source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 23:05:27 -0700 Subject: Bill Sethares' Analysis of Detwelvulate! Track 3 From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@compuserve.com> Ooops. I meant to send this to the list, not just to Paul. Actually, listening again to the opening chord, I hear something a little different. The opening minor-third chord is about 3 seconds long before the first melody note enters. There is some sort of square, on/off change (no intermediary values) that occurs about once a second during that time. During that first second-long period, I hear something that sounds to me like a classic beat, but it vanishes after that first second-long period. But anyway, check out Bill Sethares' analysis below. By the way, it sounds different depending upon where and at what angle I place my head within the room. That beat during the first second-long period seems almost inaudible when I have my head between the two speakers, but is clearly audible when I have my head turned 90 degrees so that both speakers are toward my left ear. For you folks doing sample looping, that's something I've found to be very valuable: Don't declare a loop to be clean without moving and tilting your head relative to the monitor speakers. Some flaws in some rooms can easily be rendered inaudible when your head is at one angle or another. --------------- Forwarded Message --------------- From: Gary Morrison, 71670,2576 To: PAULE, INTERNET:ACADIAN/ACADIAN/PAULE%Acadian@mcimail.com Date: 10 Jul 1996 , 7:16 PM RE: Darreg Disc Error: track 3 mislabelled > Not only does that minor third sound wide from just, but it also beats just > under 3 times per second. Gary, maybe you should listen to it on a different > stereo system, this beating is not hard to hear. I definitely heard something changing at the low-mid frequency range, at about the rate you mentioned, but it didn't sound like a beat to me. I say "didn't" because of some results Bill Sethares came up with. He did a mathematical analysis of a certain passage, and the frequencies present drew two conclusions I found surprising: 1. Two pitch changes in a chromatic run were 48 cents and 52 cents. It seems likely therefore that it's not in 17, 19, nor 22, but in quartertones. 2. The timbre, despite its brightness, consisted of only of two partials an octave apart. I don't recall what he said were the relative weights. As for the beat, I suppose that that change we both hear could be a beat after all. The tone was bright enough that I expected it would have major wads and wads of high-harmonic content, in which case the beats would sound like typical phaser/flanger effect from a Tomita album. It would be a horrendous comb-filter sweep - FAR less subtle than that fluctuation you pointed out. But knowing that the tone is really just a couple of partials (and apparently low ones), then yes, that probably is exactly what such a waveform's beat would sound like. Received: from sun4nl.NL.net [193.78.240.12] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 08:58 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by sun4nl.NL.net with SMTP id AA27748 (5.65b/CWI-3.3); Thu, 11 Jul 1996 08:57:20 +0200 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id XAA17236; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 23:55:03 -0700 Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 23:55:03 -0700 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu