ECE 4760: Final Project

An Electronic Dhol

with Record/Playback

Ajay Phadke (aap67@cornell.edu) and Eashwar Rangarajan (er294@cornell.edu)

"An electronic version of a North Indian percussion isntrument with Record and playback capabilities."

project soundbyte

Introduction

For our final project, we decided to create an electronic version of the Dhol, a North Indian percussion instrument. The final design takes a traditional dhol and was modified to electronically produce three different sounds, as well as be able to record a drum sequence and have it play back, for learning purposes.

The drum utilizes several peripheral amplifiers and Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs) plus an Atmel AtMega644 to produce the different sounds. A drum hit is recorded when one of three independent force transducers are triggered by vibration, depending on which one was triggered, the corresponding sound is played.

For reference, we will be using the following vocabulary (below is an image clarifying this):
Dhagga – this is typically the “bass” side of the Dhol
Tilli – The “Treble” side of the Dhol

Stick – In our case, the “stick sound” will refer to the sound produced when the drummer hits the wooden top of the drum with his stick

 

Figure 1: The Electronic Dhol