Buzzer

A buzzer or beeper is an audio signalling device, which may be mechanical, electromechanical, or piezoelectric. Typical uses of buzzers and beepers include alarm devices, timers and confirmation of user input such as a mouse click or keystroke.

History

Electromechanical

The first electric buzzer was invented in 1831 by Joseph Henry. They were mainly used in early doorbells until they were phased out in the early 1930s in favor of musical chimes, which had a softer tone.

Piezoelectric

Piezoelectric buzzers, or piezo buzzers, as they are sometimes called, were invented by Japanese manufacturers and fitted into a wide array of products during the 1970s to 1980s. This advancement mainly came about because of cooperative efforts by Japanese manufacturing companies. In 1951, they established the Barium Titanate Application Research Committee, which allowed the companies to be "competitively cooperative" and bring about several piezoelectric innovations and inventions.

Type of buzzers

Electromechanical

Buzzer (whirligig)

A buzzer (buzz, bullroarer, button-on-a-string), is an ancient mechanical device used for ceremonial purposes and as a toy. It is constructed by centring an object at the midpoint of a cord or thong and winding the cord while holding the ends stationary. The object is whirled by alternately pulling and releasing the tension on the cord. The whirling object makes a buzzing or humming sound, giving the device its common name.

A buzzer is often constructed by running string through two of the holes on a large button and is a common and easily made toy.

American Indians used the buzzer as a toy and, also ceremonially, as to call up the wind. Early Indian buzzers were constructed of wood, bone, or stone, and date from at least the Fourche Maline Culture, c. 500 B.C.

See also

References

Bibliography

Buzzer (disambiguation)

A buzzer is a signalling device.

Buzzer or The Buzzer may also refer to:

Beat

Beat or beats may refer to:

Business and organisations

Common usage

Beats (video game)

Beats is a rhythm-based video game for the Sony PlayStation Portable handheld gaming system. It was released in 2007 at the PlayStation Store.

Description

In addition to downloading music from the Internet, users may also use their own music to play along to in the My Music Challenge mode. Beats automatically loads the track titles and artist names of the songs it finds on the user's PSP. However, the game will only read up to 127 tracks for the user to choose from. There is as yet no explanation from Sony for this limitation, nor is it obvious how the game determines which 127 tracks are loaded from the library. (What is known is that the game loads the same set of tracks from the user's /MUSIC directory each time.)

During the game, three stationary targets, or landing points, (just one in Novice mode) are spaced evenly at the center of the screen. Symbols appear from off the screen and glide towards these targets in rhythm with the music. The symbols represent notes that players are meant to synchronize their button presses to and are identified by the four PlayStation face buttons: circle, "x", square, and triangle. These notes are generated based on the rhythm of the music using a beat tracking algorithm. While often occurring on the beat, notes can also occur off the beat at times. Tracks with greater emphasis on rhythm, especially techno songs with a strong, well-defined beat or powerful bass lines, generate the best in-game beat patterns.

Beat (music)

In music and music theory, the beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse (regularly repeating event), of the mensural level (or beat level). The beat is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a piece of music, or the numbers a musician counts while performing, though in practice this may be technically incorrect (often the first multiple level). In popular use, beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, specific rhythms, and groove.

Rhythm in music is characterized by a repeating sequence of stressed and unstressed beats (often called "strong" and "weak") and divided into bars organized by time signature and tempo indications.

Metric levels faster than the beat level are division levels, and slower levels are multiple levels. See Meter (music)#Metric structure. Beat has always been an important part of music.

Downbeat and upbeat

The downbeat is the first beat of the bar, i.e. number 1. The upbeat is the last beat in the previous bar which immediately precedes, and hence anticipates, the downbeat. Both terms correspond to the direction taken by the hand of a conductor.