[Noisebridge-discuss] why a sine wave?

[jim]

   I do not prefer a single (i.e. "pure") tone. I prefer 
one with harmonics. 

   Examples include 
* the difference between high quality as opposed to low 
quality instruments, where the differentiation is in the 
nature of the harmonics, listen to a high quality violin 
or saxophone; 
* orchestra color requires variations in the harmonic 
contents of the various instruments; 
* some African musical instrument makers got real excited 
when they discovered bottle caps, because adding the 
bottle caps to their instruments added a buzzing quality 
to the sound; 
* jimi hendricks plays the guitar like a story teller 
partly because his notes are somewhat buried in noise 
(string and fret rattle and other sibilant stuff, kind of 
like somebody in a negligee can be more sexy than someone 
stark naked. 
* note that the sounds of gongs and cymbals vary in their 
harmonic content as the sounds decay, there's something 
similar to phase shifting which keeps the tone interesting. 

   seems to me all of the above relate to the effects of 
harmonic content of tone qualities, though maybe not 
coincident with fourier analysis. 



On Wed, 2010-01-13 at 14:38 -0800, Michael Shiloh wrote:
> So we have a pretty good understanding of the physics, but I realize now 
> that I didn't pose my original question well.
> 
> Why do we prefer a single tone to one that contains harmonics? What is 
> it about a pure tone that sounds better to us?
> 
> M
> 
> Gian Pablo Villamil wrote:
> > Probably due to the lack of harmonics.
> > 
> > It's relatively simple to build a simple oscillator and record its
> > output with a computer, and then look at it through a spectrum
> > analyzer.
> > 
> > Then try sticking capacitors on the output side, as a kind of rough
> > and ready filter, and see what that does the perceived "purity" of the
> > sound.
> > 
> > I did this a while ago, I documented some (but not all) of the results here:
> > 
> > http://itp.nyu.edu/~gpv206/2007/11/replacing_pots_and_caps_for_be.html
> > 
> > On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Michael Shiloh
> > <michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Why do we perceive a sine audio wave as a "pure" tone? Does it have to
> >> do with the mechanical vibrations in our ear? Does any non-sine wave
> >> introduce harmonics, vibrations other than the fundamental, which our
> >> brain perceives as non-pure?
> >>
> >> Regardless of mechanics, what is the perceptive reason a sine wave
> >> sounds pure?
> >>
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