I guess because this will be my first post on THO I should intro myself. I am Dr. D.D. Hull, I am probably older than most and the only advantage of that is
I forgot
I am a retired Dentist and Have done lots of things in my 88 years so far.
I have pursued this slap vs oscillate thing for a long time. My idea about this started many years ago when I figured out that Mylar hitting the sound surface over time would surely wear out fairly quick. I joined with five other call makers in 2006 or 7 to find some one to make a study of this and we were able to enlist a Physics Proff at Coe College in Cedar Rapids Iowa by the name of James Cottingham to do a study on how the sound is made in a duck call.
James Cottingham has published a number of studies involving reeded instruments sound over the years so he is a qualified expert.
Cottingham and his students published at least two articles on the duck call study and I have those findings in PDF files that I will make available to anyone who would like to see them. Wade Carpenter and Stump both have these files too.
The published studies in 2008 established the conclusion that the reed does not contact the surface of the insert during sound production. Instead if it does touch the surface the sound stops.
The reed oscillates at a very high frequency to produce the sound.
There will always be those who for some reason or other find it unbelievable that the reed does not slap.
I find it kind of interesting that many, if not most call makers have never understood the real production of the sound.
The question of why do we care and what will the information amount to.
The answer to that is if we understand sound production then we may be able to figure out how to make it better and how we can be more consistent in what we do.
