What a long, strange trip it's been -- (Robert Hunter)

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

Maybe easier to search for the type of tone scales they use which are always pentatonic.
Pentatonic scales are easy to grasp on paper. Harder for the ears for us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scale

http://2centsmusic.blogspot.nl/2011/04/tonality-and-scales-in-chinese-music.html

https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0ahUKEwjJ0JWq1LPWAhUjM8AKHVfKD90QFghGMAc&url=http://webbrain.com/attach?brain=FE9A3947-848E-CA05-DFC5-E32D9FD16A6D&attach=93&type=1&usg=AFQjCNFGUz7OW55D5-ckarElkyzXrChdrw

http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen...atics_in_Chinese_Musical_Scale/pentatonic.htm

 

[Blue Warper]

Ok, I need some help from the readers. I have been asked about how the Gadget works works with Chinese Opera and Hindustani Compositions. Could anyone point me in the direction of some English Language publications describing the technical nature of those tone scales? Thanks in advance with no promises, but it certainly does no harm for me to learn new stuff.

Mike,
just a minor contribution (I'm European, so I don't know too much about oriental music). The only work that I know of (or that I may recall right know) is "Introduction to the study of musical scale" by the famous Orientalist Alain Daniélou (1943). He was a professor at Benares where he studied traditional Hindu philosophy and classical Indian Music in particular. He also wrote "Music and the Power of Sound. The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness" (1944). I didn't read neither work, so I can't be more specific, but I know they deal with the oriental music theory in particular. A quick search on amazon showed both available.
Hope this helps a bit, but I think others better informed will be able to give some other suggestion.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot to add some links to an online resource that I used as a reference for the above data (titles and publication dates):
https://www.alaindanielou.org/books/corpus/music/introduction-to-the-study-of-musical-scales/
https://www.alaindanielou.org/books/corpus/music/music-and-the-power-of-sound/

 

[EricDH]

Bit of a side track I guess, but also interesting is the (for me legendary) broadcast from Leonard Bernstein where he explains (to children, but not less interesting for adults) different modes .....

It explains WHY music sounds oriental, or otherwise outlandish. Nothing new for the musicians here, but for me it was very interesting.

 

[Marshall Hance]

If it's simply and only a very good pitch shifter, I honestly don't get the point. I don't buy into the mystical nonsense, and I am confident there are no skingasms as a result. If it restores or aligns time + frequency domain relationships of fundamentals, overtones, and harmonics, then I'm all in and will buy multiples of every version so I can vibrate in sheer delight everywhere I choose to listen.

 

[leafy7382]

Ok, I need some help from the readers. I have been asked about how the Gadget works works with Chinese Opera and Hindustani Compositions. Could anyone point me in the direction of some English Language publications describing the technical nature of those tone scales? Thanks in advance with no promises, but it certainly does no harm for me to learn new stuff.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_musicology this one describes it pretty well.

 

[dglow]

If it's simply and only a very good pitch shifter, I honestly don't get the point. I don't buy into the mystical nonsense, and I am confident there are no skingasms as a result.

It seems unwise to rule out phenomena without attempting to observe them. Evidence begets theory, not the other way around. (Though it's astounding how many scientists forget this.)

I've enjoyed many a sublime moment as a result of Baldr's creations, specifically the Yggdrasil. His efforts have earned my trust, and I'm happy to audition this Gadget before judging it.

 

[Marshall Hance]

It seems unwise to rule out phenomena without attempting to observe them. Evidence begets theory, not the other way around. (Though it's astounding how many scientists forget this.)

I've enjoyed many a sublime moment as a result of Baldr's creations, specifically the Yggdrasil. His efforts have earned my trust, and I'm happy to audition this Gadget before judging it.

There are plenty of recordings available at C=256, no need to wait in order to hear for yourself. I also trust his tech, I just suspect/hope there's more to it than as yet revealed.

 

[basstrombone]

Ok, I need some help from the readers. I have been asked about how the Gadget works works with Chinese Opera and Hindustani Compositions. Could anyone point me in the direction of some English Language publications describing the technical nature of those tone scales? Thanks in advance with no promises, but it certainly does no harm for me to learn new stuff.

OK - for an overwhelmingly technical and amazingly and entertainingly readable text, please look at The Story of Harmony by Rex Weyler and Bill Gannon. They're from my town, Vancouver. (Bill Gannon is one of the principals behind Band in a Box software.) It's available many places on the web; on Scribd I believe it's at https://www.scribd.com/doc/174790648/Rex-Weyler-and-Bill-Gannon-The-Story-of-Harmony.
If it grabs you, please don't blame me for keeping you up at night...

 

[rkw]

There are plenty of recordings available at C=256, no need to wait in order to hear for yourself.

That's beside the point. The idea is to take a performance/recording originally at say A=440 and pitch shift it to C=256, and it's supposed to come out sounding better. There is indeed a need to wait to hear the difference for yourself.

 

[oryan_dunn]

That's beside the point. The idea is to take a performance/recording originally at say A=440 and pitch shift it to C=256, and it's supposed to come out sounding better. There is indeed a need to wait to hear the difference for yourself.

1. Can anyone point me to a recording on Spotify or otherwise freely available service that is in C=256?

2. If C=256 is better, why aren't most performances and recordings tuned to this instead?

 

[Marshall Hance]

That's beside the point. The idea is to take a performance/recording originally at say A=440 and pitch shift it to C=256, and it's supposed to come out sounding better. There is indeed a need to wait to hear the difference for yourself.

Poppycock. If that's all it does, and it does it well, then A: You will hear no difference whatsoever and B: It won't require the manual adjustment mentioned. C: Dr. Ivana would not have been hired. Therefore it must be more than just a pitch shifter.

1. Can anyone point me to a recording on Spotify or otherwise freely available service that is in C=256?

2. If C=256 is better, why aren't most performances and recordings tuned to this instead?

Bob Marley's three little birds. John Lenon's Imagine.

Foobar2000 has a few pitch shifting plugins available.

 

[rkw]

Therefore it must be more than just a pitch shifter.

Baldr (Mike) has posted the following comment (not here but on a different forum):

Bear in mind, the gadget is a box with a bypass switch and when engaged, has a one simple pot adjustment to tune to the user's pleasure. It was only after the fact that we discovered that the skingasm spot centered statistically on C=256. Therefore the judgement of C=256 as optimum is subjective and averaged over the response of several users. Again, the gadget only varies the pitch of the content.​

 

[RCBinTN]

Maybe easier to search for the type of tone scales they use which are always pentatonic.
Pentatonic scales are easy to grasp on paper. Harder for the ears for us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scale

http://2centsmusic.blogspot.nl/2011/04/tonality-and-scales-in-chinese-music.html

https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0ahUKEwjJ0JWq1LPWAhUjM8AKHVfKD90QFghGMAc&url=http://webbrain.com/attach?brain=FE9A3947-848E-CA05-DFC5-E32D9FD16A6D&attach=93&type=1&usg=AFQjCNFGUz7OW55D5-ckarElkyzXrChdrw

http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen...atics_in_Chinese_Musical_Scale/pentatonic.htm

Those are very interesting posts...thanks, Pietro.
I thought I knew things about music, until this discussion started. Now I've learned a lot more.
It's a ton of fun.

 

[RCBinTN]

1. Can anyone point me to a recording on Spotify or otherwise freely available service that is in C=256?

2. If C=256 is better, why aren't most performances and recordings tuned to this instead?

This is somewhat a guess, but from reading Mike's posts much of the acoustic folk and bluegrass music will be tuned to C4=256.
Here are a couple examples of that music.

 

[Baldr]

@Baldr curious if there's a story behind the hiring of Dr. Ivana. How did you convince her to leave her research on mood & music and come work for you? I hope there's more to it than a ton of money

On another note, I am really captivated by the song at the end of The Accountant by Sean Rowe.

I cannot offer anything other than what she told me. She has been centered in SoCal for several years (PhD from UCSB). She is not independently wealthy and needed work. She told me she liked the Schiit attitude and style. She has been to the Schiit Box only three times. We have Agua Dulce me-Dave-Ivana digital summits every 2-3 weeks. (Dave and I both live in Agua Dulce.). Virtually all of the digital R&D is unsupervised. All I care about are results. Since Ivana lives 40 or so miles away, this suits her well, and since Dave and I are incurable night-owls, the summits evade rush hour traffic. An unusually worded Craig’s List ad pulled her in.