An Electroacoustically Controlled Vibrating Plate

Large vibrating plates are used as thunder sheets in orchestras. We have extended the use of flat plates by cementing aflat panel electroacoustic transducer on a large brass sheet.Because of the thickness of the panel, the output is subject tononlinear distortion. When combined with a real-time inputand signal processing algorithm, the active brass plate canbecome an effective musical instrument for performance ofnew music.