exprting to mp3!!

[dintymoore]

People who cannot hear what I hear cannot believe I hear what I hear... because they cannot hear it.

Believe it or not, everyone has perfect pitch, (the ability to recognize pitches without a reference) it just needs to be "turned on" when you are very young, like when you are 3 or 4.

One thing I am thankful for is that I spent my first few years of life next to my sister while she practiced piano, so I was getting drilled in scales the day I came home from the hospital. I am forever thankful to her for that.

The bad part is if a band is out of tune it really drives me nuts... I can feel sick for 2 -3 days. I cannot play with people out of tune. I am constantly telling guitar players to "fix your high E will ya?".

After you use a guitar tuner (if you must ) then fine tune your guitar by ear! There's a sweet spot in tuning and guitar tuners won't get you there. If you listen to George Harrison, one of the reasons he sounded better than most is because he was in tune with the sweet spot.

I tune my synths by ear every day and always run slightly flat - lately it's around A = 439.1. The sweet spot is constantly changing - it could very well be that light varies it.

This is why they pay me so much.

 

[TetraFish]

People who cannot hear what I hear cannot believe I hear what I hear... because they cannot hear it.

Believe it or not, everyone has perfect pitch, (the ability to recognize pitches without a reference) it just needs to be "turned on" when you are very young, like when you are 3 or 4.

One thing I am thankful for is that I spent my first few years of life next to my sister while she practiced piano, so I was getting drilled in scales the day I came home from the hospital. I am forever thankful to her for that.

The bad part is if a band is out of tune it really drives me nuts... I can feel sick for 2 -3 days. I cannot play with people out of tune. I am constantly telling guitar players to "fix your high E will ya?".

After you use a guitar tuner (if you must ) then fine tune your guitar by ear! There's a sweet spot in tuning and guitar tuners won't get you there. If you listen to George Harrison, one of the reasons he sounded better than most is because he was in tune with the sweet spot.

I tune my synths by ear every day and always run slightly flat - lately it's around A = 439.1. The sweet spot is constantly changing - it could very well be that light varies it.

This is why they pay me so much.

Makes sense. I think there's a really wide range from person to person. It's the only explanation for singers that think they are good but sound like an animal in distress.

I'm not anywhere near as fine tuned as you are, a guitar tuner works fine for me, but I'm at least average or a little bit above and find myself constantly telling other people to tune, drives me crazy.

 

[TripleM]

I had never heard of the term "sweet spot" with respect to tuning/pitch before. Isn't an A always supposed to be an A? How could a particular frequency that is in tune today be out of tune tomorrow? Clue me in.

 

[dintymoore]

I had never heard of the term "sweet spot" with respect to tuning/pitch before. Isn't an A always supposed to be an A? How could a particular frequency that is in tune today be out of tune tomorrow? Clue me in.

This is mostly stuff I've figured out myself:

analogy: you have two cars, one is rolling, the other is stopped. Ever push a car that's rolling? It's easy. Push it with one hand and you can make it go faster. Pushing a car that's stopped is hard. The initial push to get it going can be more than one guy can do if the tires are kinda flat.

The Earth has a resonant frequency. I don't mean the earth as in the stuff we are standing on, but the air around the Earth. The air between what we are standing and space. That is always ringing. Why? Lightning. Every second the Earth is hit by lightening 200 or so times. When a spot on the Earth gets hit with lightning, the lightning wraps around the whole Earth and then comes back to where it hit.

So the air around the Earth is like a cymbal that is being "tickled" on a cymbal stand. It's not stationary. It's like a car already rolling a tiny bit. When you hit "like" frequencies they'll ring out more.

Here's the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances

The Earth's resonant frequency varies from day to day a bit. Another reason why live music will always be superior to recorded is that it tunes for the moment. Good musicians will naturally do this.

So all the frequencies aren't equal. You'll notice that Bb, Db, Eb, and Ab all have a similar sound, it sounds "brown". That's because those frequencies are very similar to what the air is vibrating at already.

C, F and G sound dull. And E, A and D sound kinda sharp (they stick out). F# has a very unusual sound, it sounds like F#, and B sounds terrible - like a high school buzzer. B fights the Earth's frequency the most. This all happens, as far as I can tell, because of how those frequencies react with the already-in-motion air tickled by lightning!

So when you tune, if you are in that zen like mode, you can hear that if you tweak the pitch a tiny bit here or there it will fall into a slot you'll have a dramatically bigger sound because you'll be in tune with what's already there.

 

[mgjr73]

After you use a guitar tuner (if you must ) then fine tune your guitar by ear! There's a sweet spot in tuning and guitar tuners won't get you there. If you listen to George Harrison, one of the reasons he sounded better than most is because he was in tune with the sweet spot.

I totally agree with this. Before, I even had a tuner I used to tune my guitar along with a favorite song (about a girl by nirvana), usually starting with low E string then I do the 5th fret thingy. I didn't know any better back then whether I was in standard tuning or not but as long as I could play along with the record I was happy.

Doing that for a while actually gave me the ability to tune my guitar even without listening to about a girl and always surprise myself that I'm in tune when I play along with the record. As if I remember the exact pitch of the low E for that particular song.

Now I have a tuner, even though I locked in every string according to the indicator, I play an open chord (usually Em) and notice that a string is weirdly off (usually on the high E... EDIT: and also B string). So I dial in my "sweet spot" by ear until it sounds right.

 

[mgjr73]

This is mostly stuff I've figured out myself:

analogy: you have two cars, one is rolling, the other is stopped. Ever push a car that's rolling? It's easy. Push it with one hand and you can make it go faster. Pushing a car that's stopped is hard. The initial push to get it going can be more than one guy can do if the tires are kinda flat.

The Earth has a resonant frequency. I don't mean the earth as in the stuff we are standing on, but the air around the Earth. The air between what we are standing and space. That is always ringing. Why? Lightning. Every second the Earth is hit by lightening 200 or so times. When a spot on the Earth gets hit with lightning, the lightning wraps around the whole Earth and then comes back to where it hit.

So the air around the Earth is like a cymbal that is being "tickled" on a cymbal stand. It's not stationary. It's like a car already rolling a tiny bit. When you hit "like" frequencies they'll ring out more.

Here's the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances

The Earth's resonant frequency varies from day to day a bit. Another reason why live music will always be superior to recorded is that it tunes for the moment. Good musicians will naturally do this.

So all the frequencies aren't equal. You'll notice that Bb, Db, Eb, and Ab all have a similar sound, it sounds "brown". That's because those frequencies are very similar to what the air is vibrating at already.

C, F and G sound dull. And E, A and D sound kinda sharp (they stick out). F# has a very unusual sound, it sounds like F#, and B sounds terrible - like a high school buzzer. B fights the Earth's frequency the most. This all happens, as far as I can tell, because of how those frequencies react with the already-in-motion air tickled by lightning!

So when you tune, if you are in that zen like mode, you can hear that if you tweak the pitch a tiny bit here or there it will fall into a slot you'll have a dramatically bigger sound because you'll be in tune with what's already there.

WOW, that just tickled my brain! Thanks for that science fact. Love it when there's science/physics backing up a claim. At least I don't have to attribute it to a diety giving me extra powers of perception.

 

[RAMI]

People who cannot hear what I hear cannot believe I hear what I hear... because they cannot hear it......This is why they pay me so much.

I've heard your mixes. Get over yourself, your ears aren't that good. Trust me.

 

[The_Salesman]

Hey Dinty,

If you tune by ear do you use a tempered key or "true" key? Just curious.

btw, For anyone who's interested in this I'd recommend "Paul Hindemith, The Craft of Musical Composition"

It's good because the first three chapters are about the science of sound which most composition books don't go into, very interesting.

 

[dintymoore]

I've heard your mixes. Get over yourself, your ears aren't that good...

We all hear differently, and you probably hear things I don't.

:.. Trust me.

You're a good guy Rami, I have no reason not to trust you.

...do you use a tempered key or "true" key?...

I'm mainly using Roland SoundCanvas, and that would be (I believe) tuned to a equal tuning. I always had trouble with earlier SoundCanvas products - the bass was out of tune a lot.

So one day, in about 5 min I retuned all the notes of the bass track by ear and I've left them there. Some were way off. That helped a lot. Now I just tune by the master tuning control on the module. The amount I tune is tiny, it wouldn't make a major clash with a guitarist who used an A440 tuner.