I will not speak for my guest.

It would be silly for me to attempt to explain what he is thinking, I haven't made the journey he has... it is my role to offer hospitality and create a comfortable atmosphere where he can conjure up a good performance.

He asked if I could set it to 444... I said "yes:.



What I can offer as loosely related info is an excerpt I just copied from the Native Instruments New York Acoustic Grand manual:

"In keeping with the tradition, the piano was recorded at 443 Hz. Our feeling is that with this slightly higher tuning the tones tend to „sing“ better. After the initial recording sessions, it was re-tuned to 440 Hz; ensuring that the „singing“ tonal quality was retained and at the same time conforming to our standard tuning."

Ideas like this are floating around all over the place... I'm guessing a teacher or vocal coach instilled this interest in my guest many years ago... he rehearses this way.








The manual reminded me that stretch tuning is a poor choice for accompaniment with other instruments so I switched to equal tempered.

I had it in stretch because it sounded good by itself... it sounds better with the accompaniment in equal.



Thanks.


best regards,
mike

My guess is that he has somehow decided that only 444 sounds good to him. Probably a quirky habit...... with little basis in reality, other than a psychological thing. 


As Jeff alluded tot, and what I stated yesterday in the post that I somehow managed to delete accidentally....... the real test would be if this guy can hear the difference in the 440 vs 444 version..... by simply listening to two different samples ... not A/B'd side by side..... but played one minute apart. 

If he could do that accurately several times (remember it's a 50/50 guess) say like 5 times...and nail it each... I would be amazed and cater to his wishes. 

And as I pointed out tuning the original piano sounds to 444 produced a nicer sound for the samples for Kontakt. I don't doubt that. We are talking an acoustic instrument here. But to have to play them back at 444 is questionable though. Obviously they retain their desirable qualities either at 444 or 440. So why not use them at 440 instead. 

If a client came into my setup and insisted on working at 444, I would want some good justifiable reasons for doing so. It can be a problem as you have to tune everything from that point on up to this new ref tuning frequency. I have found that when you do this it can be hard to get everything in tune (It shouldn't be but for some reason it is and in the end you have to use your ear much more often to keep things in tune and that can be hard as well) and you have to remember to put everything back!

Back in the 60's I used to have to change my tuning for every record I played on the record player. Nobody used A-440 or tuners.... Some bands even had tuning differences on their LP's.... what a pain.  I even bought a nice JVC turntable with speed control so I could adjust the LP rather than my guitar. the guy in the stereo store says, "you must be a guitar player" when I asked for the speed control on the turntable. 

Now... it's pretty much a given... tune to A-440 and you are golden for just about everything out there now. 

Herb you reminded me of my Technics direct drive turntable which has got a great speed control for those very reasons. I think it could be safe to say that tuning in the past perhaps in rock and pop circles was maybe a little unattended. Bands may have tuned to a piano in the room but who is to say where that piano tuning was at. Or they may have not tuned well for some reason. (and by that I mean to A = 440, the tuning within itself can be very good and sound sweet but just not at A=440) Early synthesisers had some tuning issues I can tell you. I lived through all that. Trying to keep them on pitch just long enough to do a take. Some bands like Pink Floyd got it right though because I think Dave Gilmour was a bit of a stickler for tuning and Richard Wright fiddled with things until it sounded sweet.

Also with all the experimentation with varispeeding multitrack machines and doing things like that some errors may have crept in there. Possibly because someone may not have rest the multi to the zero position speed wise and it was left a tiny bit sharp or flat but no one noticed at the time. (I have done it myself!)

Mastering engineers had the options of varispeeding the final two track and I think they may have done. The artist may have wanted the song just a tad faster/or slower so they could have adjusted the master tape slightly fast/slow. Also accidents have happened where the master two track was played at the wrong speed and the vinyl pressings were done from that.

All good reasons why tracks ended up out of tune. (by that I mean in reference to A = 440 but it can also mean the obvious and instruments out of tune within themselves and with others) Also many turntables I am sure may have not been completely accurate either. My Technics is full of electronics, I have never seen so much inside a turntable yet all it's doing is spinning the platter very accurately and making fine speed adjustments.

Today I think we are onto very accurate tuning right at the source now and our DAW's are not altering the speed or pitch either which is a blessing. The final product and its playback is not altering tuning either. Synths now are far better than they used to be. We are better at hearing out of tune things and making sure we keep things in tune all the time. 'In tune' can mean in tune to the ear not necessarily in tune on a meter. But starting on a meter is good thing to do I think.

Jeff, I have in the past started to record something with guitar that was tuned to itself..... then when I went to drop some midi tracks in.... ooops..... should have tuned to a calibrated tuner. 

Start over... I had to learn that lesson a few times before it stuck.... tune to a calibrated A-440 first. 

Even now.... I will grab my guitar and play and record without tuning it....BUT.. the difference is the other A-440 tracks are already down. If I hit a chord or note that sounds squanky.... I will stop and tune. 

The latest Kneel Jung cover was recorded that way.... intentionally...to get the crazee horse sound. 

A quote from Wikipedia:

Current concert pitches A = 440 Hz is the only official standard and is widely used around the world. Many orchestras in the United Kingdom adhere to this standard as concert pitch.[8] In theUnited States some orchestras use A = 440 Hz, while others, such as New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, use A = 442 Hz.[9] The latter is also often used as tuning frequency in Europe,[2] especially in Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Norway and Switzerland.[10] Nearly all modern symphony orchestras in Germany and Austria and many in other countries in continental Europe (such as Russia, Sweden and Spain) tune to A = 443 Hz.
In practice the orchestras tune to a note given out by the oboe, and many oboists use an electronic tuning device. When playing with fixed-pitch instruments such as the piano, the orchestra will generally tune to them—a piano will normally have been tuned to the orchestra's normal pitch. Overall, it is thought that the general trend since the middle of the 20th century has been for standard pitch to rise, though it has been rising far more slowly than it has in the past. Some orchestras like the Berliner Philharmoniker now use a slightly lower pitch (443 Hz) than their highest previous standard (445 Hz).[11][2]
Many modern ensembles which specialize in the performance of Baroque music have agreed on a standard of A = 415 Hz.[2] An exact equal-tempered semitone lower than A = 440 would be 440/21/12 = 415.3047 Hz; this is rounded to the nearest integer. In principle this allows for playing along with modern fixed-pitch instruments if their parts are transposed down a semitone. It is, however, common performance practice, especially in the German Baroque idiom, to tune certain works to Chorton, approximately a semitone higher than A-440 (460–470 Hz) (e.g., Pre-Leipzig period cantatas of Bach).[12]
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Interesting.....