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Which one master keyboard with hammer action is the most recommended for VSL?
I think about Kawai VPC1 or MP11 (longer key).
I don't think you can go wrong with the MP11. The Kawai keyboards with the long keys are the closest to a real grand without having a modified grand action (Yamaha AvantGrand). The models in the wooden cabinet such as the CA67 have a newer action design.
Would it be possible for the Imperial to be tunable down to A432 with an update? I keep hearing about the magic of this tuning, and I'm skeptical, but I'd like to try it. 432 is a thing. And more than any instrument I want to hear the piano at this tuning, because it's the biggest machine, has the most buttons, and makes the most sound. I'm surprised, actually that the Imperial isn't able to be tuned to quarter tones, because that would be useful too. --432-Curious
432 is only a thing because people make it a thing. It is nothing more than a slightly lower pitch, barely noticeable to most people.
What might be really interesting however is to have avaliable different tunings: equal temperament, meantone, well temperament (standard tuning used today), young's, or pythagorean, to name a few...
There is nothing magical about 432, just hocus pocus, mumbo jumbo, and a whole lot of coincidences (which actually turn out not to be a coincidence at all but factually incorrect statements made up from thin air).
Do not buy into the notion that 432 is the number of the universe, nor is it a particular frequency that the universe resonates to, water doesnt particularly resonate at 432 hz any more than it resonates to virtually any audio frequency. A very well sourced article on this very subject is here, and, you can look on Youtube for 432 vs 440 comparison videos.
https://ask.audio/articles/music-theory-432-hz-tuning-separating-fact-from-fiction
There are other reasons one may want to change pitches, as I understand it, different base tunings are based on era and style of music, I do recall reading somewhere that Baroque music was played at something like 415 hz and in the article above, many choral arrangements are lowered in order to allow singers to hit higher notes.
432 doesnt cure cancer and it wont help you wake up in the morning.
A432 is also knowned as Verdi tuning. Feel free to think anything you want, it's not about magic or cure cancer, I just like the mathematical fact that every note of the scale gets a round number C256, D288, E324, F342, G384, A432, B484.
How does this matter? So, mathematically speaking, the scientific pitch, philosophical pitch, or whatever you want to call it (it goes by several different names) just...what...it makes it easy to descrive what a C should be tuned to and that constitutes a reason to change the current standard we use today?
I think we need to keep a level head about this. Be logical about WHY we are looking to change what is considered a widely used standard in the world today, even tho many articles proclaiming 432 is the answer to saving the world from war and curing cancer also continue to claim that 440 middle A tuning is not a standard when in fact, it is. Every tuner, by default, out of the box defaults to 440 tuning. Unless specifically requested by the composer, instruments are tuned to the 440 tuning as a default.
'I just like even numbers' is also bizarre because in reality, what you are asking for is to move the 'whole numbers' from A to C, which will result in music being just shy of half a step in pitch lower than what it is today but otherwise, has no noticeable difference in sound..
If we are going to be technical about it, Verdi tuning doesnt even use a middle A at 432, its actually closer to 430.5 Hz.
Is it an interesting exercise from an academic perspective? Perhaps. My paper that Ill be turning in early December deals with tuning methods and this entire 432 hz phoenominon.
What I have come to realize as Ive begun outlining and sourcing my paper is two things.
1. You will never please everyone. There are people pushing for Verdi / scientific tuning, there are people pushing for 432 hz tuning, and several others that dont come to the top of my head at the moment. Most of the reasons, are hocus pocus or that it 'feels good' - in that, not that the music is better but that it 'feels good' to say everything has an even number, or odd number, or no decimal points, or whatever. Actually, I havent come across a reason yet that would suggest to me a good logical reason as to why we should change except choral arrangements would be easier to sing, and even then, I would argue the composer should transpose down half a step if he is concerned about straining his singers voices.
2. Music will never be 100% mathematically perfect with nice round numbers. Why? Because our hearing is not 100% mathematically perfect. Tune a piano to be mathematically pitch perfect and what youll get is sharp sounding notes in the high end and flat sounding notes in the low end. It is why we use the system we use today, it is a compromise, probably as close a compromise as we can get to avoid things sounding out of tune. Yes, the system we use today isnt perfect. Listen to a note and its third (a C and an E for example) and you'll hear 'beats' in the sound because the C and E are slightly out of tune such that we can play a note and its fifth (a C and a G for example) and have a near perfect harmony. We can play a note an octave apart and have no 'beats'. Our tuning system we use today emphasizes the same priorities that Bach described. Octaves, then fifths, then thirds, that should be the priority. Bach was annoyed about the tuning methods that were used and yelled at his organ engineer every time he played a note and its fifth, it was even worse when he played a triad that included a fifth and he would yell at his organist and complain constantly about it, thats why we have what we have today.
I will even go so far as to say that music will never be 100% mathematically perfect because math is not 100% perfect. There are numerous examples I can give to prove this, but Ill give you two to ponder on.
What happens when you multiply 1/3 times 3? You should get 1. (1/3 * 3 = 1 OR 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1). Now convert 1/3 to a decimal and multiply by 3. You get .9 repeating (.3 repeating * 3 = .9 repeating OR 3 repeating + .3 repeating + .3 repeating = .9 repeating), not 1, as you would get if multiplying the fraction.
Can anyone give me the square root of a negative number? Any negative number? It doesnt exist! In math, we had to make something up and call it an imaginary number (normally assigned to the variable 'i', although in engineering, they use 'j' for reasons I cant get into here).
The square root of a number, that is, a number when multiplied by itself equals the number we are looking for the square root of. The easiest way to demonstrate this is -1. The square root cant be -1 since two negatives when multiplied equal a postive and two positives equal a positive, so, we define the square root of -1 as -1i or 1i, depending on which mathemitician you ask (the i meaning, 1 times a number we cant define).
As another interesting side note to think about, if looking for the even root of a number, it actually is 2 numbers, positive and negative. The square root of 4 is actually 2 and -2 (2*2=4 and -2*-2=4). The root of 16 with an index of 4 is 2 and -2. Anyway, just mentioning this as food for thought since most people probably never thought about it before 😊. But I digress...
Few things in life are perfect, music is no exception. Technically, sound to be more precise, is not perfect.
My personal mumbo jumbo is that recording in different tuning standards is someone analgous to shifting the key: the color of the sound can change.
I've done a LOT of 432hz recording, and even released an album of original solo piano music done in this standard.
I see different benifits to experimenting with tuning standards, and admittedly the many of them are commercial benifits.
For anyone interested in their own perceptive ability feel free to take this test I made for Youtube:
Another video of a piano in 432hz is here. I legitimately believe it adds a bit more weight in this standard, without putting it in the heroic key of E-flat:
Include my vote for lower (and higher) tuning. A432 would be useful for careful reproduction of mid-19th century Italian opera and some Baroque repertorie (for example, Bach's 'chamber pitch'). From A415 (or even A409) to A430 would be great for music from Baroque to Classical. A466 would be Bach's 'choir pitch', useful for organ and cornetto music.
Adding these extremes would let Chamber Strings and Historical instruments play at the same pitch of their ancestors, and would make mixing with replica instruments much easier.
Paolo
Include my vote for lower (and higher) tuning. A432 would be useful for careful reproduction of mid-19th century Italian opera and some Baroque repertorie (for example, Bach's 'chamber pitch'). From A415 (or even A409) to A430 would be great for music from Baroque to Classical. A466 would be Bach's 'choir pitch', useful for organ and cornetto music.
Adding these extremes would let Chamber Strings and Historical instruments play at the same pitch of their ancestors, and would make mixing with replica instruments much easier.
Paolo
It ssem to me as if it's already all there:
- "Lower (and higher tuning)"?
Just make use of the pitchwheel CC and you can easily raise or lower the tuning however you want to.
- pitch reproduction of "mid-19th century Italian opera and some Baroque repertorie", "music from Baroque to Classical", " organ and cornetto music" ?
Make use of the "Matrix-Scale" Frature in the Matrix Tab of VI and load that certain historicly correct tuning yo need.
Steffen, the pitchbend trick can be easy with a single instrument, but not if you are simulating the full Lully's orchestra. It can done, but it is quite laborius.
Historical temperaments are, if I'm not wrong, applied to the relative pitches, after you find the correct diapason. So, whether you are working with A440 or A415, they should preserve the same relation between notes in a scale.
Paolo
Just download VI from the MyVSL downloads section. It comes with all VSL's instruments. You don't need the pro version to do this.
It probably should be said that The Vienna Imperial has its own player. It does not work within The Vienna Instruments Player or The Vienna Instruments Pro Player...
Just an FYI.
Steffen, the pitchbend trick can be easy with a single instrument, but not if you are simulating the full Lully's orchestra. It can done, but it is quite laborius.
Paolo
It sem to be a matter of copy and paste if you set the pitch for one instrument just copy that CC-Value ant paste it to the tracks of all other instruments whlie to do this in VI would be at least as tedious since you have to set this likewise for each instrument seperatly ( if not even for each Matrix of each VI-Instance which would be even more tedious).
OK I admit it would be for your need a bit smarter to do that either in your Sequencer or in VE something like a global masterpitch. (I even dont really know if there isn't already something like this) but at least you can at least achieve what you want - it is not impossible 😉
