Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Additive Overtone Synthesis/Analysis Tool

This (academic in origin) freeware, while a Beta with a few rough (but no harmful) operational edges, is a useful and interesting stand-alone (no messy installations) executable which allows adjustable amplitude/phase addition of an adjustable frequency fundamental sinusoid, as well as it's first 10 harmonics, with two types of time domain displays (displayed separately as well as displayed as summed together) with the ability to create WAV files, a pair of binaural musical test tone generators, a frequency domain spectrum analyzer including a time/frequency display, and a sonogram display, as well. Not the fanciest thing around, but interesting and instructive. The link to download "Overtone.exe" (around 1.6 MB), as well as fairly detailed info describing it in English (the Help section is not in English) is at:

http://www.clab.unibe.ch/overtone/

I have found that the octave overtones (particularly the 2nd harmonic, and to a lesser extent the 8th harmonic) are less welcome to my ear than my naive mathematical prejudices would have predicted. Its great to be able to freely play around with the amplitude/phase of these partials any way one likes, and compare theory with practice with this (albeit basic, but useful) utility.

Tip: The Synthesizer mode Time Domain windows do not "minimize" to the system "tray". On my system: you have to uncheck and then re-check them in the "Window" menu to get them to re-appear once closed or minimized.

Enjoy, J Gill

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@rcn.com>

🔗unidala <JGill99@imajis.com>

--- In tuning@y..., "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., J Gill <JGill99@i...> wrote:
>
> /tuning/topicId_31176.html#31176
>
> > This (academic in origin) freeware, while a Beta with a few rough
> (but no harmful) operational edges, is a useful and interesting
stand-
> alone (no messy installations) executable which allows adjustable
> amplitude/phase addition of an adjustable frequency fundamental
> sinusoid, as well as it's first 10 harmonics,
>
> This is actually a pretty cool little gadget for free... maybe Paul
> Erlich can think up some interesting experiments to try with it...
>
> Thanks!
>
> Joseph Pehrson

J GILL: Has anyone else played around with the "Overtone" freeware?
I would be interested in anyone's thoughts on their own experience of
selectively removing, then re-adding the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th
harmonic of a Ramp (-6dB/Octave rollof in harmonic amplitudes), or
other waveform weighting those frequencies (relative to the
fundamental) at a value either equal to or greater than that imparted
by the "Ramp" setting... I find that, up to and including the 6th
(or, perhaps I might alternatively say the 5th harmonic), the general
identity of the complex note is established, and (with addition of
the higher order harmonics beginning with the 7th harmonic, indeed)
no simple sense of identity exists. It is amazing (and humbling) to
realize (by listening) how essential (but non-straightforward and
complicated)the upper order harmonic content is to the timbre of a
note. The simultaneous "symphony" of modes of vibration involved in
even the most basic "string twanging", and evolution in time of each
of those individual modes of vibration, leaves our (I'll say my)
models (melodic or harmonic) hanging in the wind, perhaps struggling
to hang on to a conceptually atomistic and non-chaotic mathematical
viewpoint (human nature, indeed, but little match for Nature itself).
Like lighting a match on the night of the 4th of July, and grinning..

Musical choices from the numbers brings numbers into the world,
troubled by "nasty effects" such as complex timbre.., perhaps seeking
an underlaying structure which conforms to an overlaying conceptual
premise.

That some tonal similarities in, and metric symmetries between, the
theoretically predictable "behaviour" of certain rational integer
elements with a scale-set when combined with certain other element(s)
of that scale set exist, I have no doubt. There is stunning visual
topological beauty in the identifiable patterns by which certain
rational integer scale intervals intermingle within the process by
which we differentiate between them as distinct (as opposed to
homogenous) sonic entities, like the elements (each unique in some
ways, and similar to certain others in other ways).

My ideas (in relation to the presence or absence of various scale
intervals due to mathematical properties of those scale intervals)
seem to (at least somewhat) "correlate" to what my ear prefers or
recognizes (at times). Iteration (between model and practice and back
again) is inherently problematic, in that one only knows what one has
been looking for when one is close to, or right on top of, what one
has been looking for. Global assumptions are hard to make in such
complicated environments through inherently subjective metaphors. How
will one know (if and) when they find the "golden fleece"? Will
they "know it when they see it"? To be sure, it (may) be elegantly
simple, unified, uncluttered, efficient, etc. It may encompass
multiple characteristics of "note" within a single unified (perhaps
even symmetrical) structure. But all of the above are properties of
conceptual (rather than experiencial) knowledge. They may happen
to "map" characteristics which (in at least one instance and context)
pleased my ear, as well. But, for the most part, my searching for
structures of topological (tactile and visual) beauty, and my hoping
that what proves elegant in the visual domain also *happens* to
equate to what proves interesting in the musical domain can, at best,
follow my sense of musical hearing around like a deaf painter, hoping
some how to understand what color or other optical characteristic
would adequately describe the subject matter of the "subjects" audio,
or musical, "vocalizations". Even being able to *hear* such
vocalizations does not select the color or brush by which I might
attempt to *see* (as a secondary, and not primary, way of *hearing*)

BTW: I've always been fascinated with the derivations of linguistic
metaphors which we utilize in order to categorize/report sensory
perceptions. Below are some (I think, interesting) examples:

Of the aural sense, I can think of only "loud", "roaring", "echo",
and "singing" (at the moment) as (non-music-theoretical) metaphors
that we use to describe sounds which is distinct to human hearing,
and not other senses. A definite majority of the other metaphors
utilized to describe the character of sounds seem (to me) to derive
from our *other* senses (and similarly, where vision is concerned)!

Soft, gentle, harsh, rough, big, bouncy, fuzzy, fat, sharp and flat
(in the non-music-theory context), big, tiny, smooth, wandering,
ripping, "shredding" (mosh-pit), dancing, moving, jangling, muffled,
stinging, warm, cold, empty, full, searing, jolting, crisp, bubbling,
etc. ALL DERIVE FROM A (in the most basic analysis) TACTILY
DISCOVERED EXPERIENCE OR A TACTILY PERFORMED (AND EXPERIENCED) ACT.

Bright, dark, glowing, luminous, hazy, brilliant, effervescent,
foggy, misty, shimmering, colorful, shining (there must be more...)
ALL DERIVE FROM A VISUALLY DISCOVERED EXPERIENCE.

Without typically considering it so, perhaps our multi-
sensory "neural networks" (where it comes to the metaphors utilized
to describe "properties of sensory information") are, via
evolutionary processes are (in some limited but not
necessarily "focally" knowable way) inextricably-intertwined with
each other, such that - we will always wonder whether our visual
(including numerical and geometrical) concepts will ever search,
however fruitfully or fruitlessly, for pattern and repetition in the
aural vocalizations of other entities (for understandable reasons)
for meaning which may be somehow transcribed for future reference...

That "all is number" might be (by me, anyway) revised to, "all will
be numbered" (a very different averement, indeed). Everyday, in the
idiotic and chaotic "markets" the pundits will tell you (for lack of
substantive information about random/chaotic functions) that "all the
rules have changed". They swarm in "bullish/bearish engulfings" (a
*real* phrase in what they call "technical analysis") based upon the
prevalence of sentiment to the *contrary* on the parts of the others!

There is nothing about tomorrow that knowledge of histories prior
patterns will prepare you for. There is no way to know whether a
master improvisor will next create, or remove, musical tension...

The music (tonality and placement in time) which I like to hear/make
may be repetitious and simple (blues shuffles) but the melodic
improvisation's "voicing", choice of notes, sustain and timbre, while
often merely pentatonic, (hopefully) transcends the limitations of
the open-string tuning outright by bending notes and some chords. I
(purport to) know my instrument *through* it's limitations in
amplitude and timbre, as a result of the proces of (by many
simultaneous means) working to overcome the medium and it's given
limitations - fully focused on the (largely unconcious) process of
searching for the "right" ways and means (to my own ear) of
accomplishing (despite the environments limitations), the
"vocalization" of the "words in my head", in tone and space...

Sleepless in Seattle (but hopefully not near as corny), J Gill

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@rcn.com>

--- In tuning@y..., "unidala" <JGill99@i...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_31176.html#31248

>
> J GILL: Has anyone else played around with the "Overtone" freeware?

HI J. Gill!

Well, I must say that this overtone gadget has you waxing most poetic!

I find it enticing myself... a little like a "make your own" La Monte
Young piece... I'm enjoying it.

> I would be interested in anyone's thoughts on their own experience
of selectively removing, then re-adding the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th
> harmonic of a Ramp (-6dB/Octave rollof in harmonic amplitudes), or
> other waveform weighting those frequencies (relative to the
> fundamental) at a value either equal to or greater than that
imparted by the "Ramp" setting... I find that, up to and including
the 6th (or, perhaps I might alternatively say the 5th harmonic), the
general identity of the complex note is established, and (with
addition of the higher order harmonics beginning with the 7th
harmonic, indeed) no simple sense of identity exists. It is amazing
(and humbling) to
> realize (by listening) how essential (but non-straightforward and
> complicated)the upper order harmonic content is to the timbre of a
> note.

Yes, it certainly *does* seem that those upper harmonics are not so
much "character defining" as "modifiers..." but, of course,
essential to the total timbre. I was struck with a similar reaction,
though, listening to it, that the first harmonics were clearly more
significant, and the later ones parenthetical. I suppose that's not
so surprising, considering the amplitudes involved as well...

>
> That some tonal similarities in, and metric symmetries between, the
> theoretically predictable "behaviour" of certain rational integer
> elements with a scale-set when combined with certain other element
(s)
> of that scale set exist, I have no doubt. There is stunning visual
> topological beauty in the identifiable patterns by which certain
> rational integer scale intervals intermingle within the process by
> which we differentiate between them as distinct (as opposed to
> homogenous) sonic entities, like the elements (each unique in some
> ways, and similar to certain others in other ways).
>

Charles Ives, in his "overtone machine" which generated pure
overtones, much like this little computer program was, seemingly,
going for the same thing. You should ask Johnny Reinhard about it...
he's conducting a new version for recording.

The idea is that all these cycles are *global*... the cycles of the
entire universe. The Universe Symphony is made up with percussion
cycles, much like the overtone series. Many of Ives' ideas are
similar to some of your exposition in this post. Well, Ives wasn't
tripping... (not to infer anything, of course...)

> pleased my ear, as well. But, for the most part, my searching for
> structures of topological (tactile and visual) beauty, and my
hoping
> that what proves elegant in the visual domain also *happens* to
> equate to what proves interesting in the musical domain

People keep trying to do this. I just learned that Scriabin was also
interested in representing music with *lattices* as well as colors.

I think the work on the Tuning List with visual lattices is one way
to make *real* correlations. Other associations between the visual
and aural suffer because the wavelengths are so different and because
the means of perception are so different. Paul Erlich can talk about
this sometimes, but he's busy doing something else important at the
moment, which is why I'm doing this....

Anyway, *enjoy* and thanks for the tip on the "overtone machine..."

Joseph Pehrson

🔗unidala <JGill99@imajis.com>

--- In tuning@y..., "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "unidala" <JGill99@i...> wrote:
>
> /tuning/topicId_31176.html#31248
>
> > J GILL: Has anyone else played around with the "Overtone"
freeware?

> HI J. Gill!
>
> Well, I must say that this overtone gadget has you waxing most
poetic!

JG: Its-a-the-bubbles, Joe, the secret's in the bubbles...

> JP: I find it enticing myself... a little like a "make your own" La
> Monte Young piece... I'm enjoying it.

> > I would be interested in anyone's thoughts on their own
experience
> of selectively removing, then re-adding the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th
> > harmonic of a Ramp (-6dB/Octave rollof in harmonic amplitudes),
or
> > other waveform weighting those frequencies (relative to the
> > fundamental) at a value either equal to or greater than that
> imparted by the "Ramp" setting... I find that, up to and including
> the 6th (or, perhaps I might alternatively say the 5th harmonic),
the
> general identity of the complex note is established, and (with
> addition of the higher order harmonics beginning with the 7th
> harmonic, indeed) no simple sense of identity exists. It is amazing
> (and humbling) to
> > realize (by listening) how essential (but non-straightforward and
> > complicated)the upper order harmonic content is to the timbre of
> > a note.

> JP: Yes, it certainly *does* seem that those upper harmonics are
not so
> much "character defining" as "modifiers..." but, of course,
> essential to the total timbre. I was struck with a similar
reaction,
> though, listening to it, that the first harmonics were clearly more
> significant, and the later ones parenthetical. I suppose that's
not
> so surprising, considering the amplitudes involved as well...

JG: Maybe my neural circuits aren't as "open-minded" as they might
be, but my impression is that the pitches (7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th
harmonics), fairly independent of their relative amplitudes to the
fundamental, definitely "stretch the envelope" for me!...

> JP: Charles Ives, in his "overtone machine" which generated pure
> overtones, much like this little computer program was, seemingly,
> going for the same thing. You should ask Johnny Reinhard about it.
> he's conducting a new version for recording.
> The idea is that all these cycles are *global*... the cycles of the
> entire universe. The Universe Symphony is made up with percussion
> cycles, much like the overtone series. Many of Ives' ideas are
> similar to some of your exposition in this post. Well, Ives wasn't
> tripping... (not to infer anything, of course...)

JG: It's-a-the "bubbles" Joe, ... the "bubbles"... *~<|;}

> Anyway, *enjoy* and thanks for the tip on the "overtone machine..."
>
> Joseph Pehrson

It's nice chatting with you! J Gill

🔗paulerlich <paul@stretch-music.com>

🔗unidala <JGill99@imajis.com>

--- In tuning@y..., "paulerlich" <paul@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "unidala" <JGill99@i...> wrote:
>
> > JG: Maybe my neural circuits aren't as "open-minded" as they
might
> > be, but my impression is that the pitches (7th, 8th, 9th, and
10th
> > harmonics), fairly independent of their relative amplitudes to
the
> > fundamental, definitely "stretch the envelope" for me!...
>
> Maybe you should start with a timbre that _has_ these, and then
turn
> them off, rather than the other way around!

JG: I DID (all 10 blasting away)! When I removed them, my blood
pressure eased considerably (humor). When I added them back
selectively (and relatively independent of their amplitude scale
factors) a few of my simplistic mathematical "bubbles" popped,
(despite my intellect's sincere desire to be more "open minded") as
my (only average, as opposed to golden) ears rebelled nevertheless!

>PE: Many, many musical
> instruments normally have audible amplitudes for these partials --
> the only ones in the orchestra that don't are the flute, xylophone,
> glockenspiel, and percussion!

JG: Indeed! The real "magic" in the "symphony" of overtones gnerated
by the real-world musical sources we know and love resides in
supremely complicated occurances in time/frequency (how else could
personal favorites such as chords played on pipe organs, and Jimi
Hendrix's singing sustained guitar lines have a (magnitude only)
power spectrum approaching that of "white noise" (equal energy per
unit frequency), yet sound so *good* (when phase, we are told,
matters not)...! It's all just plain humbling in general (not at all
neatly distributed and symmetrical like my beloved drawings!)... :)

>PE: Your "virtual pitch processor", though,
> automatically ignores _all_ partials, giving instead the impression
> of a single pitch/timbre combination.

JG: You seem favorable to Terhardt:

http://www.mmk.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de/persons/ter/top/virtualp.html

Certain parties have questioned Terhardt's assumptions in general. I
take it that you were not swayed by such challenges?

>PE: Unless, of course, you ramp up
> the partials one by one while the tone is on!

JG: What happens then (as opposed to their presence throughout), and
for how long would such an effect remain in force?

Regards, J Gill

🔗paulerlich <paul@stretch-music.com>

--- In tuning@y..., "unidala" <JGill99@i...> wrote:
>
> JG: Indeed! The real "magic" in the "symphony" of overtones
gnerated
> by the real-world musical sources we know and love resides in
> supremely complicated occurances in time/frequency

What do you mean?

> (how else could
> personal favorites such as chords played on pipe organs, and Jimi
> Hendrix's singing sustained guitar lines have a (magnitude only)
> power spectrum approaching that of "white noise" (equal energy per
> unit frequency), yet sound so *good* (when phase, we are told,
> matters not)...!

Hmm . . . I'd look at how you were arriving at this power spectrum
again!
>
> >PE: Your "virtual pitch processor", though,
> > automatically ignores _all_ partials, giving instead the
impression
> > of a single pitch/timbre combination.
>
> JG: You seem favorable to Terhardt:
>
> http://www.mmk.e-technik.tu-
muenchen.de/persons/ter/top/virtualp.html

> Certain parties have questioned Terhardt's assumptions in general.

Name one, other than the "nutty professor", whose essays are 99%
chicanery, and whose replies to the work or comments of others are
99% off-topic.

>I take it that you were not swayed by such challenges?

The psychoacoustical reality of virtual pitch is quite evident, not
only from the experimental literature, but should you decide to
conduct your own experiments (actively and directly varying the
partials' amplitudes in the timbre doesn't count as objectively
hearing a timbre).

> >PE: Unless, of course, you ramp up
> > the partials one by one while the tone is on!
>
> JG: What happens then (as opposed to their presence throughout),

Your brain has already assimilated the "timbre" that has been
established, so hears the new component as an "extra" pitch.

> and
> for how long would such an effect remain in force?

Until you press "clear" on your mental calculator :)

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@rcn.com>

🔗paulerlich <paul@stretch-music.com>

--- In tuning@y..., "unidala" <JGill99@i...> wrote:

> A friend of mine, with a MA in Music Composition, told me about
how,
> in the middle ages (and, no doubt, thanks largely to ... theocracy)
> the (diatonic) Major scale intervals (sounding happy and cheerful
to
> me in my century) were declared (by the theocratic illuminati) as
> being dark and demonic sounds, while the Minor 2 and the Minor 6
(of
> the Phrygian mode, or E rooted, rotation) was declared as
> the "proper" mode to be appreciated (which always has implied
> serious, dark and intense emotions to me in my century).

Be careful, J -- the music of that era was very different, and
the "Major scale" in the way we use it today, with dominant-to-tonic
resolutions and triadic harmony, has almost _nothing_ to do with the
way the "Ionian" mode would have been used during most of the middle
ages.

> It goes to
> show that (and it was my friend's contention) that much of what we
> associate emotionally with musical choices (of tones and chords) is
> learned (or one might say, culturally imposed).

I agree, but I don't find this to be a good example at all.

> The fact that people
> were taught an emotional reaction to Ionian/Mixolydian and
> Phrygian/Aoelan modes that was 180 degrees out-of-phase with what
my
> subjective musical/emotional associations

I don't think this is so much a matter of what people were _taught_;
rather, it's more a function of how these modes operate in the
musical style of 1200 vs. the musical style of today.

One should always look for cultural influences, brainwashing, etc.,
but one should always look deeply at the music itself!
>
> Another friend is a composer, arranger, and jazz pianist who taught
a
> music class to some African youths who (by nature, genes, etc) were
> born from a culture which used scales and melodies he referred to
> as "totally unlike" western music (barely comparable, at all). Yet,
> after growing up in the US, and listening to 2-5-1 and 5-1-4 stuff
in
> popular music all their life (by nurture, experience, suggestion,
> etc), he states that they were highly "conditioned" to western
> melodic choices and movements. He taught an improvisation class to
> these youths, and told me about how, one day, he played them a
piece
> which started on the 1/1, moved about, and then ended coming to
rest
> at the Minor 7th interval of 12-tone. He says that they were so
used
> to western music "resolving" back to the 1/1, that his piece drove
> them *crazy* (in that they did not like, and could not be
comfortable
> with, his piece ending on the Minor 7 (as opposed to the 1/1). This
> really appears to demonstrate the relative unimportance of *nature*
> (genes, etc), and the predominance of *nurture*

Again, I don't find this demonstration convincing at all! Maybe all
that's been demonstrated here is the _coherence_, _logic_, and
_universal comprehensibility_ of the western tonal language! How can
you be sure?

> Music, like language, is largely a social form of emotional
> communication and expression.

Yes.

> My father, the big-time philosopher,
> goes so far as to maintain that until Helen Keller actually grasped
> language in communicating with another person, she did not (in the
> that sense we experience it) *think*.

I've always argued vehemently against this point of view. I acquired
language very late, and I always *thought* non-verbally. Maybe this
is why I was so good at Physics and so bad at English in school.

Anyway, on the audience bit, I don't see it as a down-side at all,
because I believe that the spiritual kernel within all of us is
pretty much the same, and if I reach a musical level where I feel the
spiritual meaning is very strong, then I have to believe that any
audience members listening with an open heart will receive that
meaning -- and I simply can't concern myself with those who aren't.

Additive Overtone Synthesis/Analysis Tool

🔗J Gill <JGill99@imajis.com>

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@rcn.com>

🔗unidala <JGill99@imajis.com>

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@rcn.com>

🔗unidala <JGill99@imajis.com>

🔗paulerlich <paul@stretch-music.com>

🔗unidala <JGill99@imajis.com>

🔗paulerlich <paul@stretch-music.com>

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@rcn.com>

🔗paulerlich <paul@stretch-music.com>