Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Microphones and synthesizers used on Take on Me - A-ha

Vocal with Neumann U47 tube.


Riff, Roland Juno 60 and PPG.


Yamaha DX7.


More on the excellent Sound on Sound article:
http://www.soundonsound.com/people/ha-take-me
A-ha - Take on Me

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Casiotone MT-100 MT-65 CT-202 Brain Eno and correct octaves

It is not surprising that Brian Eno likes the Casio 202.


(These toys including MT-100, MT-65, etc have a sampling rate of 600KHz!!!
http://www.firstpr.com.au/rwi/casio/Casio-931-2006-06-17.txt)


This can be seen in the interviews, The Life of Brian - Electronic Soundmaker and Computer Music
http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/interviews/escm84.html


It has nice sounds. And it seems that Casio is having the octaves a bit more that x2 in frequency so they sound correct to ear-brain. (Frequency and pitch is not the same but they are related). Frequency is the objective quantity, pitch is the subjective. Pitch also depends on intensity (ref. S.S.Stevens - Sound and Hearing or Stevens and Davies - Hearing).


It seems the MT-100 as tested does the same octave "stretching" and so the MT-65 should do.


Do they all have the same principle of sound creation? Possibly yes. Are they using Walsh functions synthesis? It seems the overtones sound correct too to ear-brain. Do they also have relations a bit more than an integer multiple like Streinway pianos do? Are Stradivarius violins the same in terms of "stretched" overtones?


Is Brain Eno driving an Eventide H3000 with his Casio 202? Another reason why an Eventude sounds great with an electric guitar is that when the strings are stetched more (ie more than 440Hz or thicker strings) the overtones are progressively higher than just x2 which is what is needed!


More on incorrect stretched octaves so that they sound correct to human can be found on earlier euroelectron posts with references.


Does the Casio CZ series use deliberately "wrong " ie  correct octaves? By listening on YouTube to CZ101 it seems yes.


It would nice to reprogram the micro controller of Roland Juno 6, and other Juno series to make the octaves wrong ie correct.


Some older analog synthesizers get away with it by having inter sly or externally adjustable volts per octave so that they can be adjusted to sound correct ie more than doubling of frequency which sounds ridiculously flat.


Fortunately synths like the Yamaha DX7ii and Korg Triton have all note user defined scales.


Please read also Pleiades tuning for DX7 and Korg Triton on earlier euroelectron posts.



Monday, November 7, 2016

A list of Amazing books on electronics, audio engineering and related arts

Electronics - Neal Storey (a fantastic teacher)


A practical introduction to electronic circuits - Martin Hartley Jones


Applied Electronics - T.S. Gray (MIT) (electron tube electronics)


Radio Engineering - Terman (Stanford) (electron tube electronics)


Elements of Sound Recording - Frayne, Wolfe (the best ever written on audio engineering?)


Musical Acoustics - Hall


Hearing - Stevens and Davies (as well as Sound and Hearing - Time encyclopedia)


Acoustics of radio and television studios - Guilford (BBC)


Feynman Lectures in Physics - Feynman


The Art of Music - J.S. Bach (precepts and principles for playing thorough bass by JS Bach for his
students in music)




And 2 very useful books for life:


The Dale Carnegie books


and


Fringe Knowledge for Beginners - Montalk