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mosc
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Joined: Jan 31, 2003
Posts: 18260
Location: Durham, NC
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 Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 10:25 am Post subject:
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Maybe we should split of yet another topic. Anyhow, here's some email I got from a friend who is big into guitars. I asked him if he had played a Variax. Here's his response.
| Quote: | | I've heard about them but not seen one yet. However, in December D-Tar (Duncan-Turner) will be coming out with a DI box that does the same thing. It's called a "Mama Bear". I saw a prototype demonstrated at the Healdsburg Luthier's Festival last August and it was awesome! It has many of the instruments that the Variax does, but in addition it's got some real intersting ones like a $22K Traugott Brazilian. The list price will be about $649. I'm gonna get one! |
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Oskar
Joined: Jul 29, 2004
Posts: 1751
Location: Norway
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| Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 10:45 am Post subject:
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| mosc wrote: | Maybe we should split of yet another topic. Anyhow, here's some email I got from a friend who is big into guitars. I asked him if he had played a Variax. Here's his response.
| Quote: | | I've heard about them but not seen one yet. However, in December D-Tar (Duncan-Turner) will be coming out with a DI box that does the same thing. It's called a "Mama Bear". I saw a prototype demonstrated at the Healdsburg Luthier's Festival last August and it was awesome! It has many of the instruments that the Variax does, but in addition it's got some real intersting ones like a $22K Traugott Brazilian. The list price will be about $649. I'm gonna get one! |
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Sterling work as always, Mr Moscovitz!
On behalf of us strummers and pluckers ( pheasant pluckers, actually  ), I should apologise for veering off topic, but intonation, temperament etc is something that concerns us greatly, seeing as our instruments of choice are more prone than even harmoniums to veering off key.
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7/4
Joined: Jan 19, 2004
Posts: 161
Location: ...next stop Mars!
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ian-s
Joined: Apr 01, 2004
Posts: 2672
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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G2 patch files: 626
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| Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:59 pm Post subject:
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Thanks for the link, I was concerned that my experiments were not working. The examples on this sight confirmed what I thought.
| Quote: | | Equal temperament was not adopted because it sounded better (it didn't then, and it still doesn't, despite 150 years of cultural conditioning) |
To my uncultured ears, JI intervals just sound wrong. The chords have an interesting diesel train horn quality though. Thank god for the 12th root of 2 
I know this topic inspires a great deal of passion in some people and I do not wish to offend anyone. Simply offering an alternate opinion. |
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ffransis
Joined: Jun 24, 2004
Posts: 31
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| Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 5:19 pm Post subject:
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| g2ian wrote: | | I know this topic inspires a great deal of passion in some people and I do not wish to offend anyone. Simply offering an alternate opinion. |
That's fair enough. Just intonation has its place, as do temperaments, 12TET included. I do find it interesting, however, that singers tend to JI if unconstrained by instrumental accompaniment. Or at least, they do except where they deliberately add varying degrees of dissonance in order to create tension in the music. |
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mosc
Site Admin
Joined: Jan 31, 2003
Posts: 18260
Location: Durham, NC
Audio files: 228
G2 patch files: 60
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| Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 7:01 pm Post subject:
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Thanks so much for that link. The JI explanation is excellent. I listend to the mp3 demo of JI vs ET and it was facinating. I've listened to and played ET so much that JI sounds out-of-tune. 
Still, I wish my synth, G2, could play those intervals - easilly.
Another thought - the equal temperament system is very good for what it does. It seems quite logical too.
There is a wacky paradox I'm sure you experts in this area are quite aware of, where if you go up perfect 5ths using whole number ratios, by time you get to back to the note where you started, you'll be out of tune. |
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7/4
Joined: Jan 19, 2004
Posts: 161
Location: ...next stop Mars!
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| Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 3:29 am Post subject:
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| mosc wrote: | | There is a wacky paradox I'm sure you experts in this area are quite aware of, where if you go up perfect 5ths using whole number ratios, by time you get to back to the note where you started, you'll be out of tune. |
The Pythgorean comma is the difference. |
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seraph
Editor
Joined: Jun 21, 2003
Posts: 12398
Location: Firenze, Italy
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| Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 5:37 am Post subject:
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| 7/4 wrote: |
The Pythgorean comma is the difference. |
| Quote: | Pythagorean comma
When you ascend by a cycle of justly tuned perfect fifths (ratio 3:2), leapfrogging 12 times, you eventually reach a note around seven octaves above the note you started on, which, when lowered to the same octave as your starting point, is 23.46 centss higher than the initial note. This interval, 531441:524288 or approximately 1.0136:1, is called a Pythagorean comma.
This interval has serious implications for the various tuning schemes of the chromatic scale, because in western music, 12 perfect fifths and seven octaves are treated as the same interval. Equal temperament, today the most common tuning system used in the west, gets around this problem by flattening each fifth by a twelfth of a pythagorean comma, thus giving perfect octaves. |
http://www.fact-index.com/p/py/pythagorean_comma.html
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7/4
Joined: Jan 19, 2004
Posts: 161
Location: ...next stop Mars!
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| Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 5:44 am Post subject:
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| mosc wrote: | | Another thought - the equal temperament system is very good for what it does. It seems quite logical too. |
There's been a lot of great music made in 12tet. |
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7/4
Joined: Jan 19, 2004
Posts: 161
Location: ...next stop Mars!
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| Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 6:12 am Post subject:
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| mosc wrote: | | Thanks so much for that link. The JI explanation is excellent. I listend to the mp3 demo of JI vs ET and it was facinating. I've listened to and played ET so much that JI sounds out-of-tune. |
There were a couple of years where I couldn't stand playing a guitar tuned to 12tet. With in minutes, I'd have to whip out a slide and tune the guitar to an open chord.
| Quote: | | Still, I wish my synth, G2, could play those intervals - easilly. |
My Korg MS2000R can! |
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