KVR Audio

longfella · Post by **longfella** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:16 pm

would love to continue larning more about maths in music anybody have a clue about amplitude, expected arrival time of sounds and ms in trance gate values.
been writting for a while but want to continue learning all answers truely welcome

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:32 pm

Math in music? Like the Pythagorean tuning system, or more philosophical like in Gödel, Escher, Bach?

What's there to talk about amplitude. Double it's absolute value and it gains 6dB.

Sound travels at approximately 300 meters per second. So in one millisecond it travels about 3 meters. If both your speakers are at the same distance then it makes no difference at all.

Gate times... They have to be big enough for low frequencies to pass. For example a 50Hz tone has a period of 20ms. If a trance gate is set shorter than that, then a full cycle can't pass. Most gates don't open and close abrubtly, but do a very fast fade to avoid clicks.

What you're adressing seems to be a bit at random pokes. Got any specific questions? Could you elaborate a bit on specific musical problems you wanna solve with maths?

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:46 pm

BertKoor wrote:Math in music? Like the Pythagorean tuning system, or more philosophical like in Gödel, Escher, Bach?

I'm sorry, but Pythagoras is twice as 'philosophical' as Douglas Hofstadter.

I mean look in any history of philosophy and see who is cited more.

But seriously, check out the free Proteus sound module that E-MU is offering now.

It has a really neat tuning system selector that allows you to toggle between 14 different tuning systems, including three varieties of Just Intonation, Werkmeister organ tuning, and various microtonal systems.

Pretty cool for a free plugin/standalone.

Kloz · Post by **Kloz** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:16 pm

@BertKoor: "If both your speakers are at the same distance then it makes no difference at all"

...could you explain this a little more ?

makes no difference about what ???

frequency response ?

stereo width ?

i am lost !!!

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:03 pm

herodotus wrote:
BertKoor wrote:Math in music? Like the Pythagorean tuning system, or more philosophical like in Gödel, Escher, Bach?
I'm sorry, but Pythagoras is twice as 'philosophical' as Douglas Hofstadter.

Read it again. Pythagoras calculated ratios to be used on a scale. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a book that discusses maths & music in a more philosophical way. There's no link I'm aware of, apart from that I mentionned them in one sentence (seperated by a comma)

Kloz wrote:
bertkoor wrote:If both your speakers are at the same distance then it makes no difference at all
...could you explain this a little more ? makes no difference about what ???

I was adressing the OP's question regarding expected arrival time of sounds. If a sound from two speakers travels the same distance, they both arrive at the same time.

Don't nit-pick me on something vague, please. The OP was much worse in that regard

Kloz · Post by **Kloz** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:16 pm

...peace !

longfella · Post by **longfella** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:47 pm

yes sorry guys i was vague, no i didnt mean just about the audio arriving at the same time if its played at the same aplitude sorry again.

using sy trance as an example when useing audio cliping that bounce around the stereo spectrum then there is a theory that if its a certain amplitude and location (spectrally speaking) and then the next time this audio it has moved location and changed amplitude then there becomes an expected next step, really would like to know the theory or calculation.
i appreciate that not all music or effect are done this rule however by understanding it i can play with the mind

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 7:25 am

Me thinks you're talking about the Haas Effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haas_effect

For the illusion of different distances you'd use a delay on one channel.

ZenPunkHippy · Post by **ZenPunkHippy** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:43 am

Here's a Tool song that is analysed by someone with far too much time on their hands. What is said about the track certainly makes sense and I can imagine that Tool would go to these lengths when writing / recording a song. The general point is that the music and themes in the song are based on the Fibonacci sequence, which they are (probably) using to illustrate our connection to a greater whole:

Regarding production, my main focus is psychedelic trance, so whether or not you can actually produce specific sounds and position them in time and space for pleasing effects that also relate to hard-style mathematics using *pre-determined* mathematical calculations interests me.

I could be wrong, and would LOVE to be corrected ... but what I have determined so far (7 years of playing with synths and sound, plenty of live trance gigs), and after talking to a few (long term, pro released) producers, is that while psychedelic music has a very pleasing effect on the ears, mind and body ... anything about the music, including something as technical as applying these kinds of formulas to creating "the sound" is MADE UP by the listener at the time of enjoyment.

In a similar sense, I've heard people blame custom made freq boxes for the reason they can't get the sound of Eat Static for example. Really, it's just another excuse for not being as experienced at producing sound in the first place.

To put it another way, a budding (or struggling) producer trying to achieve "that sound" is most likely not getting there through inexperience. They will find plenty of "excuses" like the use of maths, custom boxes etc. as being a reason that the sound is not "like the pro's" ... I know I certainly used to worry about this kind of stuff, but once I let go of it ... well, things are really progressing now and I find that these effects just happen anyway as a side effect of synth / effect / midi programming in general.

We are all continually learning at this game - yes that means YOU no matter how pro you are. Each tweak yields a new result in the experiment this time through the machine, and if it is pleasing on the ear it will go in this mix or will be saved for another. I think most producers would rather focus on programming synths and making Wicked Noise than calculating a load of decimal points (beyond very simple beat matching for delays, or working with note frequencies for FM say) and entering them in by hand.

If you can prove me wrong, I would *love* to know because I want to learn and improve my techniques always. And if I'm right, hooray - I can continue on my search for alien communication via my speakers and not mathematics

Peace,
Andy.

p.s. no ill will is meant by any of this ... it is not my intent to say "it's because you are rubbish" ... just some thoughts that's all ...

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:33 am

Sound travels at approximately 300 meters per second. So in one millisecond it travels about 3 meters

I hope you're not a math teacher

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 11:05 am

Alright, doing my homework again...

Speed of sound is 343 m/s.
So it's 0.343 meters in a millisecond and one meter takes 1/343 = 2.915 millisecs

Thanx anyway

longfella · Post by **longfella** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 3:16 pm

sorry about this guys do appreciate the help, maybe a way of clarifying myself more is rather than the expected time of the wave hitting the listener physically im more interested in the time and space calculations that allow the audio or midi to travel across the stereo spectrum, so rather than thinking so much as the audio coming forward im looking how to take it across almost, aain just to help more i write sy trance quite dark, and a lot of the effects or digital melodies seemed to travel across, and its not something as simple as just automating my panning, im under the impressions there a some sort of rules and formulas. please help or sugest, i dont think im barking up the wrong tree
i have been writting for about five years and im just looking to try to continue to educate myself more, irespective of peoples music prefrences and production styles i have found a certain way i work and its a simple as that, i have never used a audio sample for any tune (other than a single drum wav), i dont use vst instrument appregiaters due to not having the control i like, not being bolshy or putting myself on a peddistall because im still not great, however i would like to write less tracks my way than more tracks an easier way, simply because i believe at a future point the quality of my production will benefit. many thankds for your help so far..........

ZenPunkHippy · Post by **ZenPunkHippy** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:36 pm

To be in the same ballpark, do you have some track or artist names ... I'm interested to hear the kind of sounds / effects you are talking about ... got a huge psy collection, some of the darker stuff too (Para Halu, Atmos, Highko, Noise Gust) ...

Also ... don't forget that a lot of psy is not just straight midi programming. You gotta get in and edit bounced wave files of individual tracks, sub mixes and complete mixes directly in a wave editor to get some of the effects that are literally impossible with midi alone.

Another technique is to get some basic but good sounding percussion and synth loops going, bounce the tracks, cut them up with Recycle, re-import the Rex files and use tool like Stylus RMX to apply different rhythms / grooves. Again, very far removed from simple midi programming and automation. Several layers of bounce / effect / import are often used.

This is one reason why laptops are so popular with "live" psy acts ... sure play some live keyboards, drumming, bass guitar or whatever instruments over the top, but the core of the music will be streaming loops from the hard disk. I know for a fact that this is how O.O.O.D (Unconscious Collective) plays live gigs with or without the full band.

Peace,
Andy.

longfella · Post by **longfella** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 12:25 pm

high andy,
yes id o quite a bit of audio processing but with my own made clips cant stand the concept of taking in a second hand snippit from someone and then saying its mine. I making progress with in my own standards and the past year feel i have really come on, my own issue is melodies and how i can make them stand out or travel, this part like you rightly said could come down to experience hence why im trying to get tips, really like electro as well.
within my music making good speaces, feelings, build ups ect but just cant seem to master the complexity of the melodies i want to write i suppose (this hurts) im just not good enough yet but ifeel when you push yourself through the barrier then its just a case of time. just for my own reasons of comparison really andy how long do you spend designing sounds and roughly how long can it take you to write a track, i appreciate this is quite an ambigeous question, but its interesting to see how someone who's been doing a bit longer than me goes about it.
in relation to my orignal question about time space and all there is a ground breaking theory out there by john someone and when i find out i will let you know if its of any interest,

take care bud

cron · Post by **cron** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 12:42 pm

It seems to me that acoustics and psychoacoustics are the fields you're interested in.

A sound understanding of these fields will allow you to place/move sounds in space more accurately (Haas effect/inverse square law etc), calculate high frequency attenuation/ratio of direct to reverberant sound/etc due to distance, exploit forward/backward masking techniques, and utilise countless other perceptual tricks.

Googling "acoustics and psychoacoustics" may be a good start. There are some interesting, although often quite technical books available on the subject too. A basic knowledge of physics will help immensely if you intend to study this area.