Ableton Forum

Slightlydelic wrote:how strange, i just started reading the wiki link posted above and noticed this

Pitch inflation

During historical periods when instrumental music rose in prominence (relative to the voice), there was a continuous tendency for pitch levels to rise. This "pitch inflation" seemed largely a product of instrumentalists' competing with each other, each attempting to produce a brighter, more "brilliant", sound than that of their rivals.

sound familiar?

instrument version of loudness war?

Nah, Analog vs Digital

Two alternatives (normalized to 'Middle C'):

davepermen wrote:

Slightlydelic wrote:how strange, i just started reading the wiki link posted above and noticed this

Pitch inflation

During historical periods when instrumental music rose in prominence (relative to the voice), there was a continuous tendency for pitch levels to rise. This "pitch inflation" seemed largely a product of instrumentalists' competing with each other, each attempting to produce a brighter, more "brilliant", sound than that of their rivals.

sound familiar?

instrument version of loudness war?

yeah exactly, history repeats its self so it would seem

I think things like tuning systems governing the exact mathematical relationships between tones, harmonic/melodic progressions, and rhythmic patterns have a far greater impact on the brain and/or our psycho-spiritual experience.

good point you made here.
432hz is only the starting point as the right frequencies also have to be set to other notes as well,otherwise it still is only one note having the "right" tuning.
something like the fibonacci sequence or golden mean might help here.

all this being said,this is only one part of the story imvho.
this combined with intuitive music creation is even better :

it's mixing science and art(making the two hemispheres one)

Slightlydelic wrote:

davepermen wrote:

Slightlydelic wrote:how strange, i just started reading the wiki link posted above and noticed this

Pitch inflation

During historical periods when instrumental music rose in prominence (relative to the voice), there was a continuous tendency for pitch levels to rise. This "pitch inflation" seemed largely a product of instrumentalists' competing with each other, each attempting to produce a brighter, more "brilliant", sound than that of their rivals.

sound familiar?

instrument version of loudness war?

yeah exactly, history repeats its self so it would seem

looks like i have to pitch my tracks a bit up

Slightlydelic wrote:how strange, i just started reading the wiki link posted above and noticed this

Pitch inflation

During historical periods when instrumental music rose in prominence (relative to the voice), there was a continuous tendency for pitch levels to rise. This "pitch inflation" seemed largely a product of instrumentalists' competing with each other, each attempting to produce a brighter, more "brilliant", sound than that of their rivals.

sound familiar?

during the last centuries they couldn´t start the loudness war... but now we can.
so we leave the "a" on 440 and make some dB extra

Interesting, I had no idea about the fluctuation of pitches. However, my father, who was a professional jazz musician from 1955 to 1965, has an old tuning fork which is well under 440 Hz as I recall it. Always found it useless! Don't think it's neither 432 nor 435 Hz though (the Hz is stamped into it.). I've got to check it out and ask him about it.

33tetragammon wrote:

majais wrote:I've read on a webpage that it were the Nazi's that brought the change from 432Hz to 440Hz as a basic tuning up onto today.
After reading I've changed the tuning of "Kontakt" to 432Hz and I must say I like it.
Anybody has an opinion about this?

a few months ago,my best friend received info about 432 hz tuning,it seemed to be a galactic tone,which has the same frequency as the heartchakra
if you are open to it,you can feel the difference.
trust your feelings about it,not what someone else thinks about it.

it's a way of resonating with the Universe.

very interesting

still wouldn't the resonant frequency of your heart chakra depend on it's size?


still i do love the idea of there being some better pitch, i guess you gotta wonder but it is all very Harry Partch, shame massive (my fave synth) doesn't really let you explore this

ohhh, from a historical view it should be 433 Hz. as the NSDAP was superiored in 1933.
above all that... fuck it...i like my tunes off-tune. gimme the boards of canada/Aphex
like off-tunes for my brain to dance.every artist should find his "tune" across the freq's.

i prefer 401Hz...its 1 better than 400Hz

33tetragammon wrote:

I think things like tuning systems governing the exact mathematical relationships between tones, harmonic/melodic progressions, and rhythmic patterns have a far greater impact on the brain and/or our psycho-spiritual experience.

good point you made here.

but not necessarily true. 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 !

432 is the natural resonance of all living things, and it is believed to be a more spiritual frequency, 440 is apparently more emotional
(good or bad thing?) Anyway i always tune my stuff down so its in the 432 bracket, i find it more transparent and calming. Give it a try, you'll be surprised

how do you tune to this 432?

Saxer wrote:during the last centuries they couldn´t start the loudness war... but now we can.
so we leave the "a" on 440 and make some dB extra :-)

Actually the loudness war started way before the 19th century. If you compare the sound of a baroque violin with a modern violin, its evident. The modern violins sound brighter, harsher but are louder. The Orchestras became bigger and a solo violin had to stand up against an orchestra with more and more instruments. The invention of the saxophone was successful because it was loud. When Wagner composed his "stadium" classics even the singers had to be louder. The typical Wagner singers had to have certain resonances to fit into the spectral holes he left in his orchestration. If you listen to classical singers and hate it, you know why, the singing schools today still destroy classical singers voices to fit to those resonances. It always had been that sound quality was sacrificed for loudness.
I guess it really started on the market place in ancient times. The louder you can shout, the more you will sell...

You don't need to fight a war you cannot win. Less is more, get quiet...

The baroque violin sounds better with an A 432 for the physical nature of its strings and its body resonances. I doubt that this applies to electronic instruments. But what would make a difference is, if you tune to the cycle of your power plant (60 Hz in the U.S., 50 Hz in Europe...)

Emissary wrote:432 is the natural resonance of all living things, and it is believed to be a more spiritual frequency

I wonder how one could measure the resonance of all living things. Do you have resources which explain this? In my experience, living things are much more complex than could be explained by a single resonance. If you ever listened to the lively sound of a Tibetan singing bowl, you know what I mean, their overtones aren't even in a harmonic series. There is no doubt about their spiritual nature, but I never came across one tuned to 432 Hz...;-)

Stefan