The Javanese Gong Sound Characteristics

The purpose of this research is to get complete information related to sound of Javanese gamelan gong. That information consists of fundamental frequency, harmonic, amplitude decay for each frequency component and time domain signal envelope. Those parameters are extracted from time and frequency domain analysis. The sounds are taken from three big gongs which 1 meter in diameter. The gongs are a part of Javanese Gamelan Instruments and made from bronze material. Data collection for each Gong was taken out three times using a TASCAM DR-05 recording device. The frequency spectrum shows that three Gongs produce the fundamental frequencies around 49Hz and the first harmonic frequency around 98Hz. The first harmonic frequency for each gong has higher magnitude than the fundamental frequency. The time domain signal envelope is mostly determined by fundamental and the first harmonic frequency. Moreover, using non-linear regression, the mathematical model for the signal envelope can be approached as polynomial and exponential equations.