Missing Fundamental

[MC_RME]

Yep. The only open point to discuss is when does the vibration of a few Hz (that perfect subwoofers as well as extraordinary headphones can reproduce as wobbling air) turns into a real 'tone' - something that you can associate a 'pitch' to. It gets really difficult below 20 Hz, but works in correlation - like with the notes played in the basslines of the three videos that I posted in the Focal Clear thread, with C0 at 16.35 Hz as lowest note.

There are enough sine generators and YouTube videos covering the whole range where you can try that yourself, for example

Problem is that people that don't hear anything below 40 Hz (or a bit lower) are not aware that it is their speaker/headphone that limits it, not their ears. As several posts in this short thread already proove.

 

[F1308]

I have made some spectrograms of the recordings I referred to earlier of the same piece. There seems to be some correlation between the range of fundamental tones in the lowest octave (16-31 Hz) and higher octaves where the harmonics are.

Here is the first recording. A 2 minute segment where the lowest keys are used.
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Here is the second recording.
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Here is the third recording.
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The first two recordings were converted from the YouTube video to WAV-files via https://youtube-converter.online/. The third recording was made from Tidal HiFi using Audio Hijack.

For sure there is a correlation...
Depending very much on the type of instrument the music is played on, and the way it is make to sound (nature of the stroke; place struck; density, rigidity, elasticity; speed of the attack....temperature).
A rod which is free at both ends is reported to produce harmonics 1-2.7576-5.4041-13.3444.
Then comes pipes, open or closed, strings, horns, flutes, trumpets, bassoons....
Every single instrument is unique, even more as time passes by...

 

[F1308]

I thought he was saying it wasn’t important to reproduce above 5kHz? Did he have some ideas about low frequencies too?

For sure...
I enjoy my Mythos ST going 16 Hz.
Low pitch notes are very relaxing.
When composing, thanks to my Roland Fantom 8, I rarely go above A6...
And when there, the lenght of notes are requested to be the shortest possible if you want the attendances to stay.
If not possible, make it an obstinato stringed tremolo, its loudness is kept to the almost inaudible, as if you had tinnitus.
Otherwise, if my hand reaches higher than A6, the instruments there are shifted down via octaves or/and coarse adjustments (play D7 but hear F#6). Fantom allows up to +/- 3 octaves range adjustments, so I could play C8 while hearing C5. Once there, you are allowed further adjustments +/- 50 cents. Outstanding.
I have many songs using the whole keyboard as a way to "use as much of what you have" demonstration purposes, but I guess 95% of my music stays well within C0 to A6...and its corresponding harmonics, but of course.
Overtones are very much dependant on so many things...

 

[waynel]

For sure...
I enjoy my Mythos ST going 16 Hz.
When composing, thanks to my Roland Fantom 8, I rarely go above A6...
And when there, the lenght of notes are requested to be the shortest possible if you want the attendances to stay.
Otherwise, if my hand reaches higher than A6, the instruments there are shifted down via octaves or/and coarse shifting (play D7 but hear F6#).
I have many songs using the whole keyboard as a way to "use as much of what you have" demonstration purposes, but I guess 95% of my music stays well within C0 to A6...and its corresponding harmonics, but of course.
Overtones are very much dependant on so many things...

Music reproduction needs to cover many harmonics, not just the fundamental pitches, not to mention cymbals , sibilance, pizzicato strings, percussion. etc...

there is a reason that a midi file takes less space than an audio recording.

 

[StevenEleven]

Well, I’ll throw in a factoid, learned it in college by in-person classroom demonstration by the professor, to a roomful of skeptical and not so humble musicians—it’s very hard to discern pitch below about 41 hertz (the low e on a string bass or electric bass and pretty commonly played on piano also), and for most people even a little higher. You can hear it, sure, but it’s a rare bird who can discern the pitch (note).

The missing fundamental thing is very real and demonstrated by many LPs with lots of bass notes in the music going down to 41 hz, which are not really there in the LP grooves or in many systems they never make it out to the speakers in any event, but are represented and inferred by us based on harmonics at higher frequencies, as I understand it. It’s your mind playing tricks on you again. When I learned this I was not so surprised, remembering vividly how no one in the class could discern the pitch of the lowest octave or so on the piano. It all fit together for me for some reason, though I don’t really know why. I guess it all falls under the category of your sensory perception and neural processing of those low frequencies is kind of bizarre.

When a system (including transducers) does hit those low notes for real it is pretty cool, it feels different. All verifiable with REW and a umik-1.

 

[F1308]

Music reproduction needs to cover many harmonics, not just the fundamental pitches, not to mention cymbals , sibilance, pizzicato strings, percussion. etc...

there is a reason that a midi file takes less space than an audio recording.

For sure, again.
MIDI is to music exactly the same as what your breathe is to what you put it on...be it your own throat or whatever you placed on your lips.
So the thing I hear will be dependant on what I play as a composer, what is played by my keyboard, what is send by my DAC, what is made by the amplifier, what the speakers are capable of...room acoustic....your own mood.
But I don't go often much above A6.

 

[MRC01]

Music reproduction needs to cover many harmonics, not just the fundamental pitches, not to mention cymbals , sibilance, pizzicato strings, percussion. etc...

Yes, not only to capture the true timbres of instruments, but also to capture transients like small percussive sounds. When testing low pass filters at the extreme upper end of perception, I can hear the effect of the filter on transients (smearing a "click" into a "chirp"), before I can discern the filter's effect on timbre.

... it’s very hard to discern pitch below about 41 hertz (the low e on a string bass or electric bass and pretty commonly played on piano also) ...

I agree, yet find that I can perceive frequencies lower than I can discern pitch. I believe this is normal.

 

[F1308]

Well, I’ll throw in a factoid, learned it in college by in-person classroom demonstration by the professor, to a roomful of skeptical and not so humble musicians—it’s very hard to discern pitch below about 41 hertz (the low e on a string bass or electric bass and pretty commonly played on piano also), and for most people even a little higher. You can hear it, sure, but it’s a rare bird who can discern the pitch (note).

The missing fundamental thing is very real and demonstrated by many LPs with lots of bass notes in the music going down to 41 hz, which are not really there in the LP grooves or in many systems they never make it out to the speakers in any event, but are represented and inferred by us based on harmonics at higher frequencies, as I understand it. It’s your mind playing tricks on you again. When I learned this I was not so surprised, remember vividly how no one in the class could discern the pitch of the lowest octave or so on the piano. It all fit together for me for some reason, though I don’t really know why. I guess it all falls under the category of your sensory perception and neural processing of those low frequencies is kind of bizarre.

When a system does hit those low notes for real it is pretty cool, it feels different. All verifiable with REW and a umik-1.

It was demonstrated as early as 1875 that when hearing 100,200,300,400,500... simultaneously, you identify the tone as 100.
Many high ranked musicians were erroneously identifying the notes played as an octave above or below.

As for the ability to tell the note (D2,A5...F1)...this is really nonsense. The tuning fork has been moving from 392 to 485 Hz for A4 along the centuries.
Quite another thing is to spend hours listening to the very same instrument till you get the point.
But next day the temperature changes...

 

[F1308]

Yep. The only open point to discuss is when does the vibration of a few Hz (that perfect subwoofers as well as extraordinary headphones can reproduce as wobbling air) turns into a real 'tone' - something that you can associate a 'pitch' to. It gets really difficult below 20 Hz, but works in correlation - like with the notes played in the basslines of the three videos that I posted in the HD650 thread, with C0 at 16.35 Hz as lowest note.

There are enough sine generators and YouTube videos covering the whole range where you can try that yourself, for example

Problem is that people that don't hear anything below 40 Hz (or a bit lower) are not aware that it is their speaker/headphone that limits it, not their ears. As several posts in this short thread already proove.

I made a test a couple of days ago and went hearing down to 10 Hz.
Parrot Zik 1. Noise cancelling on. Bluetooth.
Don't know if it was 10 Hz, simply the testing went 200-10 and I heard everything down to when 10Hz was shown on the screen.

 

[StevenEleven]

It was demonstrated as early as 1875 that when hearing 100,200,300,400,500... simultaneously, you identify the tone as 100.
Many high ranked musicians were erroneously identifying the notes played as an octave above or below.

As for the ability to tell the note (D2,A5...F1)...this is really nonsense. The tuning fork has been moving from 392 to 485 Hz for A4 along the centuries.
Quite another thing is to spend hours listening to the very same instrument till you get the point.
But next day the temperature changes...

Some (very few) folks have perfect pitch so refined they can tell you the frequency and the pitch by ear, and what frequency the tuning is based on, as I’m sure you know. Not me, though, for sure.

 

[LeftCoastTim]

It was demonstrated as early as 1875 that when hearing 100,200,300,400,500... simultaneously, you identify the tone as 100.

What if 100, and 200hz are missing? What pitch would one hear?

Answer: 100Hz.

 

[F1308]

Some folks have perfect pitch so refined they can tell you the frequency and the pitch, and what the tuning is, as I’m sure you know. Not me, for sure.

I sincerely would like it to be a human capability, but I don't think what you say is possible.

I know, when playing, if I have to go up, down, stay, tune...but that is it.

Anyway, let's go and set my keyboard to A4@440 and play A4 .
You are to say: Oh, it is A4 in a 440 tuned piano.
Then I set A4@392 and play A4...
And you go and say it is A4 on a piano tuned to 392 Hz...
Is it ?
Wrong.
It was G4 in the first piano, since I made the trick and didn't change the tuning.

 

[StevenEleven]

I sincerely would like it to be a human capability, but I don't think what you say is possible.

I know, when playing, I have to go up, down, stay, tune...but that is it.

Anyway, let's go and set my keyboard to A4@440 and play A4 .
You are to say: Oh, it is A4 in a 440 tuned piano.
Then I set A4@392 and play A4...
Are you go any say it is A4 on a piano tuned to 392 Hz...
Is it ?
Wrong.
It was G4 in the first piano, since I made the trick and didn't change the tuning.

That‘s you and me. These are the freaks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch

Unless you are talking about just one note in isolation with no harmonics or other notes as clues. Then yeah, they will tell you the frequency but they have no context to say the note and the tuning frequency for sure.

I have met them and they are very real.

 

[F1308]

What if 100, and 200hz are missing? What pitch would one hear?

Answer: 100Hz.

Perhaps it is highly dependant on the instruments involved and the relationship their overtones have.

 

[F1308]

That‘s you and me. These are the freaks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch

Unless you are talking about just one note in isolation with no harmonics or other notes as clues. Then yeah, they will tell you the frequency but they have no context to say the note and the tuning frequency for sure.

i have met them and they are very real.

Please, congratulate all of them on my behalf at the earliest...
As I said...not a human capability.

"Even so, this form of pitch training can require considerable motivation, time, and effort, and it is not retained without constant practice and reinforcement."

Yes, as I said, once you miss the tuning fork...

 

[waynel]

For sure, again.
MIDI is to music exactly the same as what your breathe is to what you put it on...be it your own throat or whatever you placed on your lips.
So the thing I hear will be dependant on what I play as a composer, what is played by my keyboard, what is send by my DAC, what is made by the amplifier, what the speakers are capable of...room acoustic....your own mood.
But I don't go often much above A6.

So we are now in agreement that for hi fidelity, reproduction of sound above 5kHz is needed? Music content exists between 5kHz and 20kHz? (15kHz is good enough for me)

 

[LeftCoastTim]

Perhaps it is highly dependant on the instruments involved and the relationship their overtones have.

No, does not dependent on the instrument:

 

[F1308]

So we are now in agreement that for hi fidelity, reproduction of sound above 5kHz is needed? Music content exists between 5kHz and 20kHz? (15kHz is good enough for me)

Never said the contrary.
But nobody is placing a note playing 18500 Hz on the cleff...
Do you understand...?
You play up to A6 MOST of the time and the overtones reproduced will be dependant on the instrument you put that note on.
Then you will enjoy what your own system is capable of.
I play C0 and there is no subwoofer...?
You miss it.
I play C8 pianisimo and your volume is low ?
You miss it.
I play A6 and your headphones have a 6dB deep in 1760 Hz ?
You miss it.

 

[waynel]

Never said the contrary.
But nobody is placing a note playing 18500 Hz on the cleff...
Do you understand...?
You play up to A6 MOST of the time and the overtones reproduced will be dependant on the instrument you put that note on.
Then you will enjoy what your own system is capable of.
I play C0 and there is no subwoofer...?
You miss it.
I play C8 pianisimo and your volume is low ?
You miss it.
I play A6 and your headphones have a 6dB deep in 1760 Hz ?
You miss it.

You did right here:

Those highs we all are going to lose are a matter of too much talk about nothing, since music ends much lower than 5000 Hz. With piano tuned at A4=440 Hz means C8, last 88 key, sounds at 4186.01 Hz. That age related hearing loss means you won't hear 15000, but only 12000. So wide latitude still given to enjoy the very last nuisances of music... including harmonics.

 

[F1308]

I am sorry I can't hear the videos sent now...
I have no headphones

You did right here:

Yes... and I say it again...
Play that C8 at 65 dB and the harmonics will reach...
8000 ? At what loudness level, please ?
10000? At what loudness...?
12000? At what level...?
You can go and say I played C8 and harmonics reached 100000000 Hz...so what ?
As long as your hearing allows you to distinguish the instruments involved, you are mostly done.
Those harmonics are the thing to hear.