The PRIZM Sound Board User's Manual
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and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
27
Resonant chamber
A little 28mm diameter speaker cannot compete with some Hi-Fi stereo system,
neither in term of quality, nor loudness. However, in order to maximize the volume of
the saber sound, a resonant chamber can be created in the hilt (same idea than the
bass reflex in a closed speaker).
To achieve this, make sure you have 1 or 2 cm of space (and therefore air) between
the speaker and the hilt cap or pommel. The saber is generally not totally full, the so
internal space of the hilt will make the back resonant chamber for the speaker which
will seriously contribute in increasing the volume.
This amplification with the resonant chamber technique is selective for a certain range
of frequencies (the bandwidth): the length of the chamber will determine the
timbre
of the saber. Try different configurations with an empty camera film box until you find
the desired sound coloration. To check the obtained volume before putting the whole
electronics in the hilt, circle the loud speaker between the thumb and the first finger
and curve the palm of your hand: it will create a quite accurate simulation of a short
frontal chamber and a bigger back resonant chamber.
For comparison purpose, a good resonant chamber and a volume set to the maximum
produces a sound volume twice to three times louder than a Hasbro™.
Browsing the sound banks – rebooting the saber
To browse the sound banks and select one, the user must use the auxiliary switch.
After the board has played the boot sound and while the blade is off, press the aux.
switch. After one second, the board will emit a beep. A second pressure on the
auxiliary switch will reboot the board and will jump to the next sound bank. If the user
was in bank 3 (and there are only 3 banks on the card), the board will automatically
go back to bank 1.
The double press system was initially designed to be fail-safe in case of an accidental
press on the aux. switch. If the user prefers to jump to the next font right after the
first press, set the
valsnd
parameter to
0
in
override.txt
.
Creating Your Own Sounds
It’s a great personal satisfaction to build up your own soundfont. Please read our
online tutorial about that particular topic.
