Frequency...VS...Pitch...???

C

Chew_Bear

New member
To some extent...I know what these 2 terms mean and how they are used.

Frequency (Hz) = Reference of audio signals, as it relates to the human range of hearing.

Pitch = The quality/character of a sound as high or low to the human ear. Obviously...its also a reference to certain frequency numbers, as it relates to the keys on a piano.

What I am confused on...

1. How do you know what to reference and use in certain situations/scenarios...???

Mainly...

A. Sound design
B. Pitch Correction/Adjustment
C. Matching/Tuning instruments to each other
D. Finding fundamentals, harmonics (frequency/spectrum analyzers) and referencing them to the keys on a Piano.

Because...There seems to be a lot of overlap and I get really confused on which techniques, plugins and/or things to be looking at/for when I get confused as to why a sample/instrument sounds off and/or is not matching well with another sample/instrument.
 
Last edited:
Pitch is a perception while frequency is an objective mathematical property.

A triangle wave and a square wave at the same pitch contain different frequencies (except they share a fundamental). People say that the two are at the same frequency but only because that indirectly implies that it's the pitch of the fundamentals of each that are the same frequency. Really, talking about the frequency of something like a violin note is theoretical.

The two are used interchangeably but generally people mean pitch.

If it's a filter then it is a precise frequency, not pitch (filters have no pitch). If it's an oscillator then the frequency knob is it's fundamental frequency.

The only time pitch and frequency become the same thing is with an instrument that produces a pure sin wave. Otherwise we perceive a sound's pitch to be equal to the pitch of a sine wave at the frequency of that sound's fundamental.

In most natural cases the fundamental is the loudest (well, highest amplitude) and the lowest frequency in the sound.
 
Last edited:
I understand it this way and I think that is enough for me, frequencies is more elaboration of a sound

from music theory point of view someone may say I composed this song with these notes but from audio engineering point of view there has to be more elaborated discussion, so we zoom into the frequencies and try to get the best out from
 
The old unit of frequency was simply "cycles per second", which pretty much exactly tells what it measures. One hertz = once per second.
 
Chew_Bear said:
To some extent...I know what these 2 terms mean and how they are used.

Frequency (Hz) = Reference of audio signals, as it relates to the human range of hearing.

Pitch = The quality/character of a sound as high or low to the human ear. Obviously...its also a reference to certain frequency numbers, as it relates to the keys on a piano.

What I am confused on...

1. How do you know what to reference and use in certain situations/scenarios...???

Mainly...

A. Sound design
B. Pitch Correction/Adjustment
C. Matching/Tuning instruments to each other
D. Finding fundamentals, harmonics (frequency/spectrum analyzers) and referencing them to the keys on a Piano.

Because...There seems to be a lot of overlap and I get really confused on which techniques, plugins and/or things to be looking at/for when I get confused as to why a sample/instrument sounds off and/or is not matching well with another sample/instrument.
Click to expand...

If you're talking things sounding harmonious (classical music theory) then you want to talk about pitch i.e. what note it is.

If you're talking about sound design, then you talk in terms of frequencies.

It really doesn't matter though, everyone should understand everything if you use either term.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top