From jackoverfull@gmail.com Wed Dec 05 08:11:46 2012
Subject:Re: 30 yr old Korg BX3 question-Stretch


Sent from iPhone

Il giorno 05/dic/2012, alle ore 15.24, mark k ha
scritto:

> The most interesting issue to come out of this discussion for me is
> Daniel's suggestion that electronic keyboards use exact octaves and
> intervals and for this tuning that science had established there is
> no audible difference or other characteristic that can be discerned
> between any major, minor etc. key (other than pitch) on these
> keyboards.
>

Interesting indeed. Could be true for some synths, but surely not when
a "real" instrument (organ, piano, trumpet, whatever) is emulate
trough modeling or sampling.

> Also where the original recording is plus or minus more than about 2
> or 3 cents I find I cannot work it out and transcribe until I have
> shifted it back to the correct pitch. The "correct" pitch is of
> course pure guesswork on my part but I find it interesting the way
> it snaps into focus once it is in the correct pitch, according to my
> ears.
>
Same here!
To find the right key you can often refer to live version nowadays.

> I have written a few songs and at the start choose a key that, to my
> ears, reflects the mood and emotion the song is meant to convey and
> also supports the melody. This means that to my ears, and I suspect
> to those of many other songwriters, each key has an individual
> characteristic rather than being identical and interchangeable.
>
Same here. The songs I write usually sounds "right" to me only in the
original key. And, since I always write modally, there is no fixed key
anyway.

I like to tune up or down my composition ocassionally to change the
mood. It's also a great exercise.

> beating that some can hear in Hammond emulations, which are often
> worse for some notes than others.
That's likely a problem with samples and how they're treated, IMHO.
>