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The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

jakubmarian.com

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Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#321

Post by tripzilch »

harperlee wrote: post #307
jmiserez wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VLC can do this too: Speed up: ] key Speed down: [ key Normal speed: = key

I am used to speed up things, but last weekend I suddenly realised I can also slow down engrenages (a French show recommended in another HN thread, by the way) and suddenly I can understand so. much. French. It's like magic!

Not many people are aware that this is in fact the natural way spoken French sounds like in France, because of a difference in air composition and thus the speed of sound.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#322

Post by anigbrowl »

Retra wrote: post #220
anigbrowl wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's right to get angry. There's nothing special about 432Hz (see my comment above on it's absolutely arbitrary nature), BUT the numerology that falls out of musical harmony is is indeed special and makes most of human race happy because of the aesthetic satisfaction that Pythagorean harmony (or even it's equal-tempered cousin) delivers to people. Science is very good at describing things and why they're interesting…

> science can't tell you what's beautiful or how to live. Yes it can. If you feel otherwise, it is because you're ignorant of how science actually works and how general its base principles are.

Not sure if serious, but if so no it can't except in the most primitive way (like describing harmony vs dissonance in musical notes). Art is far more complex than that, and as for prescribing philosophies of living, forget it.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#323

Post by anigbrowl »

ytpete wrote: post #243
tikhonj wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you've watched a lot of Star Trek? I figure this is just the human mind's wonderful proclivity towards learning patterns. I was actually thinking about a similar but less subtle example: I use a transit system that involves tagging on and off with an RFID card (Clipper on Caltrain). When you tag your card, it makes one of three different noises depending on what happen—and I couldn't possibly tell you wh…

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some psychology behind the choice of sounds when you tag the transit card. Just like visual "affordances" in UI design, there may be certain audio characteristics that people will associate with "good" vs. "error," for example. I recall one study showing that people almost universally feel certain shapes and word sounds are "friendlier" than others (albeit by very subtle margins).…

Yeah, there's quite a lot of this but I can't think of any good references offhand. When doing audio logos I've always looked to catchphrases and famous movie quotes and tried to emulate the underlying intonation/cadences. I'm not aware of this knowledge being systematized anywhere though.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#324

Post by anigbrowl »

qilo wrote: post #255
mrb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you take a track and play it a little bit faster or slower it still sounds great or awful as at the default speed in most cases." Yup. Another example: in most of the world (where the television system is PAL or SECAM) movies are played on TV or released on DVD at 25 frame per second. But to achieve this frame rate, they take the theatrical film release at 24 fps and speed the video and audio up by 25/24th (4.17%…

> For NTSC, the film release is sped down by a much smaller amount (0.1%) during the 3:2 pulldown to adjust from 30 to the exact 29.97 fps that NTSC needs. No. For NTSC they just drop (throw away) 1 frame from every 1000 frames, so there's no speed-up or speed-down in audio track.

This is incorrect. I worked for a decade as a film sound engineer. If you don't implement the 0.1% pull-up/pull-down, then sync will begin to drift noticeably.

https://www.lynda.com/Pro-Tools-tutorials/Understanding-vide...

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#325

Post by anigbrowl »

dhimes wrote: post #116
anigbrowl wrote: post #76

I have been following this for years, being both a sound engineer and a bit of a hippie who knows a lot of other hippies. The basic issue is that 432 is a numerologically interesting number compared to 440. So if it's more interesting it should be better for artistic purposes, goes the argument. However this falls flat as soon as you consider that the 432 is only interesting relative to the completely arbirtrary dura…

The second is defined as the time it takes for two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the 133 Ce atom to make 9,192,631,770 transitions. How is that not special?

XD

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#327

Post by anigbrowl »

nonbel wrote: post #95
anigbrowl wrote: post #76

I have been following this for years, being both a sound engineer and a bit of a hippie who knows a lot of other hippies. The basic issue is that 432 is a numerologically interesting number compared to 440. So if it's more interesting it should be better for artistic purposes, goes the argument. However this falls flat as soon as you consider that the 432 is only interesting relative to the completely arbirtrary dura…

I wouldn't be so sure there is nothing special about the duration of a second. It comes from dividing a day into two sets of 12, then those 12 into five sets of 12 (12x5=60), then those 60s into 60 each. We know our bodies do follow circadian rhythms, so you have the initial link to length of day. Then everything else is split into sets of 12, a number with exceptional properties that natural selection may optimize t…

I did refer to this with the Babylonian thing but I didn't want to get sidetracked into a review of ancient number bases. I love your reference about non-constant time though, most interesting.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#328

Post by anigbrowl »

robbyt wrote: post #106
anigbrowl wrote: post #76

I have been following this for years, being both a sound engineer and a bit of a hippie who knows a lot of other hippies. The basic issue is that 432 is a numerologically interesting number compared to 440. So if it's more interesting it should be better for artistic purposes, goes the argument. However this falls flat as soon as you consider that the 432 is only interesting relative to the completely arbirtrary dura…

A friend of mine is a professional mix engineer in NYC. He's worked with several large artists, you've probably heard of. He strongly believes in setting numerically interesting values for things like eq, gain reduction, song length, delay time in ms, etc.

Like I said, I try to exploit interesting numerical properties all the time. I really am a mystic, I've made major life decisions based on a tarot reading and am glad I did so as such methods seem to work better for me than purely analytical ones. On the other hand, I'm analytical enough to not want to bullshit people with unreproducible results.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#329

Post by jmiserez »

tripzilch wrote: post #321
harperlee wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am used to speed up things, but last weekend I suddenly realised I can also slow down engrenages (a French show recommended in another HN thread, by the way) and suddenly I can understand so. much. French. It's like magic!

Not many people are aware that this is in fact the natural way spoken French sounds like in France, because of a difference in air composition and thus the speed of sound.

Uhm, no that's definitely not true.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#330

Post by gugagore »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #297
gugagore wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You raise a good point. a second is an arbitrary length, so nothing universally significant about 439 Hz or 432 Hz or etc. However, when you are trying to build a device that oscillates at x Hz, there are engineering-ly sigificant values. For example (as already mentioned) a 1kHz oscillator might be easier to come by. As an additional example, the AC power in the UK is at 50 Hz, a factor of 440 Hz. So there is a free…

AC line frequency has been recognized as a preferred reference for pitch. This is what made Hammond electric clocks the first reliable AC powered timekeepers. Later, Hammond famously produced electro-mechanical organs referenced to line frequency. Well, what do you expect from somebody simply following in the creative footsteps of Leonardo DaVinci & Thos. Edison?

Interesting.

I don't think it's a particularly stable reference in the short term. It's true that the power companies adjust it to hit exactly the nominal frequency over a period of many hours, but not at any one instant.

In fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_frequency#Time_error_c...

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