Evaluation of the suitability of acoustic characteristics of electronic Demung to the original Demung

Abstract

The study was conducted to evaluate the suitability of acoustic characteristics of electronic demung with original demung. Demung is one of the important instruments in the gamelan, a traditional music ensemble in Indonesia which involves no less than 70 instruments. Electronic demung was made in an attempt to miniaturization of gamelan instruments which are generally large and heavy. Acoustic characteristics studied were waveforms, timbre and spectrogram. Product testing was also conducted by questionnaire to teachers of music and master of gamelan. The analysis showed that the fundamental frequency for each key of electronic demung was slightly higher than the key of the original demung. The increase in the fundamental frequency of the keys in one octave, both have a similar tendency. The numbers of overtones of the original demung were more than that of electronic demung. ED is considered useful because it can be easier to introduce gamelan music and easy to carry.