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Re: [ARSCLIST] Harmony acoustics, 1925
On Thu, 26 Oct 2006, George Brock-Nannestad wrote:
> ----- when you compare two sounds, there is a tendency to prefer the louder
> one. This means, try to make them sound equally loud. It is a vague concept,
> especially if the spectral content is not the same, but nevertheless.
Indeed, this has been difficult. I spent three hours yesterday trying to
adjust amplitude to where I felt it was indeed at levels which allowed for
a fair comparison.
> ----- as to tone tests, which are frequently ridiculed, because we do not
> wish to be impressed by that low-tech: Cecil Watts in memoirs tell us that
> his father used to demonstrate records like that in England, and that they
> had a recording of a silent groove that played along with the live performer
> behind the curtain in order to have realistic hiss! Suddenly it does not seem
> so ridiculous after all?!
I had not read that. No it does not seem at all ridiculous.
> ----- part of it is not so much fiction: In 1998 I heard a piano sound
> synthesized real-time based on differential equations for the contributions
> of the vibrating parts, these equations being solved real-time, so that you
> could play this piano tone synthesizer from a velocity pickup keyboard (and
> definitely not a sample reproducer) from a force and velocity pickup keyboard
> through a gigantic loudspeaker setup. In the far field and with the level
> adjusted to the normal output of a grand piano I could not tell the
> difference. The disharmonic part where the hammer hits the string was also
> well calculated.
Also, I wonder if it would be possible to have a synthesized piano where
the appropriate partials and perhaps even the fundamental, of a note
played in the treble would be amplified by whatever note was played in the bass,
as it is with an acoustic piano, or a sostenuto pedal that would have real
functionality on a digital keyboard.
It would seem that it could be done...assuming it hasn't been done already.
Karl