How Would Someone Get that Great Sound from Irons?

[live4u120]

I was watching a Tiger Woods clinic on the Golf Channel, and they kept playing highlight iron shots from Tiger. Now I'm no pro, but I think it's a reasonable question to ask how the pros get that incredible sound from their irons.

Is it because of incredible power? Or is that because they just hit it THAT crisp? Personally, I would love to get more sound out of my irons, mine right now are pretty 'ting' or 'whack'y.



That's a pretty good example of what I'm talking about.

[CalBoomer]

Since you can really hear the club whistle just before contact, I would have to say that much of the result comes from great power and clubhead speed. Although he probably has perfect contact as well. You might as well wish for Albert Pujols' bat speed. Golf, like baseball, can give average people the illusion that we are playing the same game as these guys. We aren't.

[Shanks A Million]

I was watching a Tiger Woods clinic on the Golf Channel, and they kept playing highlight iron shots from Tiger. Now I'm no pro, but I think it's a reasonable question to ask how the pros get that incredible sound from their irons.

Well, I guess I'm the resident expert on sound here... I'll explain this as simply as I can, but it's a very complex topic.

First, and very important, the reason your clubs sound different from his is in large part due to the metal they're made from. You have R7s, which are made from 431 stainless steel. Tiger's irons are made from a softer carbon steel alloy. The same is true of cymbals. Cheaper cymbals often use B8 bronze (8% tin) instead of the professional B20 bronze (20% tin). The pitch of the B8 metal is much higher, as the metal is softer. What's interesting, is that some of the best cymbals in the world, the Paiste 2002s, are made from B8. You can hear these cymbals in Led Zeppelin, The Who, or Van Halen songs. B20 bronze can be heard in any Rolling Stones, Genesis, or Aerosmith songs. Different metals, different sound. In the case of golf clubs, the pitch is similar, in that it's an indefinite noise, not a periodic one. Softer metals generally have a higher pitch. The "click" sound is generally attributable to a more middle frequency sound, which is more toward the center of the Fletcher Munsen curves. In these, the higher the curve, the more sound pressure (in dB) is required to make the sound appear to be equally loud. The "click" sound falls right near the low point of the curve around 6kHz (I can measure these numbers later if you like). This means it sounds louder. The higher pitch of the carbon steel is higher on the curve (around the 10kHz mark), and is not as audible. Therefore, when a carbon steel club hits the ball, the ear hears more of the impact with the ground, and less of the metallic cling the club makes. The best example of this is to tee up a 3 wood, and hit it. This will be a very metallic ping sound. Two reasons for this. 1. In this case, there's no ground being impacted, and the only sound to be heard is the ping of the metal. 2. They're made from hollow, 17-4 stainless steel, which is even lower pitched, and falls more within the center of the curve. (The hollowness also lowers the pitch, that's for another day though.) This effect is called "masking", and is a common auditory phenomenon. A more audible sound masks a softer one. Good example, the sound of traffic in the background in a small apartment is inaudible when you're listening to music, even fairly soft music. Turn the music off, and the sound of traffic in the background becomes obvious. The higher pitched sound of the iron is masked by the louder ball and ground impact noise. These sounds are not loud enough to mask the click sound of your irons though, because they are much more audible, and the brain hears the click more than the other sounds.

[KGC]

Shanks a million you are a champion that is one of the best answers I have ever
read. A captivating post. You must be difficult to discuss hifi with.

[Gioguy21]

And i was gonna reply...'bc they're that good...shake and bake' haha

[tm22721]

The key is a delayed release. From the top throw your right shoulder in as straight a line as possible at the ball and get most of your weight onto the left heel by halfway down.

[iacas]

The key is a delayed release. From the top throw your right shoulder in as straight a line as possible at the ball and get most of your weight onto the left heel by halfway down.

It's also positioning and whatnot. If you were to record your own shots with a high-quality mic, they'd sound different to you that way than they do when you hit them. I'm not saying they'll sound better - they might even sound worse to you. But they'll sound different.

Kind of like how when you see video of you and you say "I don't sound like that, do I?" That said, pros make better contact with faster clubhead speeds. That's 95% of the difference. I think the metal content stuff is in the 5% - if I don't care what club Tiger hits he's gonna make it sound different than an average golfer.

[sean_miller]

It's also positioning and whatnot. If you were to record your own shots with a high-quality mic, they'd sound different to you that way than they do when you hit them. I'm not saying they'll sound better - they might even sound worse to you. But they'll sound different.

That's the first thought I had as well. Even though the ball/clubhead click I hear is slightly different with each of my iron and/or wedge sets, that's not the main reason the OP's clip isn't what I hear while in the middle of my my own swing. While hitting the ball, we're really close to the sounds being made, and bodies/ears are in motion, and a they're few feet off the ground. A stationary microphone a few inches off the ground will pick up sounds and pitches our ears and brains find irrelevant - at least during the swing.

I captured a couple range sessions this fall (poor video quality but the audio is okay) and the sound was similar to the posted video. My Apex blades sounded "the best" of all my irons and most shots longer than a 3/4 wedge had the same woosh and click you hear on TV. Now if only I could consistently reproduce the THUMP thump thump . . . . . . plop of a ball landing on the green and rolling into the cup.

[thepenck5]

i find that i get a better sound and feel when i focus more on hip rotation.. makes for a bet contact at any speed but also makes you dig a little more after the ball. Its something we all know from reading the mags and watching the how to videos but lets be real, when on the range were looking more for the distance and shape of flight and not so much the contact and feel before take off.. give it a shot, hope it helps

[Shanks A Million]

It's also positioning and whatnot. If you were to record your own shots with a high-quality mic, they'd sound different to you that way than they do when you hit them. I'm not saying they'll sound better - they might even sound worse to you. But they'll sound different.

Well, I guess I was comparing that sound to mine. I swing about as fast as the average tour pro, and I make very good contact, hit down, etc. I tend to forget that in golf, most people do not hit the ball as solid as I do (and I imagine with your HC, you hit it even more solid than I do.)

I'm kind of splitting hairs when it comes to sound. I'm very particular about it. When I hit it with my Nike forged blades, it sounds similar to the Tiger shot, maybe not quite as loud (I've seen Tiger hit them in person too, very cool). When I hit it with my Adams cast cavity backs, it sounds clicky. My cast 588 wedge is very clicky. You are correct that the strike is the most crucial component, but the iron composition makes the rest of it up. I looked up some pros who use cast irons, and it was clearly more clicky sounding. Angel Cabrerra play's Ping, which are cast

Shanks a million you are a champion that is one of the best answers I have ever

I'm blushing.

I don't really know too much about consumer audio. Studio monitors and PA bins, yes, but not home hi fi.

[DBeane]

"God D$%&@@ Shanks a Millian thats a perfect answer...you will be a general some day!!!"

I have always thought they have those mics turned up to purposfully enhance the sound. If a player is wearing a new pair of shoes you can sometimes hear the leather squeek as they settle into a shot. A good ball striker does have that "all ball" click, or thwack sound, thats just the way a well struck shot should sound.

[Shanks A Million]

"God D$%&@@ Shanks a Millian thats a perfect answer...you will be a general some day!!!"

Yes, I thought we were talking about the difference between the "click" of a stainless iron, and the "thwack" of a carbon steel one. A well struck shot sounds solid, no matter what. I record my swings on video, with sound. Most of mine are a nice low pitched "thwack" sound. If I hit one bad, it's substantially more clicky. I do notice, however, that the stainless clubs sound a lot more clicky, even on center.

As to enhancing the sound, BBE Sonic Maximizers and Aphex Aural Exiters are more common now than they used to be, and a lot cheaper. My TV even has a built in BBE filter, go figure. These things really do make things "pop" more. Professionals like me generally hate that, because we believe in clean, uncolored sound reproduction. We do use them, however, for artistic reasons. An Exciter can make a song sound really dynamic, and really "hot." Sometimes you'll see an ad with an old song, and the song just sounds so much more dynamic. That's often the reason, it's been enhanced. The mics they use are shotgun mics. You've probably seen these at sporting events. Shotgun mics have a very narrow polar pattern, and can be used to pick up an isolated noise from a distance. If they used a cardioid mic, you'd hear the gallery noise equally loud as the player and caddy talk, ball strike, etc. Unlike the human ear, mics don't exhibit "cocktail party effect." Humans are able to pick a sound out of a specific area and listen to it, yet ignore much of the background noise. This has to do with both the brain, and the pinnae of the ear. The pinnae (outer ear) are shaped like they are to change the phase of sounds coming from different directions. These phases are interpreted by the brain as being directional. If you record something by using mics inside of a pinnae shaped mold, you get a very realistic reproduction if you listen with headphones. But when you listen to sound on a TV, you cannot pick out sounds from a smaller area. Therefore, the mics must be directional. As with all highly directional mics, the sound is colored somewhat. The only more narrow mic I know of is a parabolic mic, which is used to record nature sounds from a very long distance. Parabolic mics are almost totally unable to capture any low frequency sound. Shotguns are not quite the same, they are larger capsules built into a housing that makes them very directional. As you get off axis, however, the sound becomes highly colored: So, in the case of golf tournaments, if the mic is not pointed right at the point of impact, you can see that the lows and highs are more prominent. As to whether this makes a difference, I'd have to go out and record myself and compare the samples. I don't own a shotgun mic (I don't really know anyone who does either, they're mostly for sports broadcasting), so it would probably be hard to do.

[tm22721]

My goal is to hear the whoosh of the clubhead as far out in front of the ball as possible. That means I am accelerating through impact which produces flush contact and straighter shots. Acceleration, ie a pre-stressed shaft at impact, is everything nothing else matters.

[Zeph]

Swing speed and good impact.

High handicappers hit it fat or thin, and often waste most of the energy in the swing from the top of the backswing to halfways down. The arms should not start speeding up until the hands are level with your pockets. The body is a great tool, but we can't keep up a top speed through the entire swing. It'll also be easier to lose vital positions by swinging too much from the top. This is why it's important to get the swoosh sound around or after impact. It tells us where the fastest part of the swing was. Try grabbing a club by the clubhead instead of the grip. Flip it around. Then try swinging it like normal. You can easily hear the difference when doing it properly. If you swing hard from the top, the swoosh sound will be behind you, way before where the ball would be. Be patient and wait for the club to come down, then swing faster through the impact area, and you'll hear the sound there.

Anyone can create good sound with their irons. Most will never hit it as good as Tiger does, but you can definitely make a nice sound with good speed and a good impact.

[david_wedzik]

Anyone can create good sound with their irons. Most will never hit it as good as Tiger does, but you can definitely make a nice sound with good speed and a good impact.

Yes. And MANY of these GREAT answers aside it sounds much better and "tour" like to me when it is only metal and ball making the sound first....and the ground in there later!

Dave

[Shanks A Million]

It's funny, because I have this same discussion a lot among low handicappers that I play with, and they all strike it pure. We all seem to feel that the cast clubs don't ever quite sound "right", no matter how pure you hit them.