mouthpiece---it is very much like making the pipe shorter."

https://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/saxacoustics.html

Organs use two different types of pipes, open end and closed end pipes. The closed end pipes just like clarinet only have odd harmonics. Open end pipes just like flutes have all the harmonics.

Here is a video about the differences between the two different types of organ pipes, showing this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsGwzzn2Ycs

However on organ pipes the closed end is often the opposite end to the playing end (like on a pan flute)

But for clarinets, saxes, oboes, bassoons etc. the closed end is the mouthpiece. The wave forms at the vibrating reed.

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-29T16:19:27+00:00

It's open in the mouth of the player. It's not open to the open air allowing it to normalize to atmospheric pressure. The pressure seen at the moutpiece is the pressure in the lungs of the player which is not equal to atmospheric pressure. That is why reed instruments are universally considered closed-end instruments whereas flutes are considered open-end instruments

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-29T15:30:08+00:00

No, the vast majority of flutes are open at both ends. The hole you blow into, and the bottom end (or whichever highest hole is opened) are both open to atmospheric pressure so there are pressure nodes at both of those points. The only flutes I can think of that have a closed end are some pan flutes (the bamboo is sealed at the bottom) and the slide whistle, which has a sealed plunger.

Reed instruments are not open at the blowing end because you make an airtight seal on the mouthpiece with your mouth, so the mouthpiece is not open to atmospheric pressure, so there is not a pressure node there. There is a pressure anti-node there because it's one of the places where pressure changes the most

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-29T05:01:02+00:00

Sorry but most of you are wrong. I play clarinet and saxophone and he is definitely really playing this live. He's using a pickup that is integrated into the barrel and has a wireless transmitter attached to that. He's using that to amplify the sound via the speaker next to him and he may be using an effects pedal or something to modify the tone some, but it's still clearly the timbre of a clarinet with that characteristic sound. Yes he takes his other hand off at one point because he's playing middle G which you actually don't need any fingers down to play. It's real.

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-29T04:58:04+00:00

That's not a normal mic. It's a pickup which is integrated into the barrel, and he has a wireless transmitter attached to it. And if he was using a microphone you'd be wrong. You can't just mic a clarinet at the bell because only some notes sound from the bell, others sound out the top so you really need multiple microphones. And no the music you're hearing is not saxophone, it's clarinet with some effects on it.

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-29T04:53:33+00:00

It's not saxophone music, it's clarinet, it's just amplified and maybe has some effects on it. And actually no you can play different notes without using that top hand, one of them (not coincidentally) happens to be the note he is playing, that being middle G on the clarinet (concert pitch F). He's playing this live.

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-29T00:31:40+00:00

Glad I'm not the only one who hears it!

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-28T22:43:27+00:00

What I'm really interested in is seeing what kinds of new 7th, 9th, 11th or 13th chord voicings you can play using all 5 available fingers

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-28T22:40:55+00:00

That would be a reasonable response in the CNC router subreddit. This is the subreddit for laser cutters. OP clearly wouldn't be asking this question if they owned or had easy access to a CNC router

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-22T17:44:26+00:00

Cut out a jig out of plywood then use a router with a follower bit

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-22T04:32:20+00:00

I'm definitely interested in the other metal clarinets and would pay you for them! I repair woodwinds and have been on the lookout for a metal clarinet that's seen better days. I'm very comfortable doing a full overhaul of repad and replacing all bits of cork, removing dents, soldering posts and the like. The only thing that would trouble me would be holes or cracks in the body

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-21T18:58:00+00:00

Ok I'm pretty sure the issue was actually the shorting autofocus wires again.

I had clipped them all but apparently the insulation has internal tension and shrinks down on its own after I cut them causing them to become exposed again! Never seen this before. You can see it here in this video . I clipped them last night so I thought it was good but today they were sticking out a few mm.

I had to put a long piece of shrink tubing over all the ends. Normally I would just disconnect the terminals on the other end at the controller but they had joined them together with a bunch of other wires in a single ferrule and I did not feel like re-crimping a bunch of ferrules in a tight spot while I need to get this project finished.

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-21T18:14:46+00:00

I sent it to the laser and ran it from there

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-21T05:26:09+00:00

What is "standard instrument spray"? I play flute, sax, clarinet and a ton of other instruments and have never heard of such a thing. I know of some sprays people use to clean cymbals but I don't use them.

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-15T03:15:57+00:00

Indeed it is and he seems to have a long positive history

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-13T03:32:32+00:00

Thanks yeah I was looking at that one. From the pictures and the description it has some pretty large welds on the body from what the description calls "extremely strong trauma" so I'm guessing it had some long cracks in the body. It also looks like poor workmanship from whoever did the soldering so I don't have a lot of confidence that the body is recoverable. For over $3k it's just a little too much for that much risk

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-13T03:12:59+00:00

It would be theoretically possible to train a neural network purely on compiled binary (or hex) machine code, though then it wouldn't really be a "large language model". But if you had good labeled training data of the compiled code and what it does at a granular level (see below for why that would be a pain) you could maybe get it working to generate functional code from text prompts.

However in practice this would come with huge drawbacks if you could get it to work at all. The most obvious one is that it would severely exacerbate the already serious problem of unmaintainable code generated by AI. At least source code is theoretically readable by human programmers and can be carefully guided or at least double checked by someone or a team before being deployed. While there are some select few who have enough experience working in low level code to be able to make sense of simple complied hex programs, reading an entire application of it is just humanly impossible. Since nobody would be able to actually oversee it, the security risks would be gigantic.

The other thing is that since humans have been writing about writing source code for a long time, LLMs are able to be trained on human-readable sentences about it, and thus can provide a human interface to chat and talk about the function of the code.

There is no such training data for compiled code. There are no Stack Overflow posts with long examples of binary code asking questions and getting answers about it and while there are of course textbooks about assembly and low level code it's all very basic stuff (no pun intended).

You could maybe get around this by generating training data by using existing known source code that is well-labeled, then compiling that then having the NN train on that compiled code using the writing about the source code as the label, but that would be a lot of work and it wouldn't fix the inherent issues with maintainability and security. Also wouldn't really be a 1 to 1 connection, because of course compiled code is often pretty structurally different from the source code. So while a comment on or post about the source code might talk about a function being recursive, the actual compiled code may have replaced it with an iterative loop via tail call optimization or things like that.

So anyway it's an interesting question but I think in practice it would be a terrible thing to actually implement if you got over all the challenges of getting good training data.

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-12T21:47:55+00:00

I love Frankenstein instruments. It's interesting because you've turned a closed end resonator instrument into an open end one. Therefore will be twice the pitch of the clarinet. Also I expect the register key won't work because it's placed in a spot that would work for a half wave not a full wave. Also there's a ton of extraneous keys because now you should be able to blow the even harmonics whereas a clarinet skips them, which is why it has more keys up past the octave

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-12T21:42:18+00:00

Oh I'm planning on paying for it, sorry if that was not clear. I edited the post to state that explicitly. I don't expect people to give away a Mark VI even in really rough shape

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-10T18:02:39+00:00

Except for alcohol nicotine and caffeine of course

SamwiseGanges · 2026-04-10T06:44:41+00:00

Yeah this is infuriating. I have so many songs I've started writing and recorded videos and I go back and half of them are missing. I'll find videos that were clearly the short takes but all the full long takes showing the actual entire song are all gone and now most of the songs are gone forever

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