[jaddie]

It does if you want it to.  That would be deionized lilac, though.  Very rare, imported from Tuvalu on a boat rowed by slaves and shipped encased in solidified dihydrogen oxide. 

 

[ChipnDalebowl]

This is one of the best threads on this forum. BigShot is 100% correct on the harmonics and frequencies. Try it for yourself...I've done so and i can't hear a difference in any real music. Who sits back and listens to 18khz tones all day anyway?

 

[asdfghjkzxcvbnm]

Quote:

Check out The Interactive Frequency-chart :
http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm
 
You will notice that the number of instruments producing fundamentals above 4kHz
can be counted on one hand .
 
Also, there are virtually NO studio/live microphones that don't cut everything beyond 22kHz ..

what does it mean by fundementals/harmonics on that website?

 

[mikeaj]

Quote:

what does it mean by fundementals/harmonics on that website?

 
Most sounds by real instruments, by the nature of the construction of the instrument and how the sound waves are generated, are not pure sine waves.  They're comprised of a fundamental frequency and different harmonics.  The fundamental is the note that is considered to be played by the instrument.  The harmonics are at multiples (2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, ...) of the fundamental frequency.  The relative magnitude of the different harmonics relative to the fundamental is most of what gives the instrument its characteristic sound.
 
What's listed on the website is the approximate range of notes the instrument can hit.  The listed harmonic range is the (non-trivial; a 10th harmonic with hardly any energy probably doesn't count) range of harmonics that can be produced when playing any of the notes in the range of the instrument.
 
Think about how high a flute can play; it's listed at just above 2 kHz for the top range of the notes it can play.  Okay, skilled players can go past the C above the C that's in ledger lines above the staff, but most composers don't write for that god-awful sound

.  That's high already.  It's just some harmonics that can extend up there.

 

[bigshot]

Engineers generally concern themselves with the first three levels of harmonics. That's two octaves above the fundamental. Above that most harmonics are at such a low level, they're inaudible. Only percussion instruments have harmonics up high.

 

[CashNotCredit]

Quote:

Engineers generally concern themselves with the first three levels of harmonics. That's two octaves above the fundamental. Above that most harmonics are at such a low level, they're inaudible. Only percussion instruments have harmonics up high.

Generally, yes. However, square waves and sawtooth waves have extremely loud harmonics, with their 9th harmonic having the same amplitude as the 3rd harmonic of a triangle wave. Because synthesizers often make heavy use of square and sawtooth waves, this may change things a bit when it comes to EDM.

 

[mikeaj]

Even for a lot of natural sounds, acoustic instruments producing tonal sounds (I mean, not like cymbols and other broadband percussion), there can be a decent amount of energy in harmonics after the first few.
 
Not even cherry-picking an example (G4 on flute):
 

 
 
From here:
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/sound.spectrum.html
 
At less than 30 dB down from the fundamental—a lot but not a huge amount—you get the 9th harmonic, at 3 octaves and roughly a major second up, landing in the range where human hearing is most sensitive.  
 
That said, harmonic content should change at different fundamentals.  I think there should be less energy in harmonics at higher fundamentals, with wind instruments.

 

[bigshot]

30 dB down from the fundamental is going to be below the noise floor of the room on a flute. Flutes don't get that loud in the first place.

 

[mikeaj]

Quote:

30 dB down from the fundamental is going to be below the noise floor of the room on a flute. Flutes don't get that loud in the first place.

 
Flutes are that quiet, when?  (Actually, they are at G4, I'll give you that.)  But 30 dB down is under the noise floor when close mic'ed, in the studio, or even for a solo flute recording, or...?  Recordings are never getting better than 30 dB SNR capturing flute?
 
 
And come on, fine,
 

 
Trumpet at close to middle C.  5th harmonic has more energy than the fundamental.  I hope this isn't under the noise floor too...  (from here).

 

[asdfghjkzxcvbnm]

Sorry I'm a bit confused, do the instruments usually play in the fundamentals or the harmonics? I don't really understand the difference.

 

[mikeaj]

Quote:

Sorry I'm a bit confused, do the instruments usually play in the fundamentals or the harmonics? I don't really understand the difference.

 
The note being played is the fundamental.  On the sheet of music, there's a G in the middle of the treble clef, and a G is played (G4, ~392 Hz).  The sound that comes out includes some sound from the fundamental at 392 Hz as well as other frequencies.  Those would be the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. harmonics, at 784 Hz, 1176 Hz, 1568 Hz.
 
Actually, that's a bit of an oversimplification as the sound during the start is definitely different than that of a sustained note, and it changes over time.

 

[El_Doug]

both!  in fact, the nature of the harmonics is one of the key factors that really affects the timbre, and allows us to hear a difference between a G4 played on a piano and a G4 played on a clarinet, even though the fundamental frequency is the same. 
 
in fact, there is no way for a pure fundamental tone to be heard in nature.  an interesting thought:  until the advent of the synthesizer, no human being in history had ever heard a pure sine wave
 
Quote:

Sorry I'm a bit confused, do the instruments usually play in the fundamentals or the harmonics? I don't really understand the difference.

 

[mikeaj]

Quote:

both!  in fact, the nature of the harmonics is one of the key factors that really affects the timbre, and allows us to hear a difference between a G4 played on a piano and a G4 played on a clarinet, even though the fundamental frequency is the same. 
 
in fact, there is no way for a pure fundamental tone to be heard in nature.  an interesting thought:  until the advent of the synthesizer, no human being in history had ever heard a pure sine wave
 

 
And maybe they still haven't, as transducers don't have 0% THD.
 
If we're talking about close, then a simple tuning fork is relatively good at that:
 

 
From here.  That's orders of magnitude less clean than modern hi-fi audio equipment trying to play back a pure sine wave though.

 

[El_Doug]

Thanks for the tuning fork spectrum, that's REALLY interesting! 

 

[stv014]

This is ~0.5% THD on average from a few seconds of a simple whistle, which is basically like noise passed through a narrow bandpass filter: