A new, low cost, vibrating reed mechanical spectrometer has been developed. The setup consists of a pulse train generation system for capacitive excitation of the specimen in one of its flexural vibration modes and of a capacitive current measuring and amplification circuit for detection of the specimen oscillation. The used detection method is convenient for low damping levels (internal friction,Q−1≤0.02) and low vibration amplitudes (≤0.1 &mgr;m) only. The resonance frequency and the mechanical energy dissipation are derived by numerical analysis of the measured freely decaying vibrations. In terms of experimental performance several such analysis methods (Hilbert transformation method, zero‐transition method, nonlinear fitting) are evaluated. The system’s performance is illustrated with some informative examples.