Active control applied to simplified wind musical instrument

Musicians have always been interested in the evolution of their instruments. This evolution might be done either to adapt an instrument’s quality to musicians’ and composers’ needs, or to enable it to produce new sounds. In this study, we want to control the sound quality and playability of wind instruments, using active control. The active control makes it possible to modify the input impedance (frequency, gain, and damping) of these instruments and to modify the instrument’s quality. Simulations and first experiments on a simplified reed instrument are presented. We simulate a control of the modes (frequency, damping) of a cylinder using two different approaches: classic feedback and modal active control. Then, we apply these control methods on a simplified reed instrument with embedded microphone and speaker. Finally, the effects on sound and playability of the instrument is studied.