Posted by Rick Denney on May 07, 2001 at 21:31:03:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Contra-Octave in band playing posted by Greg Crider on May 06, 2001 at 19:42:04:
With all due respect, I don't think so.
I just drove from Virginia to Woodbridge (to visit Dillon Music this morning and drop off my horns for Matt to work on), and then on to Lake Placid. That gave me about ten hours in the car. One of the CD's I brought with me (other than the ones I made over the weekend) was Gene Pokorny's Orchestral Excerpts recording. In that recording, which I listened to at high amplification levels repeatedly, he has some monster playing in the pedal register (1st harmonic fundamentals). I heard a far richer collection of overtones on those notes than on the notes an octave up.
What do you think makes that sawtooth? The addition of all those overtones. You take away the overtones, and you end up with fundamental, which is colorless and deep--possibly subsonic for some people, and certainly subsonic for my car stereo.
Now that I know what to listen for, having compared sounds to waveforms, I'm pretty sure that his pedals don't have much actual fundemental in them.
BUT...
and it's a big but...
His pedals have all the overtones associated with a pedal. That is, his CCC pedal, which has a fundamental of 32 Hz, has overtones at 64, 96, 128, 160, 192, and so on every 32 Hz up to however high they go. My ears tell me that the series goes pretty high, especially when he plays loudly.
All those overtones are interpreted by that spectral analysis tool called my brain as: Pedal C. The C an octave higher does not have the same overtones (it only has the lower note's even harmonics, spaced every 64 Hz), and therefore doesn't sound like the overtone series of a pedal C. My brain says "Low C." The fundamental need not be present, and I'm not even sure I can hear a 32 Hz tone in any case. The one I produced electronically at home was more felt than heard, and is probably stretching the capabilities of the reproduction equipment in any case. It certainly bore no resemblance to the sound Mr. Pokorny produced.
Rick "with much ore to mine" Denney