I’d imagine permanent magnets would be involved, which could alter the character of the tones, but i feel like the trade off could be worth it if you had like five hundred thousand dollars to burn
There are arrangements of magnets that can levitate a steel ball bearing a certain distance above it. You could then imbed the ball bearing in the tone board. since the resonators themselves aren’t touching (never mind fixed to) the tone board, it should be possible to do, if finicky.
There’s two problems I see. First, it would require some fairly strong magnetic fields to achieve, and secondly, anything that’s going to keep your tone board constrained at the appropriate position is going to dampen the vibrations.
I disappointed i didn’t think of that. It’s still holding the keys, so it’ll interfere with the sound to some degree
what if you created a cradle for the keys, similar to the bands they float on? maybe something like a cloth tube (as for making the binding on a quilt,) capped off with 2 ball bearings. I suspect it won’t be any better than the current arrangement, but it might be.
Not a scientist, but I am guessing the magnets themselves will dampen the sound. When the magnet gap is compressed, the magnet will be pushing back, which dampens the motion, and when the magnet gap is uncompressed gravity will be pushing back. Also air resistance. Eventually those effects would dampen the system until it got back to equilibrium. The tone might last longer though, but depends on the tuning of the system.
I mean, technically it would probably work, although it might impede the performance of the resonators. I know it’s done with Glockenspiels, but you do have to be a bit careful, because not every tonal percussion instrument is just bars sitting in a tray and marimbas in particular have resonator tubes underneath each bar…
Good point, i totally forgot about the resonators (been a couple decades since marching band)
They’re made from wood
I know, I’m imagining permanent magnets embedded in the keys
