The 432 hz effect.. please help!

Henry Plainview wrote: First of all, friso, there was no one standard of tuning before 420 hz because of the wolf. There were countless numbers of them, which is what the Well Tempered Clavier is about, so it's not really a battle of old vs new. You can't just change A back to 432 hz because the rest of it wouldn't fit within equal temperment. And I have no idea why you're citing the Egyptians: they built a lot of cool things, but they weren't exactly the most level-headed civilization... I really can't tell the difference between the two videos. Maybe it's my crappy laptop speakers (and I cbfed to dig out my headphones), but the second actually sounds slightly higher than the first, rather than lower. In any case, I highly doubt that the vast majority of people have a sensitive enough ear to hear the difference of a third of a semitone, especially for non-musicians.

This wolf thing has totally nothing to do with it. I'm not talking about intervals within scales. I'm talking about complete scales played 8 Hz lower in frequency. A slightly lower pitch in general that is.

Henry Plainview wrote: You can't just change A back to 432 hz because the rest of it wouldn't fit within equal temperment.

You simply shift all frequencies by a factor of 432/440 (multiply all frequencies by this factor) and all fits in. It's just a matter of reference. It's like moving the pitch bend wheel down veeeeeery slightly.
Is that it or did I get you wrong?

jplanet wrote: Your description of compression is correct (other than the use of the term clipping - you don't want anything to clip or you will get unwanted distortion),

mono wrote: As we are all physically different, I find rather unplausible that a certain pitch would be globally considered as <place your feeling here>. One simple and true effect of sound waves (or waves in general) is the one of very low frequencies played at high level (which requires quite some power, and sometimes are impossible to reproduce). These make (no particular frequency values) our BODY (not the brain or any quirky "element") resonnate and have some interesting effects, like infrabass making the thorax shiver etc... The brown noise "idea" comes from here, and is not completely stupid, as different parts of our body, like any other object have resonnance frequencies (that are different for different body shapes of course), and these are funny to experiment with. I wouldn't be surprised if, after a day of experimentation in a lab that can reproduce 10- Hz frequencies, engineers could find a frequency that makes a particular subject lose blatter control :). For example, some sub-20Hz frequencies played "loud" (even if not audible) can make you feel veeery uncomfortable (physically) due to vibrations of some of your body parts (the biggest ones :) ).

Thorax shivering...you had reminded me of that...my friend used to play E chord(!)  on his Jazz bass (with active pickups) through old Acoustic amplifier, twice as big as my fridge. all the bass frequencies were boosted and volume cranked up to max. I had to grab myself by a neck...and my sight was blurry (not surprising, since the entire garage was vibrating, along with everything and everybody inside).

But those were cool times...10 minute Farfisa organ solo followed.

Originally posted by Petrovsk Mizinski But having made my own recordings and getting them to sound fairly loud (not as smashed as the most smashed of today's stuff, but still pretty loud), I understand it's a process that starts from playing tightly, tracking at appropriate levels, getting the frequency balance in the mix right, using clipping to tame transients on drum tracks, and further using clipping to tame transients to keep stuff out of the red zone, and that compression is only really used for shaping the attack, release, sustain or general tonality of an element in the mix and not as some kind of loudness booster.

Your description of compression is correct (other than the use of the term clipping - you don't want anything to clip or you will get unwanted distortion), but one of the most important elements in the mastering processing chain is Limiting, which is a specialized compressor designed to maximize the loudness of the track. This is used in all modern masters to bring it up to broadcast levels consistent with other releases, and is what is being misused in the aforementioned loudness war.

As we are all physically different, I find rather unplausible that a certain pitch would be globally considered as <place your feeling here>.
One simple and true effect of sound waves (or waves in general) is the one of very low frequencies played at high level (which requires quite some power, and sometimes are impossible to reproduce).
These make (no particular frequency values) our BODY (not the brain or any quirky "element") resonnate and have some interesting effects, like infrabass making the thorax shiver etc...
The brown noise "idea" comes from here, and is not completely stupid, as different parts of our body, like any other object have resonnance frequencies (that are different for different body shapes of course), and these are funny to experiment with. I wouldn't be surprised if, after a day of experimentation in a lab that can reproduce 10- Hz frequencies, engineers could find a frequency that makes a particular subject lose blatter control :).
For example, some sub-20Hz frequencies played "loud" (even if not audible) can make you feel veeery uncomfortable (physically) due to vibrations of some of your body parts (the biggest ones :) ).


Edited by mono - July 01 2010 at 03:56

harmonium.ro wrote: I have studied art history, and never encountered the affirmation that ancient architecture ever had explored resonance. I am referring to academical literature on the matter, of course. That sounds interesting, I'll investigate.

If you read Vitruvius' Ten Books of Architecture (the most ancient and one of the most definitive works on the subject) there is actually a great deal about resonance chambers being placed in auditoriums. Not being a physicist, much of it was over my head, but it's worth checking out.

^ I never mentioned magical properties. I do not believe in any form of magic. I believe in a natural resonance that might work better with the human body than others.

As with the light spectrum.. there's one wave-length that influences water molecules to start moving and rise in energy. This makes a micro-wave work. This is also a form of interference on a specific wave-length.

I have studied art history, and never encountered the affirmation that ancient architecture ever had explored resonance. I am referring to academical literature on the matter, of course. That sounds interesting, I'll investigate.