Subject: Re: Robust method of fundamental frequency estimation From: Pierre Divenyi <pdivenyi@xxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 12:45:23 -0800 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Arturo, When you hear a 30.9-Hz note on your bass, you don't only hear the fundamental (Terhardt's [JASA 1978] "virtual pitch") but also the harmonics and other partials, if any (the "spectral pitch"). If you got rid of the harmonics, what you would hear would be a scratchy sound lacking the tonal quality of the bass' note. What is the most remarkable, and still begging for explanation (which should be difficult to obtain experimentally because it tackles a subjective dimension), is the subjective smoothness of a descending scale played on any of the low-pitched instruments, despite the lack of smoothness when you play only a sinusoid. Pierre At 09:23 PM 2/1/2007, you wrote: >Pierre, > >What about the lowest note in a 5-string bass B=30.9 Hz? When I hear a >5-string bass playing this note I am pretty sure I hear that pitch. One >way I could prove it to myself is by playing B one octave above (B=61.8 >Hz) and then B=30.9 Hz right after. I am pretty sure I would hear an >interval of an octave between them (I have been musician all my life so I >am pretty confident I know how an octave sounds like). Therefore, I >conclude I can hear a pitch of 30.9. > >I guess any bass player would agree with me. Otherwise, why do they bother >paying more for that extra string? > >Arturo > > > From the perceptual point of view, a 27.5-Hz fundamental frequency > > is not heard as pitch. The $64K question is: how come we react to that > > lowest piano key's vibrations as if they were truly conveying pitch on the > > same dimension as, say, the key 2 octaves higher does? Yes, Dan is > > probably right claiming that a double bass' lowest note evokes a more > > purely-pitch pitch than the same note on the piano, but that E has a > > frequency 1.5 times higher than the lowest A on the piano. (NB: concert > > Boesendorfers descend down to the F below...) > > > > > > Pierre > > > > > > At 07:59 PM 1/31/2007, Dan Ellis wrote: > > > > > >> I've always wondered why playing a bass line on the bottom octaves > >> of the piano can almost never serve the same sonic role as playing the > >> same bass line on a stand-up (acoustic) bass or electric bass guitar > >> (I'm talking about a popular music and jazz context here). > >> > >> > >> > >> I don't know the answer, but I took the FFT of the lowest note of the > >> piano from the MUMS grand piano samples; it's at: > >> > >> > >> <http://labrosa.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/tmp/mumsPianoA0.jpg>http://labros > >> a.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/tmp/mumsPianoA0.jpg > >> > >> Obviously this depends on recording setup etc., but there's no > >> discernable energy at the fundamental, and almost none at the second > >> harmonic. It's only at the 3rd harmonic (82.5 Hz nominal) and above > >> that you really start to get energy. I would bet a double bass has > >> better representation of lower harmonics. > >> > >> The plot also shows in green the expected locations of harmonics of > >> 27.5 Hz. > >> The piano harmonics aren't all that close, and over this range it > >> doesn't look like a simple stretching either - seems like a much more > >> complex pattern of per-harmonic deviations, both above and below. > >> > >> DAn. > >> > >> > >> > > > > >-- >__________________________________________________ > >Arturo Camacho >PhD Student >Computer and Information Science and Engineering >University of Florida > >E-mail: acamacho@xxxxxxxx >Web page: www.cise.ufl.edu/~acamacho >__________________________________________________