jamessimon wroteI'm perplexed why my Notion tuning for all instruments is off. I've tried 440 and 442. I have to change the tuning to approximately 427.4 to approximate what my tuner says is A 440. Anyone know what I'm missing?
I have the global tuning pitch set to 440-Hz (Concert A) in NOTION 6; and I did a test using SignalSuite (Faber Acoustical) with its sine wave generator set to 440-Hz . . . SignalSuite (Faber Acoustical)There were
no beats, which indicates the 440-Hz global tuning value in NOTION 6 is correct . . .
I did this with a flute (which naturally and expectedly oscillated based on the breathing of the flute player, which is part of the sampled sound), piano, and electric guitar . . .
The piano and electric guitar did
not oscillate, which is the reason I used them . . .
Flutists tend to heavy breathers, and they are easily excited . . . THOUGHTSI do everything on the Mac here in the sound isolation studio . . .
By default, NOTION 6 is
not configured to use 440-Hz as the global tuning pitch, so it needs to be set manually . . .
My best guess is that the default is non-standard to match the sampled sounds from the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) that are bundled with NOTION . . .
440-Hz is the international standard tuning frequency, and in the US it is broadcast on radio hourly at various times so that orchestras and music ensembles have a consistent, standard tuning pitch . . .
The US time and frequency station WWV broadcasts a 440 Hz signal at two minutes past every hour, with WWVH broadcasting the same tone at the first minute past every hour. This was added in 1936 to aid orchestras in tuning their instruments.
[SOURCE: A440 (pitch standard) ~ Wikipedia ]
There is a 440-Hz tuning pitch on YouTube, and it matches the 440-Hz sine wave output by SignalSuite . . .
Check your tuner against the YouTube video (440-Hz) . . .
It's likely that your tuner has a problem or is not calibrated correctly . . .
Lots of FUN! P. S. It's better to do the pitch verifying with a third-party sampled sound library like Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments) that uses 440-Hz by default . . .
NOTION 6 will do computed pitch adjustments to make pitches sound in tune with whatever global tuning pitch you select, but I do not think the native NOTION sounds are played on instruments which were tuned to standard Concert A (440-Hz), so when you change the NOTION global tuning pitch to 440-Hz, this probably causes NOTION to compute each note . . .
In contrast, Kontakt 5 uses 440-Hz by default, as does MachFive 3 (MOTU); so their sampled sounds will be played on instruments tuned to 440-Hz as Concert A . . .
SampleTank 3 is designed and programmed by IK Multimedia, which is an Italian company; so it uses some of the Italian and EU values--at least for Middle C, which it considers to be C3 in Scientific Pitch Notation rather than the American standard C4. In the MIDI universe, Middle C is note 60, but different synthesizers use a range of Scientific Pitch Notation values for Middle C from the set {C3|C4|C5}' so it depends on the specific company and the way they configure their synthesizer . . .
It might be nice if there were only one "standard", but there isn't . . .
Toward the goal of being as Utopian as possible, I think it's important to allow Middle C to be A### or E♭♭♭♭ . . .
The world must be peopled, and this works best when there is music . . .
When people are peopling, the specific frequency value of Concert A is
not first and foremost in their minds . . .
It's True!