The Mike Moffat (#2 at Schiit) Blog

Yep, there's a bypass switch on the front.

 

Let's be real. Mike is not some random member of the trade posting here for the first time. Mike is a known member here and has a style all his own. Those of us that have been around here or the industry a while all know about it.

That's my final comment on the subject.

 

Yeah, maybe.
I was correcting a matter of fact (to the best of my understanding). I don't doubt that Baldr has seen more orchestral music than I have, but can be still be wrong, which is fine if one doesn't then take at as premise. Don't blame the viollists! Anyway, I don't have a problem with "moving on," as they say.

High fidelity is also a fact. Or, at least an aim, of hifi. That is to reproduce as well as possible what is on the source medium. Not in the composer's head, or the musician's intention, but what actually got recorded and sold. Changing the tuning of the piece is not any kind of fidelity --- but it might indeed be what a person wants to do. High fidelity is one thing: the freedom to listen to music with whatever flavour, inflection, processing, any individual desires is what makes it matter that everything doesn't actually sound the same, and nor should it.

So, hifi? No. But I can go with a person not even wanting to have that discussion.

That's an interesting point. If this came from those Synergistic guys, many of us would probably write it off as a joke. Nobody, least of all me, has done. Is it the best thing since sliced bread? Might be; night not be. But at least, here, nobody is going to force us to understand even if we don't agree, and also, here, I have some faith in some of the ears that are going to get to hear and write about this thing.

Looking forward to that.

 

Since no one here (possibly) has heard it we are hypothesizing, which is part of the fun. This interests me. Doesn't sound like Mike is aiming for fidelity on this one. O.K. with me. If it pleases my nervous system by releasing some dopamine all the better. Sometimes I want hifi. Sometimes dopamine. Maybe some oxytocin would help this thread.

 

I wouldn't at all be surprised if those who regularly get access to early prototypes for testing/feedback have already heard it. They're just being (appropriately) discrete.

 

Rude? Sarcastic, perhaps. A reread of that paragraph I think may disclose a sense of self-deprecation of my Bluegrass persona in the context of classical musicians.

My reprise comment on inabilities to differentiate and those who judge before the fact were based upon statements further down the post which condemned "Dogma" and "Twiddling". I am confident that despite this, we can continue on cordially.

Do I make mistakes, hell yes and fairly frequently. In fact, I have three here within the last few days. The first was over the source of the tuning - violin vs. oboe. The second was on the maker of the S/PDIF to AES/EBU transformers I like - I reread them and they are made by Nuetrik, not Sennheiser. The third was my misreporting C3=256; the correct notation is C4. If my mistakes are less than 49%, I am ahead of the game. Thank God they have been well less so over the course of my career.

Forgive a few more statements -

I believe in what I am doing - I am NOT running a tent-revival or any other faith based bullshit. I have NO dogma to sell. I am NOT in this for the f'ing money. I am in it because I love it. I used to consult for Hollywood - that is where the real money is. The problem was that I lowered myself into the role of a prostitute. I am amateur in the sense of the true meaning of amateur - in it for the love of it. I do not sit on a non-moving freeway x hours per day on my way to a job that I hate.

I am 69 years old. I do not have to work. I am in this for a good time and want to live as long as I can doing exactly what I am doing. I have had much appreciation and some complaints (many deserved, but most not) over my career. If you do not like me or what I do, that is exactly none of my business. Believe it or not, I do not give a flying f**k of what some of you think of me. It is up to me, and me only, to create whatever my perceived persona is.

If you do not believe what I have written above then do NOT buy any of my gear. Buy any competing gear or even better yet get a new hobby where you can annoy others I do not know.

Specifically the above RE The Gadget:

I discovered what it is by accident and decided to build it. It has one adjustment which is a simple pitch control. Whatever temperament recorded remains. I find a "sweet spot" or "skingasm" spot within seconds. The ten others who have tried this also believe in it. So much, in fact that I had to find someone who could come up with an algorithm to make it happen (Ivana) who spent over a year full time making it so. I built it because I believe in it and cannot imagine high performance audio life without it. When you hear it, you may agree or disagree. If you disagree, then do not buy it. Tell me why you do not like it if you want. Helps me make better Schiit. Period.

If you judge anything I do after you have experience with it, that is fine. No one can make a perfect anything. Just stay out of this thread if you dare to judge my (or anyone else's) products that you have no experience with.

Negative, absolutely wrong. The Gadget is adjustable for zero pitch shift. If it is working correctly it should then be inaudible in the chain. It is very, very close, just a RCH away, just an artifact of the S/PDIF. It took me a long time to be able to spot those. There are dozens of pitch shifters available on the net as plugins or standalones, many at no cost. They are not even in the same city, much less ballpark as zero to zero pitch tests show. The problem with pitch adjustment is that a small percentage of samples need to be added or discarded. It seems there are no good sounding non-integer integrators or decimators that run in less than huge server sized boxes. Hence Ivana's algorithm.

 

I stand (quite happily) corrected. Thanks for the clarification Mike. Looking forward to see what that deadhead mind of yours has cooked up. I'm 61. You are spot on about loving what you do. It's the best way to go if you can. Better than a big pay check.

 

Was searching for the difference in frequency between A=440Hz and C=256Hz and found this article (not sure why the banner uses a Nazi flag).
It HERTZ So Bad: the 432 vs 440 Hz controversy
Many theories and explanations of why one might sound better than the other are presented in simple language for those of us without music degrees. One being that "frequencies of the various notes can be expressed in whole numbers in the 432 Hz tuning system."

It links to this cymatics experiment which shows interesting differences in patterns, but not sure what they imply about how we hear music with different tunings.


There's also an embedded YT video of a song played with the guitar tuned such that the "A" string is 440 vs 432 Hz. I found 440 to sound more natural and the 432 to sound "off", but that might be because he plays the 440 clips first and it's hard for the brain to switch gears (I don't think I have perfect pitch).

The link to Stairway to Heaven in A=432 is blocked, but comparing videos of people playing using 432 tuning with the original, it seems it was recorded in that tuning.

@baldr If you play Stairway to Heaven though The Gadget, does the "you're close" light come on with the twiddle knob set to disabled? And similarly with other recordings with C=256/A=432 tuning?

 

I wanted to go and try one of those plugins to get a sort of pre-taster of the gadget but based on this (if I understand correctly), all its probably going to do is lower my expectations for the actual thing..

Its probably not a good idea for me to try the gadget at all really (until I find a job atleast), if I do like it to a point that I cant do without it I'd have to throw out what I have and buy a new DAC with a SPDIF connection and then an amp as well..

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_pitch

Recommended by the Schiller Institute. Ladies and gentlemen reality writes itself LOL. 'Twas manifest destiny that led to the MP.

 

I can be oversensitive. I can also be trite. Your response is generous and appreciated.

49% beats me hands down.

Sure. So far, I am not a great fan of Schiit gear so far, but hey, just one box is all that has come my way. I so much wanted to like it. It had all the functionality I needed, and was being offered by a friend at a give-away price. But the box and I just didn't get on. None the less, I remain a firm admirer of the Schiit philosophy and way of doing things. Seriously: nobody could hope to hold my attention writing about sales and management... but Jason did.

Fair enough. I tried to make it clear that my not hifi is just another piece of dogma to be taken or left according to personal choice. I'd really like to hear your gadget. Already it has caused me to learn from the internet. Tuning according to different temperaments, and whether we are hearing the music as it was composed a couple of hundred years ago and.... almost certainly the answer is, whether we are in the home or the concert hall, no. Mind expanded already. Thank you.

The thing that I remain uncertain about is the numbers. As I mentioned, Indian music (at least until people started importing western electronic tuning aids) doesn't give a hoot what Sa equals in Hertz: it cares only about the intervals. Similarly, the big difference in listening to the different tunings is because the intervals are different, rather than the frequency of the tonic.

All of this is really seriously interesting stuff and I wish I knew more about music theory, Western or Eastern.

So, maybe one day I'll get to hear your Gadget. I am very open to that experience, but geography gets in the way. And... thanks, it's nice to be cordial

 

And on that note, Thad, when I get the MP, you will hear it

 

I tried searching for "RCH" with keywords "digital, S/PDIF, signal, etc." but couldn't find anything. Can someone edify me?

 

Red c*nt hair I'd guess

 

I don't see why that would matter as the length of a second is arbitrary as far as anyone knows.

If it sounds better, I see no sense in post-rationalizing it with a scientific explanation. For my part, having learned that the MP is just adjusting the pitch and not temperament, I am not really interested. Pitch correction alone won't address either the issues with equal temperament or the changes in timbre inherent to tuning to a higher concert pitch with acoustic instruments.

 

Consider me edified.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rch

 

@baldr

Mike, I have a question. As a musician trained in both western classical as well as other forms of music, and as a recording engineer and psychacoustician, is there an acoustic reason for the C=256 tuning besides averaging frequencies? And why C256 and not A432?
I've done some thinking, calculating and searching on the net (and am quite familiar with the A=432 crowd) but I'm not sure I understand why this is superior. As someone noted above, it makes the frequencies nice even numbers, but since our perception of time is somewhat arbitrary, that shouldn't make much difference.

One thing I keep coming back to though - I've done a fair bit of singing, and I notice that nearly all (and this has been backed up by some empirical studies) acappella singing groups in the world go flat over the course of a 1-2 hour concert. Uniformly, across music styles. They settle somewhere between 428-434 if memory serves me correctly.
Now, I've been playing with some of my audio plugins (high quality, expensive, and much better sounding pitch manipulation stuff than the freebies) and trying to determine on my Spectorgraphs if there is any special quality to the sound given C=256. I notice no altered harmonics, or modal variance. I tuned some of my instruments to that pitch (trumpet, horn, a few chords on my piano even!)
And noticed some very unusual subjective differences though.

I'd be very interested in understanding more about this, and will be playing around and researching more to see what I can find. Would love to chat about this and hear your thoughts however!


(Ps. I'm sure Denise passed it on, but thanks for making the Chicago Schiitshow a huge success and a great time!)

 

There *should* be some difference with stringed instruments (including piano) if you physically tune them lower, as the lower tension should reduce harmonics and result in a marginally warmer sound.

As I mentioned above, this won't be observed with digital post-processing, as global pitch adjustment won't affect timbre. And Mike has been pretty clear that the MP specifically doesn't affect timbre or temperament.

 

Just a minor point here, but I noticed you used this ^^ construction more than once - did you mean to use the expression "... if he tears you a _new_ asshole..."?