Tuning mysteries

Instruments, mechanical issues, copedents, techniques, etc.

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Rick Aiello
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Post by Rick Aiello »

When this same topic came up about a year ago ... here

I did a little experiment and I reported the following:
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Well I couldn't resist.... I have a spectrum analyzer plug-in for Sound Forge and I just did the following:

Played an A 440 note on my Frypan (with 1 1/2" horseshoe magnets)... no vibrato just sounded the note. Did the same with a Gibson SG (same amp/settings/wide open pots) and an upright acoustic piano.

The results were OVERWELHMING... the Frypan had the first 10 HARMONICS (A,A,E,A,C#,E,G,A,B,C#) showing up with relative intensities that were VERY SIMILAR (they show up as colors which vary with intensities). The other two instruments lacked various individual harmonics and they (the harmonics that were there) varied widely in intensity (colors).

When a instrument puts out such UNIFORM and EXTENSIVE harmonics from 1 note it is obvious to me that when you start putting together 2,3 or 4 part harmonies ...there is going to be some SERIOUS CLASHING of upper harmonics unless you start out with the fundamentals (1st harmonic) being in tune (JI).
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Image
<font size=1>www.horseshoemagnets.com </font><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Rick Aiello on 21 April 2003 at 11:31 AM.]</p></FONT>
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Bobby Lee
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Post by Bobby Lee »

I stand corrected. Image It's just the pianos that I've played with that have the 3 strings of each note tuned differently. That's probably because they haven't been tuned recently!

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<small><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
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Roland Handsonic, Line 6 Variax<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 21 April 2003 at 12:22 PM.]</p></FONT>
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Joey Ace
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Post by Joey Ace »

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>"You can close this one, b0b, thanks."
-John </SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

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