4 Oct
2011
4 Oct
'11
10:16 a.m.
Hi,
On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 09:19:48AM +1300, Jeff McClintock wrote:
Don't use plain frequency in Hertz, Hz are very
un-musical because they do
not scale the same way as our ear perceives pitch.
I disagree here.
Hertz is the globally accepted SI unit to represent frequency, so IMO it
should be used in every software dealing with frequencies at the base
layer. On top of that other mappings and transform operations are
useful, which includes some kind of traditional pitch ("midi pitches")
of course, or the widely used scala format. Other "frequencies" may be
better expressed through their periods. For example 2 Hz quite often is
used as "120 bpm" or a period of 0.5 seconds. So my suggestion is: Use
Hz and (milli-)seconds internally, and provide all kinds of additional
conversions/mappings.
What is musical and what is un-musical (and even "the way our ear
works") is a very disputed issue so it should be a bit distanced from
the core of modern music software. It's maybe better to be less musical
and more scientific.
Ciao
--
Frank