[PD] making scales from frequency values
Dudley Brooks
dbrooks at runforyourlife.org
Tue Jul 21 01:20:07 CEST 2009
If he's trying to make a scale which sounds "good" with notes which have
non-harmonic partials (I don't have the original post to see whether the
listed frequencies are, indeed, non-harmonic), then he might be
interested in this:
http://ebook30.com/magazine/music/89538/tuning-timbre-spectrum-scale.html
There's another site on which you can enter the partial frequencies and
it will generate a "consonant" scale for that timbre. Unfortunately, I
have lost the URL, and haven't yet successfully figured out what to
search on to find it!
Surely someone on this list knows the site (and theory) I'm referring to.
-- Dudley
Derek Holzer wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
>
> it's really not so complicated, it's just simple math. If the root and
> partial frequencies of his chimes don't fit any note in an existing
> scale, then trying to squeeze them into one won't "sound good". It's
> also a lot of list-searching and ear-guessing to see what the "closest
> fit" might be. Using simple ratios like these will preserve the
> intervals of the notes no matter what the original frequencies might be.
>
> best,
> D.
>
> Andrew Faraday wrote:
>> I'll be honest, this sounds a bit advanced. It's logarithmic and thus
>> beyond me.
>>
>> However...
>>
>> Perhaps try to find a list of just temperament or world music scales
>> and their frequencies. See if any match up to the scale you're trying
>> to achieve.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> > Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:52:24 +0200
>> > From: derek at umatic.nl
>> > To: jbeezez at googlemail.com
>> > CC: pd-list at iem.at
>> > Subject: Re: [PD] making scales from frequency values
>> >
>> > Still not entirely sure I know what you're after, so at the risk of
>> > repeating myself, use the (just intoned) intervals here:
>> >
>> > 1, 1:1-unison;
>> > 2, 135:128-major_chroma;
>> > 3, 9:8-major_second;
>> > 4, 6:5-minor_third;
>> > 5, 5:4-major_third;
>> > 6, 4:3-perfect_fourth;
>> > 7, 45:32-diatonic_fourth;
>> > 8, 3:2-perfect_fifth;
>> > 9, 8:5-minor_sixth;
>> > 10, 27:16-pyth_major_sixth;
>> > 11, 9:5-minor_seventh;
>> > 12, 15:8-major_seventh;
>> > 13, 2:1-octave;
>> >
>> > I.e. major third = 6:5, and 6 divided by 5 is 1.2, so to transpose
>> up a
>> > major third, multiply original frequency by 1.2.
>> >
>> > Or, 5 divided by 6 is 0.83333333, so multiply by that to transpose
>> down
>> > a major third. Or cook up something with [expr] that does the job more
>> > precisely, like [expr f$1 * (5/6)] etc etc...
>> >
>> > All of these should "sound good" across the whole musical spectrum so
>> > long as you don't plan on changing key ;-)
>> >
>> > D.
>> >
>> > J bz wrote:
>> >
>> > > If I'm saying that these frequencies are
>> > > 'good' to my ear, is there a way of creating equally 'good' sounding
>> > > notes to fill in the gaps in, say for example, a 12 note scale
>> based on
>> > > these notes scaling from the lowest to the highest without doing the
>> > > whole thing 'by ear'?
>> >
>> > --
>> > ::: derek holzer ::: http://blog.myspace.com/macumbista :::
>> > http://www.vimeo.com/macumbista :::
>> > ---Oblique Strategy # 126:
>> > "Only one element of each kind"
>> >
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