2.3mH:2.3H has been nicely used to match 25Ω Grampian ribbon mic (and at the same time low cut adequately) to EF137 grid on Pleiades V6 mic booster amplifier

Inductance of primary, secondary winding (of audio transformer) gives more information than impedance ratio as one can calculate the low frequency response for particular microphone output impedance for example

http://www.technicalaudio.com/pdf/Arnold_Magnetics/Arnold_Magnetics_Materials_1956.pdf

Monopsony

An Adjustoroid in a Pleiades (R,L) adjustable slope and low cut frequency microphone filter

Hello to Canada and the United States

Variable inductance microphone input transformer

By using the following patents for example with 2 rotating magnets with respect to each other in the plane of the toroidal signal transformer core. Possible use variable low frequency cut for natural reproduction of recorded human voice or other musical instruments.


http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US2762020.pdf


https://patents.google.com/patent/US3100882

An adjustable slope and turnover frequency inline low cut filter for microphone use et, variable Pleiades (R,L)

At your risk.


A use is for reducing bass or mid bass, mid heaviness to listener's ear brain when for example recording vocals or in a live concert.


It is an inductor L in series with a resistor R and the resultant connected across pins 2 and 3 of microphone output (or preamp or mic booster input).


Both L and R can be continuously adjustable. Varying L adjusts turnover or cutoff frequency, varying R adjusts slope. Obviously a high R leaves microphone output unchanged.


R can be a simple potentiometer of say 1KΩ but how can L escpcially a desirable toroidal inductor be variable?


The answer was found yesterday by almost chance on US2762020 and US3100882, J. F. Gordon and Norman Burnell patents respectively.


The toroidal core is sandwiched between 2 longitudinal magnets allowed to rotate relative to each other.


When they attract each other magnetic lines are flowing perpendicular to core and its inductance index remains the same.


But when they repel each other magnetic lines of force (repelling ones) are flowing in the direction of the toroid and its inductance index becomes almost 0. Similar action to the Fostex printed ribbon microphone operation with repelling magnets.


Between these 2 extremes the inductance index can be smoothly varied.


It was tried today on a tape (mumetal?) tape wound core coming as a separately bought spare for a Coles 4038 core for input transformer. Mr Beanland kindly supplied this on around 2000.


Such core with a small quality of wirewrap wire turns has an inductance of 40mH. This inductance was gradually brought to almost 0 by rotating one of the magnets. 2 much longer magnets that the core were used covering all its are, these magnets came from a Meazzi ribbon microphone which has now Neodymium replacements but still is not re ribboned.


It has also been observed that if a thin foam material (the protective wrapping material of the magnets) in placed between each magnet the inductance can be changed from 10mH to 0 just by the amount of hand pressure between the 2 magnets making the sandwich with the mumetal tale wound core. The may be another method of adjusting bass cutoff frequency.


It has not been tried yet connected to a mic.


Hopefully it will aid flat frequency response from producer's brain to listener's brain. [Lowe, Morgan]


Would it be feasible to make such a variable filter inside Neutrik cylindrical XLR inline Modules using the rotating switch disk mechanism as a means to rotates a magnet?


How would a microphone input transformer sound like by adding a secondary winding?


Reference:


Sound Picture Recording and Reproducing Characteristcs - D. P. Lowe, K. F. Morgan - Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers

Sleeping a lot seems to be beneficial

At your risk. This is not a medical advice.


In my practice it seems to boost my immunity system and makes me feel more relaxed for making a calm decision.


It also seems to help me do things that otherwise would not had been possible.


There is special advice in sleeping on
How to stop worrying and start living - Dale Carnegie

Variable Inductor Patents including toroids

http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US2762020.pdf


https://patents.google.com/patent/US3100882


http://www.google.com/patents/sitemap/en/Sitemap/H01/H01F/H01F_21_19.html

Teaching music while playing or composing

For example playing at the piano a composition which begins with only the bass. Then repeating such bass and adding a melody etc.


See also:


Cannon in D - Pachelbel


Veredis Quo - Daft Punk
(Bass begins with harmony and melody but each time various other parts are added)

How many musical notes at the same moment in time?

By watching the score or listening to a symphony or a song it may be seen or rather heard that in general no more than 4-5 different notes are used at the same time at any time!


For example bass may be A1, cellos may play A2 or E2 or A3. Viola may play C4, violin 2 G4, violin 1 E5. A flute may play a passing note towards E.


Such notes are derived from the 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 series above each bass.


Vicky asked why not more notes?


Like in painting too many colors lead to a dark mud color.


What makes music sounding sophisticated is the wise use of few quality ingredients like in good quality cooking.


For example Just Hold Me - Maria Mena begins with just
A bass C and E and B (the 9th with respect to bass).


See also:


All you need is Ears - Sir George Martin


Bach Bass Rules - Bach, Niedt - PDF


Harmony - Piston


Musical Acoustics - Donald Hall

Positive virus effect?

For example a woman (man) may consider being more adventurous and give consent to a sexual call.

Teaching perfect pitch

When I was a kid (5-7) we were singing the butterfly song (μία ωραια πεταλούδα) at the classroom.


I would try to quest what the notes were and when going back home impatiently playing the notes on an eastern German piano in order to see if I was right. It was a kind gift from my great grand father Melelaos. (Later on Melelaos and my other grand fathers George and Manolis would enjoy listening radio to a hand assembled with springs (πολυκυκλωματιστης game, 501 driving a 2001) one germanium transistor class A amplifier driving Sony closed back low impedance headphones through the tiny output transformer of the electronic construction game).


I was completely wrong. But the mistakes taught me.


Now when a sound is heard somewhere, the syllables or letters of the note name can be heard in my mind.
Sometimes I am wrong by a semitone but a La flat is still a La (L-A).


In music everything is refenced to the natural or white notes anyway.

An ear exercise

At your risk. Very gentle taping for protecting the fingers.


Trying to play notes as if a table is a virtual keyboard.


Or just merely imagining playing the notes and imagining the sound.


Then compare results on a real piano.

A melody should be sung on the piano not played

If yes laugh, if not laugh again

Playing by ear

Notes should be sung by their names.


Like an erotic partner, it does not hurt to know the name.
Later today's addition: it does not hurt to not knowing it either.
Does this suggest that knowing the name of the note is more important?


For example:
To the Moon and Back - Savage Garden
The melody at verse begins:
Do Sol Fa Fa Do Do Si Do Fa Re Do Si...
Remember all B and E are flat since the key is C minor 3rd


This came about while working out a Hatzidakis song (Περμπανου) with Vicky.

The original thick Technics SL1200MKII rubber mat sings

It is contoured to fit the record including its thicker label as a hand glove relationship.


Possibly first time seeing a vinyl record sitting correctly perfectly parallel to turntable platter.

On turning into advantage the inharmonicity of musical instrument strings in order to make the overtones of a musical note sound in tune to ear brain perception

See yesterday's post:


Magic (halftone frequency ratio) number, eg 1.0595472.


See also Pleiades tuning on DX7 MKII  or Korg Triton synthesizers.

The extended high frequency response and sweetness of a good vinyl turntable setup makes you feel brand new

Hammond signal transformers

Currently there are on eBay some apparently very rare vintage Hammond signal transformers. Broadcast quality Hammond 807 for example. The same seller has other types too.

A piano is a great one and very well tuned when playing cluster of notes and still sounding great - Albert

If the circle of fifths is closed with all of them beatless a piano may not sound nice at other intervals, why should it?

See previous post

Magic number 1.0595472

At your risk.


This is on letting a good quality piano and one's brain decide what the optimum A4 frequency be on that particular piano so that overtones of strings sound correct to listener's brain rather than taking A4=440Hz as a tuning reference?. We know for example jazz men women tune A4 at 444Hz making the piano sounding better even at so complex chord intervals.


This experiment has been going on since a bit after Olympic Games in Athens ie 2004.


A few thousand euros miraculously found had been spent on tools and top quality materials in order to rebuild a great quality Pleyel model 9 upright piano made in around 1921. The original Firminy factory in France strings had been repolished and reinstalled, one each day.. The piano was ready on about 2008. Everything possible was done so that it could withstand higher string forces than when tunning at A4=440Hz.


While increasing above 440Hz a sweet spot had been found where all intervals including major 3rds sounded amazing while testing playing Prelude in C - Bach from well tempered clavier.


Then further increase (psychological inertia overshoot) had been done past 450Hz in an attempt to make all 5ths perfect (beatless). The circle of 5ths of Pythagoras had been closed as 3rd overtones were higher than 3:2 by the increased tension of strings.
But the piano sounded bad especially on high major 3rds which had a lot of beat and the piano although still sounding very fresh and nice it had an element of tension.


Over the last years tuning had been once by hand decreased to A=451Hz which sounded very nice but with still a bit of tension .


During the last 3 or more years the piano had been left untuned but played a lot. Natural detuning.


Now it is out of tune on quite a few notes, intervals etc.


But today it had been observed that A flat major (which is little used anyway) sounds amazing. And this included playing octave or double octave plus major third ie high C which had been problematic as already mentioned.


Using an online signal generator (www.onlinetonegenerator.com) and by beat comparison it was found today that bA3 is 209.8Hz and bA4 is 420Hz while both sounding great in tune (beatless) and at the same time the octave interval sounding correct to ear brain which only happens on state of the art instruments of anytime.


Now 420 : 209.8 = 2.002


This agrees with the well known fact that more than times 2 is needed for a subjective octave or the octave sounds a poor one.


Then the 12th root of the exact 2.0019066 had been taken which gives 1.0595472 which can be called the Pleiades equal temperament half tone ratio number as opposed to 1.05946 which is the 12th root of 2, the well known poor engineering? equal temperament.


Then using 1.0595472 by successive multiplication, from bA3=209.8Hz, A4 had been found to be 445Hz.(


Similarly C4 (major 3rd wrt bA3 is calculated 264.4Hz. Playing this frequency on the tone generator agrees with Pleyel.


Similarly B3 (minor 3rd wrt bA3) calculated with the magic number as 249.555Hz agrees with Pleyel as it currently plays very well these particular above intervals.


After all this concentration the overtones of bA3 could be distinguished by ear brain. Even the very high C (5th overtone), C6 that could be heard sounded a very satisfactory double octave major 3rd and agreeing with the note itself played on Pleyel which plays very well this interval.


These results are promising so an attempt will be made to tune the piano at A4=445Hz which should be near to an optimum for the particular piano.

Updates to the melody book - Pleiades

https://euroelectron.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-melody-book.html

The input transformer

It can be seen on eBay that the hi-fi community is buying classic vintage microphone input transformers to be used as MC cartridge step up transformers for playing their nice classic records.


The paradox is that their classic records had been made with such transformers and that the new record producer is finding it harder and harder to get such transformer for making nice new music.


But the Hi-Fi community is important teaching.


For example Hammond transformers. If memory is correct many years ago an advert of them was seen in a high fidelity magazine. They also make broadcast and studio quality signal transformers.

Crazy - Seal

It was played a few moments ago on Galaxy 92 FM.

Σημασία δεν εχει τι εχει συμβεί αλλα πόση δύναμη εχεις να παλέψεις γι'αυτο - Πεπη

The title is paraphrasing Pepi's words.


Below is paraphrasing too.


Each one decides to have the strength to make an esoteric (inside oneself) difference.

Hello to France, Germany, Hong Kong, United States, Portugal, Poland, Ελλας

Welcome to Nepal

Hello to India and United Arab Emirates

Euroelectron weekly pageviews

Entry	Pageviews
Greece	96
France	29
Germany	20
India	14
Hong Kong	13
United States	12
Portugal	7
Nepal	6
Poland	6
United Arab Emirates 3

Pedal bass example throughout the song, Need You Tonight - INKS

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w-rv2BQa2OU


Also Need Peace Tonight - INKS vs the Sound Defects
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CxEoAiVleac
(Played on Galaxy 92MHz a few moments ago)

Toroidal inductors and transformers

Some very interesting images on the Wikipedia article, for example figure 6.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toroidal_inductors_and_transformers

At last vocal recording starts to improve on the new Pleiades recording studio setup

At your risk.
Always use a fuse in series with a battery for fire hazard protection.


It has always been a mystery to me why connecting a state of the art flat frequency response mic to a flat frequency response recording system makes a vocal reproduction sounding like mud with bass heaviness.


Nothing is wrong with the equipment but the bass heaviness takes place in our brain as in pop music we usually try to reproduce a softer singing voice at a higher sound pressure level [Lowe, Morgan].
(It has been a privilege to find the engineering answer on this paper).


In order to remove something offensive the first step is clearly hearing it and the new Pleiades setup makes this a piece of cake.
The setup used sounds great on commercial FM radio but immediately showed very severe bass heaviness and mid heaviness problems while recording and reproducing on 1/4in analog magnetic tape.


Signal path:


Uher 4200 report stereo 1/4 in tape recorder (1st bought on eBay) - JVC 9425W radio used as bass boost amplifier for small speakers - Pleiades linoleum Auratone type 5C monitoring speaker


Almost everything tried in terms of microphones used including Pleiades filters (for bass reduction) sounded horrible with extreme bass heaviness and sounding so far from a commercial recording by direct comparison. The comparison is done by just removing the AUX in connector from the JVC radio and immediately listening to any commercial pop song on the radio with the same reproducing system.


So it was decided today to use a Pleiades V1 CV2269 electrometer electron tube mic front end amplifier operating at so low anode current that there is another bass cut filter right at the anode from the inductance of the output transformer.


It turned out that it still sounded bass and mid heavy.
So then a Pleiades (130Ω,40mH) filter was added to the input (after the mic). With these 2 low cut filters the singing voice started coming out very natural with shinning detail or lack of bass or mid bass, or mid heaviness. This setup revealed the great detail of the Fostex M80RP microphone.


This is the complete setup including the recording path:


Singer's brain - not heavily treated living room - male singing voice - microphone - Pleiades (130Ω,40mH) gentle low cut filter - Pleiadss V1 CV2269 with Altec input transformer and Pleiadss output 10:1 transformer - Uher 4200 (1st bought from eBay) - BASF EMTEC SM911 tape - Uher 4200 (1st bought) reproducing - JVC Nivico 9425W as amplifier or radio amplifier - Pleiades linoleum Auratone type 5C monitoring speaker hung from ceiling - same living room - listener's brain


Why not using just a recording console and its tone controls for reducing bass heaviness?(br />

The objective is using as few as possible (class A ie electrons flowing all the time) active device gain stages from mic to tape. For the sake of keeping as much freshness and clarity of the voice.


The device count in the above setup is about 1 electron tube and about 2 transistors.


Below are further details of some signal path components so that results can hopefully be repeatable:


The Uher 4200 (1st bought with new Fujitsu D batteries) had been used instead end of (4th) as the latter produced low frequency hiss possibly due to aging batteries.


The Pleiades V1 CV2269 was used in breadboard jig form. The Altec green octal bass transformer was used as input transformer. A freshly charged Recyco green 1.2V battery for heater cathode and plate.


Anode current on V1 CV2269 is 10μA.


Altec Lansing 4722 is the input transformer.


22nF blue MKT Philips? is the coupling capacitor to grid.


19.7MΩ is anode to grid pull up bias resistor.



1.2V from a freshly changed AA Recyco battery is Va and Vb ie filament and anode supply.


The output transformer is a Pleiades 77H : 800mH (672 turns to 70 turns) wound on Magnetec 070 toroid tape wound nanoperm core.


Later addition: M80RP - Pleiades (130Ω,40mH) - German 500Ω:600Ω inline transformer - Uher 4200 report had been tried too but it still sounded a bit bass heavy.
Another option to try might be 2 omni mics connected out of phase (Dscribed in Lou Burroughs Microphones book). Just one 635a with Pleiades (130Ω,40mH) still sounded bass heavy.

Reference:
Sound Picture Recording and Reproducing Characteristics - D. P. Lowe, K. F. Morgan - Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers

How to get rid of Baobabs (bass heaviness) in vocal recordings

On nearby posts.


Baobab is an analogous term taken from
The Little Price - Antoine de saint Exypery
book for something that has negative energy trying to take over. Hliana recognized the analogy while it had been read to her.


Low frequencies or rather excess of them on our perception can make us feel low.
Feeling low can increase for example consumption of alchohol so it's nice to have song recordings with a voice that sparkles in a positive way.

Η χαβούζα (μπασαδουρα) και πως φεύγει απο ηχογραφισεις φωνής

Σε διπλανά posts

Everything I Wanted - Billy Eilish

Just played on Galaxy 92 FM


And next was Beazilian Soul - Tye Knocks Featuring Sofi Tukker

Πως γινεται η μουςικη με οςο δυνατόν λιγότερες λέξεις

Στο προηγουμενο post:


https://euroelectron.blogspot.com/2020/09/almost-all-there-is-to-music-making-or.html

Almost all there is to music making or playing in just a few words

We find the bass note then choose some harmony notes 1 by 1 from this bass.


For example if bass is D possible harmony notes are D F A C E G B.


For example Carelles Wisper - George Michael


Bass D and D F A (meaning D and F and A)
Bass G and B D F
Bass B and D F A
Bass A and C E G
(Attention all B are flat since the key is D minor on this song)


It sounds even better, if we make least nnite changes or finger movement.


For example rearranging notes:


D bass and D F A
G bass and D F B
B bass and D F A
A bass and E G C
(All B are flat)


Or


D bass and A D F
G bass and B D F
B bass and A D F
A bass and C E G


similarly for any song or even a symphony.


Summary: all needed to remember really is the note series C E G B D F A C E G B ...




Bach Bass Rules - Bach, Niedt - PDF


Harmony - Piston