Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Retuning using midi to produce beatless music

Charles Lucy wrote:
> > Why anyone would want their music to be beatless, beats me,

Well Charles, I'm just beginning my (very part-time, unfortunately) investigations into the most effective uses of tunings for relaxation music. Still coming to grips with the mechanics of it all, so I don't feel well informed enough yet to decide on which 'religion' to go with.

Made a few major chords in Csound. The just-tuned ones certainly have an extremely straight, resting feel to them, especially when compared to the Pythagorean and 12t-ET ones. But haven't got around to having a close look at your tuning yet.

Is your new book going to have more explanations of the psychological effects?

> but to > attempt to do it with midi seems like an entirely impossible > endeavour ;-)

Yeah, with pitch bend messages anyway.

> Nevertheless there are some DOS programs at:
> > http://www.dogstar.dantimax.dk/midiutil/index.htm

Ta.

> which should enable you to modify the midifiles if anyone really wants > to try, yet to the nearest 64th of a semitone could hardly be called > "beatless"..

Yeah. AFAICT so far the MIDI Tuning Dump and/or internal tuning capabilities of synths seem to be far better options.

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Bill Canty <bill@billcanty.com>

🔗Kurt Bigler <kkb@breathsense.com>

on 7/1/04 3:21 PM, Bill Canty <bill@billcanty.com> wrote:

> Charles Lucy wrote:
>>
>> Why anyone would want their music to be beatless, beats me,
>
> Well Charles, I'm just beginning my (very part-time, unfortunately)
> investigations into the most effective uses of tunings for relaxation
> music.

FWIW, my experience is that very slow beating is much more relaxing than
beatless music. Equal-beating (or what might perhaps be more generally
called coordinate-beating or beat-savvy) scales are probably easier to
listen to than those with arbitrary undesigned patterns of beating.

And then I'd venture the following opinion: which way you want to go
depends on whether you want simply relaxation or more complete integration
with life as it actually is, which is also healing but not necessarily
relaxing. For a total vacation, go with slow beating. To remain fully
functional, energized, and ready to meet the world as it is consider
including something other than pure or near just. I'm partly kidding but
want to put it this way just to tickle people's responses, because I think
there is some truth to this, but don't know the limits of it.

For the very-slow-beating category this comes about pretty naturally by
aiming for just and missing a little, such as if you have a real acoustic
instrument that you are tuning, or else a synth with limited tuning
accuracy.

Pure just does not occur in nature, and nature is pretty relaxing. The
closest to pure just I have heard in nature is very large machinery with
primarily a single fundamental and *lots* of harmonics (hmm, I guess that's
not nature), but even there there is apparently something like bearing drift
or other effects that keep the sound from being static.

-Kurt

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Bill Canty <bill@b...> wrote:
> Gene Ward Smith wrote:

> > Midi pitch bends are capable of all the accuracy anyone is likely to
> > need;
>
> Do you mean the normal 0 to 127 pitch bend messages, or the 14-bit ones?

Fine bend is 14 bits, with the usual range setting you get 12*2^12 =
49152 divisions of the octave. I don't regard coarse pitch bend as
normal, I regard it as 768-equal.

> > that doesn't mean your program of choice knows what to do with
> > the fine tuning bits.
>
> AFAIK my program of choice (Logic) does know what to do with the fine
> tuning bits, but it's my *synths* that don't wanna know about 14-bit
> pitch bend messages.
>
> Or have I got it wrong...?

I doubt you are wrong. Consider yourself lucky if you even make to to
768, let alone farther.

🔗monz <monz@attglobal.net>

hi Bill and Gene,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Bill Canty <bill@b...> wrote:

> > Gene Ward Smith wrote:
>
> > AFAIK my program of choice (Logic) does know what to do
> > with the fine tuning bits, but it's my *synths* that don't
> > wanna know about 14-bit pitch bend messages.
> >
> > Or have I got it wrong...?
>
> I doubt you are wrong. Consider yourself lucky if you even
> make to to 768, let alone farther.

as i reported last summer, i did some experiments with
my computer soundcards, using Cakewalk with a pitch-bend
resolution of 12-bits (i.e., "dodekamus", 41952edo),
and found that my hardware is quantized to 768edo
("hexamus") in one case, and to 1200edo (cents) in the
other.

i suspect that these two figures account for the tuning
resolution of nearly all electronic music hardware.

see "dodekamu" and "hexamu" in the Encyclopaedia of Tuning
for more info.

http://tonalsoft.com/enc/

-monz

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@a...> wrote:

> as i reported last summer, i did some experiments with
> my computer soundcards, using Cakewalk with a pitch-bend
> resolution of 12-bits (i.e., "dodekamus", 41952edo),
> and found that my hardware is quantized to 768edo
> ("hexamus") in one case, and to 1200edo (cents) in the
> other.

> i suspect that these two figures account for the tuning
> resolution of nearly all electronic music hardware.

I think I've mentioned it before, but there is one microtemperament
768 does a particularly good job with. Though the obvious et for it is
171, 768 does just fine. I'm calling it "mutt", for Midi UniT
Temperament. Its generators can be take to be 2^(1/3) and a near-just,
very slightly narrow 5/4, or else the 12-et major third, and the 14
cent error of a 12-et major third. It looks like one of those
temperaments up to me to explore since no one else would be
interested, but it is not a bad one if you want to go to microland. If
I do write something in it, for sure I will tune it to 768-equal.

Mutt [2^(1/3), 5/4] generators
<<21 3 -36 -44 -116 -92|| {65625/65536, 250047/250000}
[<3 5 7 8|, <0 -7 -1 12|]
err 0.04784

🔗wallyesterpaulrus <paul@stretch-music.com>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kurt Bigler <kkb@b...> wrote:

> For the very-slow-beating category this comes about pretty
naturally by
> aiming for just and missing a little, such as if you have a real
acoustic
> instrument that you are tuning,

Real acoustic instruments, if tightly coupled (as in the case of
piano or guitar strings sharing a bridge), can 'phase-lock' and
acheive very simple JI intervals (such as 1/1) even if you didn't
tune them with infinite accuracy:

http://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectures/weinreic/weinreic.html

Essentially, if there is any beating left here, it becomes so slow
(because of the coupling) that it becomes silly to refer to it as
beating rather than as the amplitude envelope of the sound.

> Pure just does not occur in nature,

Depends what you mean. When played normally, all *bowed* strings,
reed and brass instruments, and the human voice have *exactly*
harmonic partials. And I mean exactly:

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/harmonics.html

See also Brown, Judith C. 1996. "Frequency ratios of spectral
components of musical sounds" J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 99, 1210-1218.

🔗Kurt Bigler <kkb@breathsense.com>

on 7/2/04 1:13 PM, wallyesterpaulrus <paul@stretch-music.com> wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kurt Bigler <kkb@b...> wrote:
>
>> For the very-slow-beating category this comes about pretty
> naturally by
>> aiming for just and missing a little, such as if you have a real
> acoustic
>> instrument that you are tuning,
>
> Real acoustic instruments, if tightly coupled (as in the case of
> piano or guitar strings sharing a bridge), can 'phase-lock' and
> acheive very simple JI intervals (such as 1/1) even if you didn't
> tune them with infinite accuracy:
>
> http://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectures/weinreic/weinreic.html

Yes, I kind of forgot about that, even though I know it. In practice on
*my* pipe organ phase-locking *between* pipes has not been something I've
been able to achieve.

Supposedly it is factor in design that nearby pipes will pitch-shift to be
closer to each other, and thus pipes in a chest are often arranged in 4 rows
so that adjacent pipes on a row are consecutive thirds, so that the thirds
will tune closer to pure. Thus a slight amount of adaptive JI happening in
a pipe organ. Not that I can say I've ever heard the effect of this,
because no A/B comparison has been possible and clearly the result is not by
any means just thirds even though it may help the thirds to be *better*.

Anyway on my organ when I get the pitches close enough, I don't get phase
locking, but only near-phase locking with drift. When there is some
coupling this usually *sounds* like it will drift slowly, then slip, then
drift quickly in the out-of-phase zone until it gets back to near in-phase
and then drift slowly again. Sort of like trying to pump a bicycle with
only one pedal, if you get what I mean.

> Essentially, if there is any beating left here, it becomes so slow
> (because of the coupling) that it becomes silly to refer to it as
> beating rather than as the amplitude envelope of the sound.

I still call it beating even if it is once per minute. With a lot of
harmonics involved, the individual harmonics are beating separately (though
of course not quite "independently") and this sounds is often I think
referred to as "rolling". But it is not anything like an overall amplitude
envelope because there is a separate envelope for each harmonic. So you
hear a constant shifting in weight among the harmonics, the "rolling".

>> Pure just does not occur in nature,
>
> Depends what you mean.

Right, I was quite vague there. I was thinking first that a single sound
source (i.e. one note with its harmonics) does not count as just because it
is "just" one note. Of course a harmonic sound source could be called just
whereas an inharmonic one is not, but that's not what I mean. So I was
trying to think of examples in "nature" in which more than one sound source
occur together and tune justly to each other. I could not think of any, so
the next closest thing is a sound source that is so harmonically rich that
you would not say it was a single note. Big fans are like that for me. In
fact multiple modes of vibration are probably coexisting there and the
resulting slight beating is perhaps part of what accounts for the perception
of multiple notes.

But also a static sound can create that perception becuase of slight head
movements and because of wand'rings of the acoustic attention. You know the
phenomenon wherein you listen to a harmonically rich static sound source,
and *think* a tune and this causes the tune you think to appear to manifest
as *real* ? Other people besides me have confirmed this phenomenon. It is
very interesting because it is in a sense the lowest energy way to play an
instrument. (Unfortuately no one else can hear it but you.)

> When played normally, all *bowed* strings,
> reed and brass instruments, and the human voice have *exactly*
> harmonic partials. And I mean exactly:
>
> http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/harmonics.html

Yes, I was not counting that because it was a "single sound source" as I
said above. Organ pipes and bowed strings behave very similarly in this
regard. The bow in the one case and the jet stream in the other are the
cause of the phase locking.

> See also Brown, Judith C. 1996. "Frequency ratios of spectral
> components of musical sounds" J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 99, 1210-1218.

Hmm. Wonder if that is available online.

-Kurt

🔗wallyesterpaulrus <paul@stretch-music.com>

🔗Kurt Bigler <kkb@breathsense.com>

on 7/2/04 7:39 PM, wallyesterpaulrus <paul@stretch-music.com> wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kurt Bigler <kkb@b...> wrote:
>> on 7/2/04 1:13 PM, wallyesterpaulrus <paul@s...> wrote:
>
>>> See also Brown, Judith C. 1996. "Frequency ratios of spectral
>>> components of musical sounds" J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 99, 1210-1218.
>>
>> Hmm. Wonder if that is available online.
>
> Yes -- but can you read .djvu files?

Yup, got it:

http://www.wellesley.edu/Physics/brown/pubs/freqRatV99P1210-P1218.djvu

and got the .djvu browser plugin here:

http://www.lizardtech.com/download/dl_download.php?detail=doc_djvu_plugin&pl
atform=win

I post this because there were some strange detours in the process of trying
to find this, and the above page gives quick access to versions Mac, Windows
and Unix platforms. One detour was that I thought I was looking for an
application, not a plug in. But in fact the browser plugin works great and
.djvu pages load instantly which is a vast improvement over the Acrobotch
Reader plugin, and the text quality is a little wierd but certainly more
readable than many pdf's.

Anyway, that's an interesting set of results in that paper, thanks. I'll
have to spend a little more time to assimilate it.

-Kurt

🔗Kalle Aho <kalleaho@mappi.helsinki.fi>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "wallyesterpaulrus" <paul@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kurt Bigler <kkb@b...> wrote:
>
> > But also a static sound can create that perception becuase of
> slight head
> > movements and because of wand'rings of the acoustic attention.
You
> know the
> > phenomenon wherein you listen to a harmonically rich static sound
> source,
> > and *think* a tune and this causes the tune you think to appear
to
> manifest
> > as *real* ? Other people besides me have confirmed this
> phenomenon. It is
> > very interesting because it is in a sense the lowest energy way
to
> play an
> > instrument. (Unfortuately no one else can hear it but you.)
>
> So it isn't the drugs? ;)

Kurt and Paul,

Glad to hear I'm not the only one. I also see images in the
television static. You can actually draw lines in the screen and
others can see them too. :)

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

>But in fact the browser plugin works great and .djvu pages load
>instantly which is a vast improvement over the Acrobotch Reader
>plugin, and the text quality is a little wierd but certainly more
>readable than many pdf's.

Acrobat has now has the slight advantage in on-screen quality if
you're viewing on an LCD display because it does subpixel rendering.
Otherwise, both platforms have identical quality in the limit.
But, Acrobat is further hindered by the fact that it's one of the
worst pieces of software ever written.

PDF finally got jpeg4 -- the technology on which djvu is based --
in version 6, but their implementation blowz.

By the way, in case you didn't find it in your searches, there's
a free djvu encoder at:

http://any2djvu.djvuzone.org/

-Carl

🔗touchedchuckk <BadMuthaHubbard@hotmail.com>

> > > that doesn't mean your program of choice knows what to do with
> > > the fine tuning bits.
> >
> > AFAIK my program of choice (Logic) does know what to do with the
fine
> > tuning bits, but it's my *synths* that don't wanna know about 14-
bit
> > pitch bend messages.
> >
> > Or have I got it wrong...?
>
> I doubt you are wrong. Consider yourself lucky if you even make to
to
> 768, let alone farther.

I'm not sure if you guys mean soft synths or keyboards or modules,
but I've had a lot of success creating soundfonts from the sounds I
want to use. It's roundabout, but it is possible to sample the
desired sound; create a soundfont using it; play the necessary notes
using pitch bend and record as separate audio files; then make
another soundfont from the already bent pitches. It's also possible
to use separate bits for the original sf in order to reflect the
cutoff frequencies and such or to make the instrument sound more
natural.
My main reason for doing it this way is that my soundcard often
applies the pitch bend a microsecond into the note. On the downside
you get a chromolodeon-like spread of pitches, but on the plus side
you can play them any of them at the same time.

-Chuckk

Retuning using midi to produce beatless music - You gotta be kidding!

🔗Charles Lucy <lucy@harmonics.com>

🔗Bill Canty <bill@billcanty.com>

🔗Bill Canty <bill@billcanty.com>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Bill Canty <bill@billcanty.com>

🔗Kurt Bigler <kkb@breathsense.com>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗monz <monz@attglobal.net>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗wallyesterpaulrus <paul@stretch-music.com>

🔗Kurt Bigler <kkb@breathsense.com>

🔗wallyesterpaulrus <paul@stretch-music.com>

🔗wallyesterpaulrus <paul@stretch-music.com>

🔗Kurt Bigler <kkb@breathsense.com>

🔗Kalle Aho <kalleaho@mappi.helsinki.fi>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗touchedchuckk <BadMuthaHubbard@hotmail.com>