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36″ Electric Gong Preview

I’ve been experimenting with different ways to drive the 36″ wind gong that will be hanging in Austin Childrens Museum. I’m beginning to see the advantages of using a non-contact electromagnetic drive. The basic idea is to bring an energized coil of wire near a magnet stuck on the gong. The stronger the magnetic fields, the better. That means lots of watts, heatsinks, and neodymium supermagnets. It works pretty well in the lab. I expect it to be durable in the real world as well because of its minimal nature.

36″ wind gong - electromagnetic drive

Here’s a short, layered composition of recordings of some of the deeper resonances. The lowest is 40Hz, so check your subwoofer. How about those intervals?