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

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

Post by stringtapper » Fri Jun 21, 2013 5:36 am

fishmonkey wrote:i get your point but aren't they talking about the harmonic relationship between 440 Hz, the notes generated based upon that, the frequencies that tend to occur in the 'natural' world?
But all kinds of frequencies occur in the natural world. Rub some sand paper together and you're hearing the coincidence of multitudes of sinusoidal waves oscillating at different frequencies. I know of no scientific evidence to suggest that particular frequencies are more common in nature than others, at least when it comes to sound, I don't know about ocean tides and photons.

Of course to really get at this I suppose one would need to have a better idea of exactly what they mean by "frequencies that tend to occur in the natural world."
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fishmonkey
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by fishmonkey » Fri Jun 21, 2013 6:04 am

erm, well i just read some of that 432 site. i'm open-minded but unconvinced. a lot of circumstantial mathematics (and not much else) there.

sound.audio.music
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by sound.audio.music » Tue Jan 21, 2014 3:32 pm

For all those who are curious about the math, there is a $4 e-book that explains it all elegantly:

http://www.amazon.com/Mathemagical-Musi ... B00EGTWGS0

I've read it (several times, it's a lot to absorb in one go) and it's very mathematical and quite mind opening. The math of 432Hz actually corresponds to the electromagnetic (light) spectrum, Fibonnaci's sequence, the shape of our inner ear (hmmmm...), the rotation of heavenly bodies and the shape of galaxies. This is not hocus pocus woowoo stuff, it's just mathematical relationships. Whether you see meaning in them is purely up to you.

Regardless of how you choose to view this information, there are more and more people interested in tuning to these alternate frequencies for a wide variety of reasons (composing different tonal music, playing with other musicians who tune alternatively to 440Hz, etc), just search the forums for 432Hz (link below) and also see these feature requests (one of which is mine ;)

Feature Requests Related to 432Hz (these are just two from 2014, and it's only January!)

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=200520
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=201260

A Forum Search for 432Hz

search.php?keywords=432Hz&terms=all&aut ... mit=Search

Those are just 432Hz, which happens to be what I am interested in for reasons explained in the book linked to above. There are many people tuning to other alternatives to 440Hz for a wide variety of reasons from simply liking the sound better to esoteric motivations best left to another kind of forum.

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

Post by yur2die4 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 3:52 pm

I'm too lazy.

But suddenly I did have a realization.

We assume that tuning music in harmony with a frequency from nature is a good thing.

But what of the resonances are actually detrimental to our physical and mental states?? They might resonate too strongly, or a certain tone might stick out like a sore thumb. It might be Too easily digestible, and make us too relaxed, lazy, less resilient to the odd anomalies of the universe which might contradict such frequencies.

All I know is that when I've used 'perfect fifths', they might sound angelic with human voices, but with pure tones and shapes, it has a brutal bite. I know that for many centuries out culture has had disagreements over the importance of the 'perfect' fifth in presenting music, writing it, scales, etc. It is one idea which people thought was perfect and given to is by a higher concept of the universe, yet it was mostly just our simplistic interpretations of numbers. Not that it is wrong. So that just has to do with an interval.

When I hear about tuning frequencies, I think along similar lines. I go with what's convenient today, already at my disposal. Why just stick to One tuning frequency? Shouldn't you accommodate every single scale to have a specific tuning frequency that brings each one closest to that one frequency or a harmonic of it? Some scales would skip that note altogether.

It is good that people Do explore alternate tuning frequencies, scales, intervals, etc. There doesn't have to be an argument for or against it necessarily. I just feel like it isn't anything to get excited about. Kind of like making sure your rinse your rice before you cook it :P

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

Post by stringtapper » Tue Jan 21, 2014 5:00 pm

And then there's the fact that the existence of a tuning standard at all assumes a fixed-pitch style of music, which ain't the only game in town.

yur2die4 wrote:All I know is that when I've used 'perfect fifths', they might sound angelic with human voices, but with pure tones and shapes, it has a brutal bite.
That's because you're hearing equal tempered fifths and with pure tones like sine waves the offset between perfect fifths needed to achieve equal temperament is more audible and apparent. Just tuned fifths don't have that sound.
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by yur2die4 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 5:50 pm

No, I used ratios from Operator 2:3, And you can see and hear that there are minimal or no, uh, suddenly the word for pulsating due to offsets in pitch slips my mind. But none of those.

And with basic waveforms it is grating because they sound like 'one sound' as opposed to a harmony. Although more rich instruments and complex tones could probably benefit from this sound?

I'd like to hear a bunch of short examples haha

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

Post by Dragonbreath » Tue Jan 21, 2014 5:52 pm

Yeah the math behind harmonics is super interesting but quite complex. The whole conventional musical system is a compromise harmonic wise as the whole thing is tempered. Someone interested in doing music that follows the universe natural harmonics has got alot of work in front it. Simply retuning your root pitch from 440hz to 432hz doesnt fix much. Actually might make things worse as the inverval might lead to some "bad" frequencies. I have some interest in this type of stuff but my knowledge is not near enough to start making music with it.

Theres nothing hippy on LSD about this. I suggest you guys look up on cymatics!
Really crazy stuff. Geometric shapes generated by sine waves. As you there certain key frequencies that generate clear geometric patterns whiles in bettewn makes blurry shifting images till the next clear frequency. Im wondering how much the shape and size and material of the plaform affect the "coherent" frequencies.

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

Post by yur2die4 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:00 pm

My fun way to make scales is to use multiple instances of an instrument, and the Scale midi effect. With Scale, you can turn off all instances of a note in an octave except for one. And so each octave instance of that one tone will be triggered.

Then you just tune each instance of the synth to your desire.

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

Post by stringtapper » Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:07 pm

yur2die4 wrote:No, I used ratios from Operator 2:3, And you can see and hear that there are minimal or no, uh, suddenly the word for pulsating due to offsets in pitch slips my mind. But none of those.
Beats.
yur2die4 wrote:And with basic waveforms it is grating because they sound like 'one sound' as opposed to a harmony. Although more rich instruments and complex tones could probably benefit from this sound?
Ok, I misunderstood because "grating" is somewhat subjective. Yes, the perfect fifth sounding more like one tone is much of the basis of its designation as "perfect" from a historical standpoint. The reason has to do with the fifth being the 2nd overtone in complex tones with harmonic (as opposed to inharmonic) spectra.
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Re: Tune Live to 432,10 Hz (instead of 440) ???

Post by yur2die4 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:13 pm

I understand that. And I felt like it stood out a lot in context to other harmonies. But once again, I was using very simplistic tones which probably don't suit it's nature very well.

I hadn't even considered things like evolving tones, pads, pretty much anything except for basic sine/saw/etc. So I think that tonight I'm going to come back to it and throw some natural qualities into it, in pursuit of bliss :D

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

Post by ikeaboy » Wed Jan 22, 2014 9:02 am

This might be worth a read for anyone on the fence http://www.overtone.cc/profiles/blogs/4 ... per-second

I was considering all this but, then again, don't I detune most of my instruments slightly (and my whole track pre-master usually- a Martin Hannett trick) until they feel good to me already? So this strikes me as snake oil, advertised as a short cut to the creation of music that speaks to people's inner world. I think those exploring it should continue by all means because it's such a complex area who knows what will come of it in the end.

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

Post by re:dream » Wed Jan 22, 2014 10:44 am

Philip Ball's book on The Music Instinct questions a lot of the thinking behind the supposed mathematical ratios within scales. While octaves and fifths clearly have simple rations, and you can get to fourths and some other common intervals by playing around with it a bit, the notion that there is any simple relationship between the mathematical ratios and which intervals are consonant or dissonant quickly breaks down. If I understand it correctly, with what sounds consonant or dissonant seems in many cases conditioned by cultural expectations, not by mathematical laws...

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

Post by re:dream » Wed Jan 22, 2014 10:54 am

:oops: I am not sure whether this is off topic, but I recall I did find an interesting site that had max for live devices that allowed you to play in non-Western tone systems such as maqam etc... they are here http://www.beyond-digital.org/sufiplugins/ - might be worth checking out if you are interested in taking Live beyond its attunement (ahem!) to Western tone systems...

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

Post by ikeaboy » Wed Jan 22, 2014 1:37 pm

The Finn wrote:Philip Ball's book on The Music Instinct questions a lot of the thinking behind the supposed mathematical ratios within scales. While octaves and fifths clearly have simple rations, and you can get to fourths and some other common intervals by playing around with it a bit, the notion that there is any simple relationship between the mathematical ratios and which intervals are consonant or dissonant quickly breaks down. If I understand it correctly, with what sounds consonant or dissonant seems in many cases conditioned by cultural expectations, not by mathematical laws...
That's interesting. A lot of people (myself included) see a video like this http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GtiSCBXbHAg and seem to come to the conclusion that harmony must relate to the stability and interaction of these shapes in 3 dimensions, which would seem to be underpinned by mathematics. But then when you think about blissing out to My Bloody Valentine, all fuzzy tones bending up and down the frequency range and your explanation makes more sense. I suppose we're just built to love neat explanations and the idea that music is 'out there' when it's probably more like a constructed illusion that can be shared.
Those Sufi plugins look great BTW.

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

Post by yur2die4 » Wed Jan 22, 2014 3:48 pm

Consonance and dissonance are pretty easy to hear and see based on the warblings of beating over time.

Neither is better than the other, they both make for tools to paint with! Of course, we might experience consonance/dissonance differently from the note on note experience to the note to note. Yet due to memory and interpretation harmonic perception still applies.

I think we do love simplicity and are naturally keen on it. But some of us delve further and further into the complexities of harmonic relations. Eventually everything wrong, that somehow still seems right in our twisted heads ends up sounding better due to our developed sense of sound, and anything simply right sounds obnoxious in some cases, or even More grand in the context of appreciating how it is this, that we base all our understandings of those complexities after.

I may not be making sense : /

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