Quantifying Hit and Feel by tone, pitch or harmonics of the cue

Thanks to all responding and reading along on my first thread

I wanted to say thank you to the posters in this thread as I have made some great contacts and had some really nice leads to follow. I am learning a lot about what is out there and finding out how incredible this community is.

This is what I meant to say in my longer posts hope this makes better sense for anyone that thought I was talking too much. :smile:

The shaft striking the cue ball is the source of the vibration like a struck piano key and the handle is more like the sounding board which can either amplify or in some cases mute the delivered vibration. I think most people when they refer to a cue that has that perfect feel have found a cue that has a vibration that compliments their own body’s ability to sense that vibration in an inoffensive way. I'm hoping to find a method to determine that vibration, resonance or tonal quality by representing what the cue will produce. I think this will make it easier for people to be able to find what compliments their senses and therefore be able to describe what they like by means of acceptable ranges of frequency or some other relevant measure.
 
hangemhigh said:
Here are some interesting questions:

Which is better for playability, 2 shafts weighing exactly the same or 2 shafts with equal tone? Can you have a disparity in weight and achieve equal playability? Which affects playability more, density or tonal characteristics?
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Nice questions. I would love to know the definitive answer to both of them:) Here's my best guess.

1) I would think 2 shafts with equal tone would be more important to playability than weight
2. If they have equal or close densities then I would think their tone might be similar.
3)Not sure on this one exactly, I would think that one sort of creates the other.
 
pooln8r said:
Nice questions. I would love to know the definitive answer to both of them:) Here's my best guess.

1) I would think 2 shafts with equal tone would be more important to playability than weight
2. If they have equal or close densities then I would think their tone might be similar.
3)Not sure on this one exactly, I would think that one sort of creates the other.
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I meant to use weight instead of density in the 3rd. question, makes a huge difference.
 
hangemhigh said:
I meant to use weight instead of density in the 3rd. question, makes a huge difference.
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Got ya. By the way thanks for throwing stuff like this out there.

my try at #3. I would think that tone would be more important as I've experienced that the weight perception on a cue can be manipulated by where the balance point is established.

I have a forward weighted cue that feels heavier than it is and a rear weighted cue that seems lighter than it is when shooting with them. If you hold them vertical you can clearly tell their weight difference but when shooting with them they feel about the same weight. The forward balanced one is only an 18.7 and the rear balanced one is a 21 ouncer. I've had quite a few people guess wrong on the weights of these cues. I should have opened a guess this cues weight booth..might have made some cash..lol
 
hey, what about something simple to measure shaft (or cue) resonance?

I was thinking a guitar tuning device. I'm going to try this out soon, a cheap portable one would fit in my cue case.

-s
 
steev said:
hey, what about something simple to measure shaft (or cue) resonance?

I was thinking a guitar tuning device. I'm going to try this out soon, a cheap portable one would fit in my cue case.

-s
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There is a problem with large variations of thickness or diameter from end to end.
 
hangemhigh said:
There is a problem with large variations of thickness or diameter from end to end.
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perhaps not if you always measure from the same point...i'm a scientist, man. i'll come up with something.

what i'd like to see measured is the damping, how fast the vibrations decrease. generally, the cues i've loved have all had high damping, IMO.

-s
 
steev said:
perhaps not if you always measure from the same point...i'm a scientist, man. i'll come up with something.

what i'd like to see measured is the damping, how fast the vibrations decrease. generally, the cues i've loved have all had high damping, IMO.

-s
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You can measure pressure waves that create reflection and the sound waves produced.
 
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hangemhigh said:
You can measure pressure waves that creat reflection and the sound waves produced.
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what i was suggesting is an empirical method using a readily available tool.

no physics needed.

tell ya what, i'll work on it on my own, and if it works, i'll sell you the idea.

-s
 
steev said:
what i was suggesting is an empirical method using a readily available tool.

no physics needed.

tell ya what, i'll work on it on my own, and if it works, i'll sell you the idea.

-s
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Good luck, those observations can be very rewarding.
 
Tokyo-dave said:
I seem to remember reading somewhere that Black Boar intonates their shafts and matches them with butts. I'm not sure what a 'match' would be, but being a musician formerly, I've often wondered that if you took a shaft that resonates a standard 440 A, and matched it with a butt that resonates in in unison or the same 440 A, thirds, fifths, or ocataves what would be the results. Or on the flip side, if you had a shaft that resonated at a standard middle C, and you tried to match it with a butt that resonated at a b, or a tone that is chromatically half a step off in either direction, it seems to me that you would be creating an unpleasant vibration and sound.
Make sense?
dave
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I would say that, once you connect shaft and butt, it is not going to produce a two tone chord but rather a different single note somewhere between the two (closer to the butt note I guess).

The best test would be to match different butts and shafts and see what combination produces the higher or lower notes and the longest and shortest vibration times (sustain).

Also, creating a harmonic-signature (main tone and significant harmonics) database of shafts (in a standard size) would help cuemakers to match shafts even more precisely than just by weight. Just a thought.
 
I think different wood would create different tones to begin with.

In Golf they use frequency analyzers

http://www.golfsmith.com/cm/products/236821

Since music (tones) comes from vibration of some kind...I suppose you could insert shafts into this machine and check the frequency...I would imagine that just like in golf there are ideal shaft frequencys based on stroke type.

I know there are charts for golfers...I am smart enough to read them.....but I am not smart enough to create one for pool shafts....It would take someone like Dr Dave or Mike Page to devolope something based on frequency.

Quite a bit of time money and R&D I would imagine.
 
BRKNRUN said:
I think different wood would create different tones to begin with.

In Golf they use frequency analyzers

http://www.golfsmith.com/cm/products/236821

Since music (tones) comes from vibration of some kind...I suppose you could insert shafts into this machine and check the frequency...I would imagine that just like in golf there are ideal shaft frequencys based on stroke type.

It is good this machine gives the option of measuring in Hertz.
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Both ideas the golf shaft analyzer and the instrument tuning device sound like viable testing devices. Didn't know about the golf shaft frequency analyzer.

Steev ----- I recently saw a digital guitar tuning device online on amazon for 15 to 25 bucks that tunes by vibration which can work in noisy environments and has a very wide range of frequency recognition. Is that the tuning device you're talking about? I didn't see if the display had a hertz readout but I would think it should. Not sure if this is the best device as it might not secure well to a cue but for that price I will most likely check it out. If it doesn't do what I want I can always give it to my nephew who is learning to play guitar :)
 
pooln8r said:
Steev ----- I recently saw a digital guitar tuning device online on amazon for 15 to 25 bucks that tunes by vibration which can work in noisy environments and has a very wide range of frequency recognition. Is that the tuning device you're talking about? I didn't see if the display had a hertz readout but I would think it should. Not sure if this is the best device as it might not secure well to a cue but for that price I will most likely check it out. If it doesn't do what I want I can always give it to my nephew who is learning to play guitar :)
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I've asked a guitar-playing friend to borrow one of his. He's got one that apparently clamps to the guitar neck, for acoustic guitar. I'll have it soon and the experiments will begin.

-s
 
steev said:
I've asked a guitar-playing friend to borrow one of his. He's got one that apparently clamps to the guitar neck, for acoustic guitar. I'll have it soon and the experiments will begin.

-s
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When those experiments begin...I'll be looking forward to the results and to hearing about how you set it up. I'm still waiting for the chromatic vibration based guitar tuning device that I ordered. How do you plan to get the cue vibrating for a measurement? I think the Tap method would work for testing the shaft and handle separately or together. I'm wondering if maybe shooting balls with a center ball hit and a very light grip with the cue attached to the measuring device at the same point from the tap method would work for a live action measurement. Anyway let us all know on here what you find and when I get mine I'll do the same.
 
pooln8r said:
I would like to see if anyone knows if this has been done before or if someone is working on it now and the details of what is going on in that effort. If I posted this in the wrong forum also please let me know as I wasn’t sure if this was the place or if the ask a cue maker would have been the spot....
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I haven't read any of the other posts, so forgive me.

Every cue I hit with, especially when someone (cue maker or buyer) asks me to hit with their cue, I check three things:

Pitch
Squirt
Vibration in my hand (or lack thereof)


And though I can't truly quantify the the three without equipment (and as an automation engineer, I can design any piece of equipment to quantify any of the three) the fact is that the obvious differences in tone do not make a difference in the feedback in my hand.

I've had cues that were, say, a G that had crappy vibration, while others with the same note that had what I would consider muted vibration.

That's all anectodal. Bottom line. I test tone by ear. I haven't seen a correlation. But, as all scientists should know, the act of measuring often screws up the parameter you're measuring. For example, a simple thermometer pulls heat away from the surrounding area therefore dropping the temperature. By trying to listen to the tone as I do, I have to put my ear to the wood, which would therefore dampen a couple of parameters of "tone."

I'm really only listening for pitch and could never describe the tone. Cues have a wide range of notes and a wide range of hits that overlap rather than correlate.

Fred
 
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Oh, and again I didn't read the rest of the posts, but I have to believe that Dan Dishaw would be my go to guy for pool cue and guitar building similarities and tonal importance.

Fred
 
Cornerman said:
I haven't read any of the other posts, so forgive me.

Every cue I hit with, especially when someone (cue maker or buyer) asks me to hit with their cue, I check three things:

Pitch
Squirt
Vibration in my hand (or lack thereof)


the fact is that the obvious differences in tone do not make a difference in the feedback in my hand.
The OP asked if you could analyze things such as tone in a finished cue, and compare the results. There is a time for doing just that, but not after the cue is completed.
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