Comments on: Buy Your Ear Muffs Now

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:12:21 +0000

Actually I have a more dynamic retuning on the fly objective.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 03:43:34 +0000

Oh, Ok, I see your point now, to use the built-ins as consistent starting points, I was just thinking of the programming end of things and all of the problems that crop up in any new project, It takes a while to locate and eliminate the bugs in any system, and when there’s a mechanical portion, as there would be in tuning a guitar, there’s more room for errors. But if the system becomes functional, then a skilled player can use it to his/her advantage and do things musically that would have required multiple instruments before.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:44:26 +0000

Fretless guitars can be played just, but it takes much skill.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:43:17 +0000

Briefly, though, in just intonation, a note exists within a key, and if the same note is sounded in a different key it has a different pitch.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:42:28 +0000

No, Bryan, not at all. I fight with equal tempered tuning all the time, having a computer do just tuning for me would only make my job easier.

I won’t try to explain, unless you really want. I have to do a lot of hand-calculation right now which is tedious and it would be nice to automate.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:37:29 +0000

So, Michael, you want to fight with a computer over tuning? It has been my experience it takes a very long time for innovations to actually become useful in the real world, and many of them end up tend to force the least common denominator.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:36:10 +0000

I predict this will one day evolve into something fantastic, a string autotuner for just intonation performance.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:12:59 +0000

Actually, it is cheaper to sample an excellent instrument than to synthesize, so most of the electronic music is indeed sampled rather than synthesized and you could create a basic “guitar” with a computer and some midi gear but you can’t get the effects that a real guitarist can produce with the real instrument, only slightly better than mediocre.

With a real midi keyboard system you could download samples of some of the greatest instruments in the world to produce a good keyboard sound, but the winds and strings are definitely not as good.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:24:11 +0000

“If they want a “robo-guitar” just synthesize and forget about the strings.” – Bryan

Perhaps.

I don’t know about guitars, but for some years now, the really good digital pianos don’t synthesize the piano sound; rather, they use digital recordings of high-quality acoustic pianos. They record each note at several dynamic levels, because a hammer striking a string hard produces an initial sound that is quite different from what you would get if you merely scaled up a soft strike. The process required to get this exactly right must be labor intensive, and the person who does it surely must be an expert and a pianist. I do not begrudge a penny I paid for my Yamaha P-80, considering the effort that must have gone into this process. (The keyboard is similarly astonishingly good. But that’s for another day.)

Unfortunately, they don’t do the same thing (or at least they didn’t when my piano was made, perhaps six or seven years ago) for the other sounds built into the “piano” … harpsichord, organ, etc. Those are synthesized, and they sound like warmed-over Republican policy pronouncements. This may be improved on newer instruments; I don’t know.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 03:39:40 +0000

I would assume for space reasons all of the mechanism would be in the body of the guitar, in reverse of the standard tightening procedure. There was no picture so it may be as simple as three leds telling you to tighten or loosen a string and a six position switch to select the string and pick-up to use.

If they want a “robo-guitar” just synthesize and forget about the strings.

Banjos have a half step device, kind of like a built-in capo or mechanical waa-waa that changes the effective string length.

The real point is that you have to be able to play before any of this will do you any good, and if you can play, you don’t really need it.