backchecks, magical mystery tour

[Barbara Richmond]

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OK, all of you who ever attended the PTG seminar class taught by Dr. Tom =
Rossing (a physicist) at Northern Illinois University back in the mid to =
late 80s raise your hands.  (Were you there Stan?)  If I remember =
correctly, he played recordings of instruments (or maybe just the piano) =
without the attack.  The piano (without the attack) sounded remarkably =
like a pipe organ.  It was amazing.

Barbara Richmond, RPT
  ----- Original Message -----=20
  From: J. Stanley Ryberg=20
  To: pianotech=20
  Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 8:02 PM
  Subject: Re: backchecks, magical mystery tour


  Isaac Oleg writes:

  I stay on the concept of the synchronism or a sequence that works
  better for energy reasons. The noise indeed is "masked" in the attack
  tone, that is what we do when tuning.
  I have seen experiments where the action noise and attack noise was
  separed from the tone, and if the tone of the piano was heard without
  it it was barely recognized by an audience.

  While I am not in a position just now to verify the following, I =
remember speaking with an engineering professor who was a TA (teaching =
assistant) during the Fetcher-Munson studies (which had to be mid-50s at =
the latest).  One of the items from that study that we encounter daily =
is the existence on our stereo systems of a "loudness control" switch, =
or in some cases, a pot or slider.  It was determined by the study that =
the human ear, at soft volume levels, loses high and low frequencies =
more quickly than mid-range frequencies, thus the adjustment to bring =
both ends of the spectrum up for use at low volume levels (the =
Fletcher-Munson Curve).  Of course, we just flip the switch and leave it =
there, but that's a whole other story!

  A part of the study which I believe was NOT included in the final =
version, was several months of work painstakingly editing (cutting and =
splicing) audio tape, with different instruments (pretty much the entire =
orchestra) playing the same note, with differences in register accounted =
for by lower instruments playing lower octaves, upper instruments upper =
octaves.  The attack and the decay were carefully excised, leaving the =
middle body of the tone, with the premise (dangerous thing to have in =
pure research) that without these, especially the attack, one would be =
hard pressed (like some hammers) to tell the difference, say, between a =
clarinet and an oboe.  After all this work, they rounded up the usual =
suspects...er...experiment volunteer subjects, and found that indeed, =
most of them couldn't tell the difference.  UNTIL, that is, a musician =
spoke up and asked if the volunteer subjects had any idea of what these =
instruments sounded like in the first place!!!  Back to the drawing =
board, but this time, the same experiment with music students--and the =
premise fell apart completely.

  This is not exactly the same as what Isaac is relating, but it does =
seem to obtain...interesting parallel, in any case!

  Regards,



  Stan Ryberg=20
  Barrington IL=20
  jstan40@sbcglobal.net
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