4 ms·
For what it’s worth I’ve got a trained ear (trained musician, brief career as a mastering engineer) and the bass notes on these recordings sound freakishly dist
by rectang 3y ago
For what it’s worth I’ve got a trained ear (trained musician, brief career as a mastering engineer) and the bass notes on these recordings sound freakishly distinct in pitch (identifiable, “tight”, “not boomy”).
It’s similar to the difference between an electric bass guitar and an acoustic bass.
Or more to the point, it’s one notch further in bass note clarity on a scale from small upright piano to baby grand piano to concert grand piano… to the Alexander piano.
I expect that a Fourier analysis of bass notes struck in isolation comparing piano types would reveal increasing proportions of fundamental to side frequencies, with the Alexander having the highest ratio.
- jacquesm 3y agoYes. I've looked at what a 1.80 grand puts out in the lows and it is really quite muddy from a spectral perspective. You can still tell the pitches apart but there is a lot of smearing and the harmonics are, especially when you look at the high end, all over the place.
- calf 3y agoSubjectively to me the low notes sound almost fake, like a default GarageBand piano sound. Or like the thin, metallic notes of a harpsichord.
- rectang 3y agoYes, you've got it! That's a great take! That quality, though it may seem a bit unreal, has benefits in terms of revealing musical gestures that would otherwise be obscured. (See my link to the Mussorgsky passage elsethread.) Speaking as an audio engineer, we are always fighting to achieve this kind of transparency.