Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
3phase
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by 3phase » Fri Oct 01, 2010 4:38 pm

rikhyray wrote: Will be my pleasure to answer any questions, as good as I can. I studied north Indian music, so called Hindustani-Sarod (fretless lute kind of instrument) for 12-15 years , 8- 12 hours daily practice,and classes with various masters but my final and "official" Guru was Ustad Amjad Ali Khan Later followed with solo performer career. After some years started what we call "fusion" (mix of Indian and Western music)and since I worked with South Indians (aka Carnatic) musicians , moved to Madras and while there studied South Indian percussion and composition. It was more to understand the language of my fellow artists, just to learn one of those systems is lifetime job. I am Hindustani musician with some knowledge of Carnatic only.
Another thing is essential difference in intonation (mainly using it in embelishments) and once absorbed it is impossible to change. Trained Hindustani musician will never play really Carnatic way and vice versa
interesting.. and the question about refference tones aswell.

One for certain..the refference tone in the european music system was in diskussion a long time and is still variing between 435 and 444...

i personally have a littel problem with 440..dont sounds wright to me.. usualy go a a bit higher or lower... cant really decide yet...


But one question regarding the indindian music..

when there is nor refference tone..
how does this turn out in practize..is there something musicans experiance as the natural wright tone and when two musicans meet there instruments are like in a lucky accident well in tune even without the norm refference?
Or is this decided for any session again what should be the basic pitch and everybody has to tune acordingly?
when this is the case.. how is decided which pitch is teh one to go for?
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rikhyray
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by rikhyray » Fri Oct 01, 2010 6:33 pm

3phase wrote: interesting.. and the question about refference tones aswell.

One for certain..the refference tone in the european music system was in diskussion a long time and is still variing between 435 and 444...

i personally have a littel problem with 440..dont sounds wright to me.. usualy go a a bit higher or lower... cant really decide yet...


But one question regarding the indindian music..

when there is nor refference tone..
how does this turn out in practize..is there something musicans experiance as the natural wright tone and when two musicans meet there instruments are like in a lucky accident well in tune even without the norm refference?
Or is this decided for any session again what should be the basic pitch and everybody has to tune acordingly?
when this is the case.. how is decided which pitch is teh one to go for?
The pitch (also "Sa" which you could called tonic) is determined by the instrument, its construction. Sitars are tuned around C to D, Sarod B flat to C#, Saraswati Vina around D to E. It depend on particular instrument/size/style- the range to re tune is not more than semitone, max 2 each way. Same with humans, who are sort of instruments they all have their settled/fixed "medium" pitch.
Indian music is basically performed by soloist accompanied by percussion. Also a Tabla player will select the dayan- right hand drum accordingly to the artist, instrument he is to accompany (here tolerance is around 2 semitones each way). Even tamburas which give the basic drone (tuned Pa/or Ma-also fifth or forth and Sa, Sa, and Sa octave down) have to be selected, are made/stringed for particular pitches ( mainly defined as male and female, or instrumental).
In case of extra accompanists like Sarangi or Violin, that is their headache to follow the main artist.
I had Navin ( brilliant flutist who plays 99% of flutes on all A.R.Rahman recordings) for a session, he showed up with a case of I think 30-40 flutes- since you never know what might be needed.
The rare, so called Jugalbandis where 2 "main" artists meet, the most famous were those of Ravi Shankar and Ali AKbar Khan (like the Bangla Desh concert) are really difficult to manage. Sitar cant be tuned more than semitone down, the tone and expression suffer and Ali Akbar Khan had to go up 2 semitones which results in less sustain and frequent breaking of strings.
All those issues were the reason I looked for another instrument when started to play other than Indian Classical music, working with Western musicians. Finally Ovation made me Vajra vina which is kind of combination of Saraswati Vina and guitar. However even though it is more flexible in many ways, when I am to play classical ragas have just a bit more range option but not that much ( it is E as Sa and the range is E# max and Db down) so 2 semitones each direction more than Sitar, Sarod or Sarangi
P.S. I dont know what is with that 440 but indeed myself if I can (for all practical reasons rarely) I do tune slightly lower, now idea what it can be - that mysterious "just does not sound right"

3phase
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by 3phase » Fri Oct 01, 2010 7:17 pm

thanks..interesting insight...

i am in the moment most of the time at -4 cent on my digital synths.. but many years i was on +7
dont know how that translates to hz... but -4 is not much.. maybe something like 438hz i would guess..

the european music system is pretty much based on astronomy, or astronomy is based on harmonic relations.. Keppler did quite some work in that direction..but in the scientific world only his books on astronomy are recognized because the others are very esoteric..
The guy was the court magican of the czech king back than 8O

however.. i could belife that there is something like a natural correct pitch.. therfore i understand that some look into theese schuman frequenz...

but it well maybe be that the sense for pitches depends on eduction, moode of day and blood pressure or maybe even the time we live in?

i dont know.. but i am interested in ideas regarding the topic and dont care much if they are represented by hippys or scientists...they booth might be wright or wrong..

one interesting thing regarding theese akasha esoteric guys and theier planetary tones..
when you build the common denominator of all theire resulting tones on the planetary rotation times around the sun is around 441 hz... that might be a strange accident..

But i allways wonder why the a at 440hz was choosen to be the tone refference..why not an e? or c?

planetary rotation times to set the reffernce pitch? but maybe there was other good other reasons to go for the freq range around 400 hz. ?

maybe the last european confference that has set the general pitch to the 440 hz just agreed in the middle between fractions that wanted it to be 446 and the 436 hz fraktion.. what maybe explainn why it dont feels wright...
is it just a compromize?

just read at wiki that synfonie orchsteras choose to ignore the normation and tune a bit higher on 443 hz. so theiere instruments sound better .. 8O
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scorb
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by scorb » Fri Oct 01, 2010 9:23 pm

just a thought, hear's a workaround:

432.10 is desired rather than 440.00 tuning, so:

1. Multiply your desired track tempo by 1.018282805 (44000/43210)

2. Freeze / render your tracks when done

3. Set your master tempo back to your originally intended tempo whilst ensuring that the audio is set to repitch

Not perfect I know, but it achieves the desired tuning ;)

Maths wins again!

Aeroplay
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by Aeroplay » Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:16 pm

j0hnny wrote:Hi Aeroplay,

How was your quest for the 443? did you get anywhere??

Thanks

I kinda took a break from music, have been doing some experiments with binaural beats, though. So unfortunately, no I didn't really get anywhere.

Repitching is a very, very cool idea, I guess, that might do the job... RESPECT, scorb!

Does anyone have a scala file synth for me, by the way?


Greetz
Last edited by Aeroplay on Sat Oct 02, 2010 12:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
By really understanding art, you become an artist yourself

scorb
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by scorb » Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:27 pm

It's funny actually, I remember reading a thread somewhere on the net about people pushing the idea that dance music written to more "cosmic" tuning than 440 would affect people more positively on the dancefloor!

I also remember thinking that the idea was complete horseshit as djs repitch the audio to all sorts of unnatural tuning anyway in the process of beatmatching.

Fucking hippies lol!

However, this was what triggered my idea of simply writing the track in a slightly faster tempo to achieve the final tuning that you want :)

Aeroplay
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by Aeroplay » Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:40 pm

lol, great! :D
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by Aeroplay » Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:51 pm

Oh, sorry I just realized it actually doesen't work that way. Repitch for sure also just detunes all frequencies the same amount...
By really understanding art, you become an artist yourself

scorb
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by scorb » Sat Oct 02, 2010 12:53 am

hmm,

So, even if ableton had a global tune and you could select A as 432.1 Hz then this still wouldn't be of any use to you then as that would affect the tuning in an identical way to the workaround i suggested.

Not sure what you need then. Are you requesting that completely different scales can be used as well as defining pitch? I'm not totally with you even after re-reading the thread.

Fizmarble
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by Fizmarble » Mon Oct 04, 2010 5:50 pm

This 432 thing has gotten me pretty bothered lately. I read all this stuff about Hitler pushing the A440 thing, and the church being behind it and all this is to get people riled up. Hertz is not some magical equation that corresponds with nature. It's cycles per second. That's it. The second isn't some perfect quantity of time that resonates with the universe. It's just how we break time down into.

If the number of hours in the day was deemed to be 20, we might have 100 minutes in an hour, and 100 seconds in a minutes, and Hertz would be totally different lengths, but still cycles per second. A=432 is not some divine resonance. The universe doesn't care what we call seconds and cycles. Every density of material has a different resonant frequency, including your own bone density. So different frequencies, and tunings will sound better or worse by individual preference.

I will stick to 440 because all of my instruments are already tuned to it.

Aeroplay
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by Aeroplay » Mon Oct 04, 2010 6:22 pm

@Fizmarble: Your point is right in a way. But it doesn't matter: See, it has nothing to do with the scale you choose, since it's just about the proportion/ratio. That doesn't change no matter what intervall of time you choose... 432,10Hz is related to the earth rotation only in Hz as well...

Sorry, I can't explain any better. This kind of stuff can be quite a brainer. Everybody can understand it but it's not worth the effort for the very most people...

If it really fascinates someone, I guess he will go for it.
By really understanding art, you become an artist yourself

Fizmarble
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by Fizmarble » Mon Oct 04, 2010 6:40 pm

Aeroplay wrote:@Fizmarble: Your point is right in a way. But it doesn't matter: See, it has nothing to do with the scale you choose, since it's just about the proportion/ratio. That doesn't change no matter what intervall of time you choose... 432,10Hz is related to the earth rotation only in Hz as well...

Sorry, I can't explain any better. This kind of stuff can be quite a brainer. Everybody can understand it but it's not worth the effort for the very most people...

If it really fascinates someone, I guess he will go for it.
I am pretty sure if the whole earth had a frequency and we hit that frequency, there would be a standing wave that would cease life as we know it. Is this the ultimate goal?

msteele
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by msteele » Mon Oct 04, 2010 7:47 pm

rikhyray wrote:here is my Guru Ustad Amjad Ali Khan playing the Sarod
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwE-G0CFgtg
8O 8O 8O
What a beautiful instrument...and such a magnificent performance, you are so fortunate to have learned from him! :D

Tone Deft
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by Tone Deft » Mon Oct 04, 2010 8:27 pm

msteele wrote:
rikhyray wrote:here is my Guru Ustad Amjad Ali Khan playing the Sarod
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwE-G0CFgtg
8O 8O 8O
What a beautiful instrument...and such a magnificent performance, you are so fortunate to have learned from him! :D
+1,000,000

new respect to rikhyray.

I love the way the audience is engaged with the performers, they get all the jokes. amazing session.
In my life
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At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
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antimaterium
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by antimaterium » Thu Dec 29, 2011 5:35 pm

Hey, interesting. Also came from sacred geometry to the "non-solfeggio scale(528,963etc..)" Just wanted to give it a try an it sounded good here and there, although only added the fixed frequencies to the ordinary pitch of operator's coarse which is 440, I guess...... Also started shortly to use 432 and harmonics it sounds good to, here and there, guess u can make anything sound "ok-good"...So if i want to make music in full 432 i need to detune operator, is coarse 0,5/ fine 980 really correct or should one do it different? Which exact m4l patch can I use for pitching it correctly? Although i would like to pitch the oscillator's of operator individual, since the fixed frequencies shouldn't be pitched to 432, they are already. Have a wonderful day.

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In lak'ech

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