Soz guys I just looked up a half step, i thought a half step was a semi tone :p

 
wow you think you know something like basic tuning fundamentals'.
I guess I got a lot to learn.
 
 
sorry guys.
that includes you to BJ.
im so caught up in trying argue with you im not even recognizing the difference between transpose and pitch I guess.
 
all that garbage I said to you about it not being "rocket science"....
Im going to eat that myself now. 
 
embarrassed to say the least.
 
 

Wow. That was really gracious, Charlie. You've got my respect.

what i did was tune one z3ta with a sine to 435 and another left it at 440, playing E on both of them, there was a 4 hz difference ??

will someone explain a half step in laymans terms for me, Chuck, JB, Ben ??

That's it. I am tuning to the flat side of 440Hz. Yes, there is a "in-tune exactly" and then there is the very slightly flat tune and the very slightly sharp tune of "in-tune exactly".
 
Tunings have change over the years, but I think Russia tunes a piano to 435Hz. Opera singers in France complain because they tune way sharp like up to 450Hz or something and they complain it is wrecking their voices. 438Hz is suppose to be a sweet spot for Mr. Pavarotti.
 
Guess I will stick with A = 440Hz, and if not being able to sing whatever, I will lower the song a whole pitch from say like A to G or A to G#.
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''Psychologically, the ear finds sharpness more acceptable than flatness,'' says John Ferrillo, a principal oboe at the Met. Howard T. Howard, the Met's principal horn, remembers rehearsing with the conductor Karl Bohm. ''He might tell us we were flat, but I never once heard the words 'too sharp.' ''

http://www.nytimes.com/19...ewanted=all&src=pm
 
I am on the flat side of the MOON.

 
 
 

Chregg
will someone explain a half step in laymans terms for me, Chuck, JB, Ben ??

A half-step is moving from one note to another within the chromatic scale.
A half-step is moving from a note played on one string from one fret to another on a guitar or fretted instrument built on the 12 note system.
A half-step is playing from one key to the next on a piano and not skipping over the black keys ;) Up or down- left or right...
A half-step is one-half of a whole-step.
A half-step on the musical staff is like a note from inbetween the lines and then the same note with a sharp or flat. (either indicating that the note moved one-half step- a sharp or flat indicates that a note has been raised or lowered one-half step.  ( I corrected this line...written quickly and incorrectly while at work)
 
(it doesn't matter how the instrument is tuned and it doesn't matter if the OP got his answer or not because this is all so much more important)
 
 
OH yeah....there are two natural half steps...we don't want to leave that out. E-F and B-C......what it means is that there are no notes inbetween them (or accidentals) as there are with all the others.

Chregg
what i did was tune one z3ta with a sine to 435 and another left it at 440, playing E on both of them, there was a 4 hz difference ??

Depends, there is a 5 hz difference between 435 and 440 (the two types of A's) but the problem or beauty of the hertz scale is that it is logarithmic. So the same difference between A440 and A435 up an octave is A880 and A870, so in that octave the same two notes are 10 hertz apart. They are not any further apart sonically however, it is just the nomenclature of the scale. The distance between 100 hz and 200 hz is one octave (double the hertz to get the octave.) Like wise the distance between 10,000hz and 20,000hz is also one octave. The 10,000-20,000hz octave is not any further apart (obviously) then the 100-200hz octave, it just how the scale works. So 5 hz difference in the 0-20 hz is a big change, a wide interval, but 5 hz difference in the 10,000 hz range is barely perceptible if in fact at all. So maybe there is around a 4hz distance between two E's (one with A 440 and one with A 435) with E being normally 329.63 in A440, but obviously there would be a greater difference between those two E's up on octave at 659.26. If there is a 4hz difference between the two E's in one octave, it will be 8hz difference in the next octave, 16 hz difference in the one after that. Conversely it will only be a 2hz difference in the octave below the initial two E's that are 4hz apart.
 
As far as a half step, the octave is divided equally into 12 equally distant notes in the equal tempered system. A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G# (and repeat back to A)
a half step is the distance between any note and its direct neighbor right next to it. A whole step you skip one note. So A to A# (or Bb) is a half step, as well as E to B is a half step. A to B or E to F# is a whole step. It is named this way because of the way western music theory formed, based off of scales. Before the equal tempered tuning popularized by Bach we did not tend to think chromatically. Actually we did not tend to think chromatically until the 19nth century. Hope that helps.

I am tuning to the Arabic scale included with my synth.
Or the India scale.
That's it, no more Western influence on anything anymore.
 
http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/roland-xp-10-system-exclusive-messages-for-arabic-scale/
 

spacealf
I am tuning to the Arabic scale included with my synth.
Or the India scale.
That's it, no more Western influence on anything anymore.
 
http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/roland-xp-10-system-exclusive-messages-for-arabic-scale/
 

Lol!
I like different intonation systems myself, though my familiarity with Indian and Arabic music is more through listening then playing. I have dabbled (in the lightest possible sense) in a handful of Indian ragas before, though Yaman is the only one I remember as it corresponds (if squared off and intonated) to Lydian. I love Indian scales for their use of pure ratios, ... The Western system compromised pure 3rds and the like for being able to modulate to different distant keys.