the ear the brain the music

[seti]

At the klipsch factory tour we listened to an old victrola record player that only played as low as 500hz but we were told the ear and the brain let us hear a 60hz tone basically filling in information and tones that weren't really there. This was a huge revelation to me and an amazing demonstration if I got the facts straight. If this is happening at 500hz what happens with the ear the brain and the music at say 40hz or 50hz?

[DRBILL]

The short answer is "Gestalt." But the ear and brain have to know what low C on a 32' Open Diapason sounds like before they can fill in the blanks on a recording no matter how good or bad the system.

The moral of this story is to hear all of the live music you can possibly endure. Your Klipschorns will sound much sweeter!

I had never heard much live saxophone music until recently. Recordings sounded rather raw with clicking sounds and gurgles. Ugh. Then I heard several first class saxophonists at University of North Texas (including Blue Lou!). Now I know what I am hearing and it is musical. Same recordings, same system.

I saw it on a billboard. "The mind is a terrible thing to waste!" PWK was a concert goer every chance he had. He didn't invent in order to replace.

DRBILL

[Jay481985]

I remember something that pipe organ do is psychoacoustically make it seem like there is deep bass then present in the music. Something like mixing tones to get lower tone.

[DRBILL]

"I remember something that pipe organ do is psychoacoustically make it seem like there is deep bass then present in the music. Something like mixing tones to get lower tone."

It is called "Resultant" or "Resultantbass" and is often used to provide a 32' stop in situations where there isn't room for pipes that large. It takes a rank that doesn't produce many harmonics, mostly fundamental. If you sound low "C" on such a rank and play low "G" (5th above) the result is an octave lower than the original C. It is a heterodyne (for those of you who used to fiddle with AM radio receivers). It isn't "psychoacoustic". You can see it on a scope. It will rattle windows.

DRBILL

[LarryC]

This capability of the ear-brain is extensive (parallels appear to exist for the brain to fill in what the eye only partially sees). One example is the violin's bottom third-octave: Although the violin's lowest (G) string can play down to the 196-Hz G (the G below middle C on the piano), the body of the violin only reproduces down to about middle C in full strength, and the notes below that have a relatively hollow sound. This is because it's reproducing only mostly overtones of that lowest G, not much of the 196-Hz fundamental itself. However, we hear the violin as going right on down to that lowest G!

I suspect that the viola does the same thing, since it's bottom half-octave has a very peculiar, dark, also somewhat hollow sound, which composers, especially Beethoven and Tchaikovsky used especially well. Cello and double basses, OTOH, are full-sounding to their very bottom notes.

Larry