440Hz or 432Hz

[sunaivod]

Google this 432 440 hz stuff and you will find many articles.
Interesting stuff, just heard about it a month ago

Just spread this information.

[mescalin]

the baroque loudness war, singers having to sing loud and that explains why as much as i like classical some of the female vocals are just far to high and make your ears bleed.

this is turning out to be a really interesting thread guys


i think we should bitch about classical composers putting showing off before the music as well

i don't wanna tread on anyones toes but i can't stand that dream theatre esq a million notes per a second is "better" stuff


i think there was also a bit of a "who can play the fastest" war as well

[ethios4]

in some cases (or, I guess, most if not all cases) perceptions "prefer" tunings or pulses that are not exact (at some point). Irregularity is much richer in information /more pleasurable (again, at some point, and I mean very fine-grained irregularities).
biological systems, brains, experiences of perception... are dynamic systems : they are not mechanistically tuned to some sort of abstract predefined / fixed values. it's far more chaotic and (then) contextual !

I agree! Amazing how irrationality is part of the system. Our heart is not in the center of the chest, so to speak.

[Tone Deft]

kind of off topic, tuning guitars...

I've always preferred to trust a tuner over my ears, tune it and forget it. lately I've used a tuner to get close then finish it off by ear and I seem to be getting better tunings. am I crazy in thinking this?

[ethios4]

I don't think your crazy, I've been the same way. But I think it might be problematic. If you fine-tune an E chord by ear, you're more likely to tune towards the 'just' side of things than equal-tempered, which would throw off other intervals?

[Slightlydelic]

kind of off topic, tuning guitars...

I've always preferred to trust a tuner over my ears, tune it and forget it. lately I've used a tuner to get close then finish it off by ear and I seem to be getting better tunings. am I crazy in thinking this?

i guess if you tune it by ear to where you think it is correct then you will always tune to what ultimatly pleases your ear. and feel that you have a better tuning. because you allowed your ear to please its self from the off.

[Tone Deft]

ahhhh, I like that.

[@ndy]

Threads like these are why I keep coming back to this forum! Always interesting.

[arachnaut]

Code: Select all

This is a technical article that may be boring to many, so feel free to skip it.

There was a time that I was quite interested in alternate tunings and I made all sorts of unusual scales. I had an Ensoniq VFX which allowed one to make tuning tables.

I was particularly interested in making scales based on mathematical constants and their ratios.

I devised a method to make them more easily manageable by easily finding simple fractional intervals that are indiscernible to the exact, often irrational or transcendental, mathematical values. I used a rule of thumb value of about 3 cents difference as indiscernible in pitch. That corresponds to a frequency ratio of 501:500.

[ For a frequency ratio R: Cents(R) = 3986.313713865 log R ]

It involves something called expansion by continued fractions. It is easiest to show by example.

Suppose we have a frequency interval whose ratio is 1.265625... What is a small fraction equivalent ratio?

Let's start by truncating the value to 1.265625.

Then we expand it into a rational fraction:

1.265625 = 1 + 265625/1000000



The last fraction can be written into a similar form:

265625/1000000 = 1/(1000000/265625)
               = 1/(3 + 203125/265625)



and this last fraction similarly is transformed:

203125/265625 = 1/(265625/203125)
              = 1/(1 + 62500/203125)



Here it is shown in complete form:

1.265625 = 1 + 265625/1000000 =
           1 + 1/(1000000/265625) =
           1 + 1/(3 + 203125/265625) =
           1 + 1/(3 + 1/(265625/203125)) =
           1 + 1/(3 + 1/(1 + 62500/203125)) =
           1 + 1/(3 + 1/(1 + 4/13)) =
           1 + 1/(3 + 1/(1 + 1/(13/4))) =
           1 + 1/(3 + 1/(1 + 1/(3 + 1/4)))




Now we form first, second, and third approximations until there is no discernible difference:

first approx:  1 + 1/3 =                           4:3  = 1.3333.. = 498 cents
second:        1 + 1/(3+1) =                       5:4  = 1.25     = 386 cents
third:         1 + 1/(3 + 1/(1+1/3) = 1 + 4/15 =  19:15 = 1.2666   = 409 cents
fourth:        complete term                      81:64 = 1.265625 = 408 cents



Since there is no discernible different between 408 and 409 cents, to the ear 81:64 = 19:15.
So we can use 19:15 intervals in tuning a scale based on that number.

[arachnaut]

Code: Select all

And here is a named table of common western intervals in ascending order:


Interval name      interval value     cents in interval
---------------    ---------------    -----------------
unison                  1:1                0.000
jnd                     501:500            3.459   just noticeable difference
savart                 ~436:435            3.986
   a skilled player can stretch a note on an instrument
   by as much as 20 cents to be in tune with other instruments
syntonic comma          80:81             21.506
Pythagorean comma       531441:524288     23.460   3**12/2**19
diesis                  128:125           41.059
smaller chromatic semitone
                        25:24             70.672
Pythagorean diatonic semitone = limma
                        256:243           90.225   2**8/3**5
larger chromatic semitone (small limma)
                        135:128           92.179
minor second            18:17             98.955
semitone                16:15            111.731
Pythagorean chromatic semitone
                        2187:2048        113.685   3**7/2**11
meantone semitone       8:(5*fourth_root(5)) 117.108
                        13:12            138.573
                        12:11            150.637
                        11:10            165.004
                        65536:59049      180.450
minor tone              10:9             182.404
meantone whole tone     sqrt(5):2        193.157
                        449:400          200.059
major tone  (Pythagorean whole tone) ---
                        9:8              203.910    3**2/2**3 (two fifths)
                        256:225          223.462    (two semitones)
                        8:7              231.174
                        pi:e             250.561    3.14159../2.71828...
                        7:6              266.871
                        13:11            289.210
                        32:27            294.135
minor third             6:5              315.641
                        19683:16384      317.595
                        11:9             347.408
                        100:81           364.807   (two minor tones)
                        8192:6561        384.360
major third             5:4              386.314
                        81:64            407.820   (two major tones)
                        9:7              435.084
                        13:10            454.214
perfect fourth          4:3              498.045
                        11:8             551.318
                        7:5              582.512
                        1024:729         588.270
augmented fourth        45:32            590.224
       (also called a tritone = two major tones + 1 minor tone)
diminished fifth        64:45            609.777
                        729:512          611.730
                        10:7             617.488
                        36:25            631.283   (two minor thirds)
                        13:9             636.618
                        262144:177147    678.495
perfect fifth           3:2              701.955
                        25:16            772.628   (two major thirds)
                        11:7             782.492
                        128:81           792.180
minor sixth             8:5              813.686
                        6561:4096        815.640
                        phi:1            833.090    phi = 1.608033988749
                        13:8             840.528
                        32768:19683      882.405
major sixth             5:3              884.359
                        27:16            905.865
                        12:7             933.129
harmonic minor seventh  7:4              968.826
grave minor seventh     16:9             996.090  (two perfect fourths)
minor seventh           9:5             1017.596
                        59049:32768     1019.550
                        11:6            1049.363
                        13:7            1071.702
                        4096:2187       1086.315
major seventh           15:8            1088.269
                        243:128         1109.775
                        1048576:531441  1176.540
octave                  2:1             1200.000

[1nfinitezer0]

In the wikipedia article on just intonation it mentions that Wendy Carlos used a keyboard to set the root of the key, which the other performance keyboard was altered so that the intervals were correct.

Recreating this in live with racks would be straightforward, but perhaps exhausting. Is there a simpler way than having each note altered a few centemes across the keys within nested racks?

[H20nly]

I prefer to get tuned 420 style

looks like this for the first few minutes.

Seems to add some pizazz to a track from time to time.

[Khazul]

kind of off topic, tuning guitars...

I've always preferred to trust a tuner over my ears, tune it and forget it. lately I've used a tuner to get close then finish it off by ear and I seem to be getting better tunings. am I crazy in thinking this?

Oddly I found the same. I friend who is a guitarist (and plays with synths alot) regularly tunes his guitar just from his head - ie no tuner, just from his memory of the right pitch. So randomly I tried doing the same with mine one day when I was telling a mate about him doing this without ever expecting to get even vaguely close - much to my suprise - I was exactly on - really exactly on as close as could be determined with a good digital tuner (ie within a +/- a cent), and repeatably after detuning it.

Thinking about it - I guess it isnt suprising - so much music that I hear is from synths perfectly tuned to 440. Same with most of what I play - even just picking up my guitar when the room is unusually warm or cold tends to irrate - strings are allready relatively correct, but is overall slighly sharp or flat, and I still notice it without a reference, but have always just switched the tuner on without giving it a thought and tuned the thing - quite an eye (or ear) opener!.

So trying another tuning (432 or whatever) actually makes me wonder if doing so will completely fuck up when seems to be a very good sense of absolute pitch (or maybe just normal for those of us used to nearly allways hearing perfectly tuned synths) - perhaps thats a good thing - I dont know


Edit: Just had a listen to some stuff re-worked to 432Hz - it mostly just sounds very flat - like a knackered tape deck to me Perhaps a bit more relaxing, so probably great for Trance/Ambient etc?

[gess]

hey guys

how can I detune the whole live???

thanx
g.

[julienb]

666