"Ringing" based on temp, humidity?

**Freddy23** · 10-03-2022, 03:13 PM

I've recently moved into a new home and hence have a new home studio.

On some days everything - my electric guitar plugged or unplugged, my digital piano - has a weird ringing quality to it almost as if you're hearing a recording made in the 1920s. There's a pulse to the notes that sounds awful. I'm pretty sure it's the room because I once taught in a studio that was that way all the time. In my home studio it's intermittent. I was thinking my room is too live but since the effect is intermittent I haven't done anything about it yet. Is this a temp/humidity thing? Would deadening the room minimize this on the days that it's occurring?

Thanks.

**whiskey02** · 10-04-2022, 09:52 PM

If you're playing under a ceiling fan..?

**Freddy23** · 10-04-2022, 10:23 PM

I am! What's the connection?

**pauln** · 10-04-2022, 10:42 PM

When the fan blades are spinning the sound is being reflected from them... but since they are in motion relative to the still air, the Doppler effect makes those reflections shift in pitch. The pitch shifts up in frequency when the blade is advancing on a sound wave, shifts down when retreating. Since there is a primary sound source, the blades will cyclically advance and retreat, and those pitch shifted reflections then maintain their acquired shift as they continue to bounce around the room, and into your ears.

**citizenk74** · 10-05-2022, 11:50 AM

Also, avoiding perfect parallel and perpendicular surfaces helds reduce standing waves. I slant everything I can - computer screen, amps, speakers - to that end. Hard on my obsessive tendencies, but worth the sacrifice. Leaving the door open to the well-packed clothes closet in one corner acts as sonic-sink, so that helps.

**Freddy23** · 10-05-2022, 05:59 PM

Thank you all for the great answers. I learned something today.

**RJVB** · 10-09-2022, 06:45 AM

Originally Posted by pauln

The pitch shifts up in frequency when the blade is advancing on a sound wave, shifts down when retreating.

Don't the blades either advance or retreat, depending on the direction the fan is turning? I always assumed a simpler explanation: when the fan turns it's as if part of the ceiling oscillates up and down, also creating a fluctuating air pressure (through which I suppose sound will travel faster).

**whiskey02** · 10-09-2022, 03:13 PM

Originally Posted by Freddy23

I am! What's the connection?

Sorry, I missed this. Sound waves travel through air, ceiling fan causes the other wise static air to swirl around, so when the sound waves from you guitar reach the flowing air in the room, the sound waves travel through bumpy disrupted air and this alters them. That's what you're hearing.

**ccroft** · 10-09-2022, 03:25 PM

Awesome trouble-shooting there Whiskey! I've heard the fan effect but didn't connect it to the OP's description.

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