I have a pianist who has been visiting frequently and we are trying to work up some arrangements.

The piano parts are central and so an uncertainty about tuning seems more crucial than when I work with funky electro keyboard sounds as backing voices.

Anyways... just trying to be honest.



In any event, my guest has asked to work at A=444Hz rather than the 440. He has ideas about it... I like what he's doing. Etc.


I set up Kontakt with the New York piano and set the tuning to 444.

I have set my tuner to 444 and am using that to tune the bass and guitar.

It seems to be working out but it has raised a lot of questions for me.

I've been using Stretch tuning in Kontakt.

Now I just want to think through everything again and get the best harmonics.


I am struggling to get my bass guitar to sound "sweet." I've worked up a really simple part so I don't think I'm getting crazy voicings. I have even tried Melodyne at 444... it felt as if the pre Melo'd track was more in tune with the piano than the one I tried "tuning".



So, I know that's all kind of random... maybe someone has some thoughts to share.

Maybe I should try equal tempered? Stuff like that.


Thanks.


best regards,
mike


 

Thanks for sharing this.  Its very difficult to get band instruments perfectly balanced ... along with vocals and all.

I'm not sure my guitars tune very well either ... except at specific native freqs perhaps ... but I'm just a hacker.
Strings vs. length of the guitar neck.  I suppose.  Its rarely perfectly consonant.  

Other band instruments seem 'off pitch' ... you the composer must decide what, where, when, and how to blend.

Personally, I don't like piano blending with electric guitar too oft ... they marry poorly in my hands.

In effect ... like having the wrong strings for the wrong guitar length.

For me it might be the G string that wreaks the most havoc ... while contorting to *bad* pianos.

I suppose different strings or different guitars may/may not also help :):):)

dang... I pressed something and the post went away.... start over.


If the piano player wants to play at 444, and it sounds good..... do it. 

Changing the pitch, even slightly does add a new dynamic to the music. We see this in key changes in a song and the result is a new level of energy. 

As far as having instruments on 2 different but very close pitches.... 444 and 440 ... well, how well that works will be a call for you to make as you listen. Some purists will hear the difference.....other folks may not. If I recall.... The Band and The Grateful Dead didn't really worry too much about getting everything tuned perfectly even in the studio....and it made their sound instantly recognizable. 

I have known a few people in my time who insisted that something other than 440 was better sounding to them. With a tuner, it is easy enough to do. I had to do that when I played in a church orchestra for a time. the piano was slightly sharp. I simply made a mental note of the degree and tuned accordingly. the PITB was the piano in the choir room and the one on the stage were not in tune to each other. I verified this as well. This was eventually remedied.

All in all, it's an issue that only you will be able to determine what works and what doesn't..... but tuning everything to 444 is the safe bet initially. 

And I do believe melodyne can be set to center on 444. Sometimes the "off pitch" factor make the music more interesting.... as long as it's not noticeably distracting.

I think the problem is going to be that an acoustic piano tuned to 444 is going to be treated differently by the person doing the tuning.  Piano tuning is not a matter of setting all the strings that make up one pitch to the same frequency--there are three strings to each hammer in the treble register.  Each string is tuned to an oscilliscope and then again by ear relative to the other strings.  (http://www.piano-tuners.org/edfoote/index.html)

When you raise the pitch of a digital piano it just raises everything mathematically.  It doesn't sound quite the same.  My old Korg 01W had a temperament setting that attempted to handle some of the issues but it wasn't really all that realistic.

Personally, I love listening to music that is tuned for the key it was written in.  Temperament comes into play quite a bit.  See if you can find recordings of Classical and Baroque era in which the instruments were tuned appropriately rather than equal temperament.   You can hear the differences almost immediatly.  For me, it's most apparent in Beethoven's piano pieces. 

My assumption on this is that you are speaking about a digital or softsynth based piano. 


It's just too freaking hard to change the tuning of a real piano by 4 cents.  A few piano tuners I have known have all said they tune using pitch forks mostly and only tune certain notes to the pitch fork or tuner.... they tun the rest by ear since due to the nature of the beast, a perfectly tuned piano often does not sound good. Some notes simply must be tuned sharp or flat to make it work and sound alive. 

So, what is it you get for four cents?

I used to buy 4 Bazooka Joe bubble gums for four cents.... not anymore.

Thanks for the replies.

I switched to equal temperment and I'm playing really carefully and it seems to be working out ok.

I tried Melodyne again... and it seems as if it sounds better without it.

I also found it sounded sweeter when I added a guitar part as it helped define the purpose of the bass part... where as the bass part seemed to compete with the piano before the guitar was added as it's foil.



It occurs to me that I think I recall reading that N.I.'s piano library is actually recorded at 443 and then conformed to 440 so it seems ironic that I've ended up going back to 444.


best regards,
mike

I'd tell him to suck it up and deal with 4 cents... 440 is the standard, "DEAL WITH IT!" The iron fist in the iron glove approach? It's like Morbo from Futurama, and you can't go wrong with it.

I am sort of curious what the benefits are working at 444 Hz. He says he has ideas about it, what ideas?

I can understand tuning an acoustic instrument up to a different ref tuning frequency, that would have definite implications. As far as tuning a digital instrument up to that frequency as pointed out already not so sure.

In the scheme of things if you were to produce the tracks at 440 and 444 and did a blind A/B test I wonder if the difference would be so obvious or important for that matter.

If the music and the playing are really good it should not matter at all.