Instruments and their optimal range of notes/frequencies....???

C

Chew_Bear

New member
Still new to music theory and the gears in my head are always spinning......

Each and every instrument or 'sound source' has a "OPTIMAL RANGE" of frequencies or notes/keys where it probably performs or sounds the "best" at....right....???

For example...say your standard 88 key piano...

A. Which octaves or keys/notes...would be deemed the optimal range where the piano performs the best at...???

B. Can it be said that the Piano performs really good thru out its whole range and therefore it could be classified as the only really versatile instrument known in modern/western music...???

Hence the reason for its adoption in our modern era with digital gear, sampling and computers. I.E. Piano keys on synthesizers, samplers and the piano roll in DAWs.

So in conclusion...

1. How do you figure out the harmonic makeup of a particular sound or instrument if it originally has 'NONE' to begin with...??? i.e. Sampling and Sound Design.

Basically...you would use the piano as a 'BENCHMARK' and/or 'REFERENCE GUIDE'...correct....??? Because since a piano's keys are very versatile and every key denotes a 'perfect pitch' and/or 'harmonic / fundamental'.

Therefore...the piano is the best way to figure out which frequencies and/or range of notes a particular instrument, sound or sample performs/sounds the best at...right....???

....BECAUSE.....

There is this instrument that I am trying to sample. And the problem is...it has no harmonic content at all (no perfect pitch, keys/notes, fundamental). Its timbre/character and tone is very 'out of this world'. Therefore...I don't know what frequencies would make up its optimal range.

The only thing I can do....is listen to a melody/song that the instrument is 'traditionally' played with and than make an "EDUCATED" guess at to which tones/notes 'sound' the best to my ear. Than reference these 'good' notes/tones I hear against a traditional 88 key piano.

Than hopefully or better yet 'theoretically'....try and figure out if these good notes/tones has any discernible pitch/fundamental to them and than from that make a guess as to what the optimal range of the instrument is...correct...???

HELP...?!?!?!?!?
 
Every instrument has it's own natural (wouldn't call it optimal) frequency range - you wouldn't use a piccolo for a bass line :) Pianos make a good reference tool because they have a wide frequency range, and the keyboard layout is matched to Western musical theory. Makes it easier to figure out key, chord progressions, etc. Guess you could say it sounds best in the middle registers, but many dramatic pieces use the upper and lower. Don't know what you mean by perfect pitch or harmonic/fundamental - although you may play a C3, there are many associated harmonics. The only thing that has no harmonics is a pure sine wave, so your sampled instrument also has harmonics, even if it's pure noise.

Couple of things that might help:
Frequency chart - interactive display of instrument frequency ranges
Frequency analyzer - visually shows frequencies in use, couple of good ones are Span and FreqAnalyst.
Also, if you could provide more info regarding what you're trying to sample maybe others have the same experience.

btw - an educated guess as to what sounds best to you is still the way to go.
 
Yeah, as ponkapg said, there probably is plenty of harmonic content unless the instrument you're trying to sample is an oscillator outputting a pure sine.

Also, the "optimal" ranges of acoustic instruments often have to do with how easy it is to play - the extreme highs and lows that an instrument can pull off are usually much trickier to physically play, thus their optimal range lies somewhere between the extremes. This is just part of the equation, of course. The tonality of an instrument is simply different at the low and high end of its range, so "optimal" also has to do with the ambiguous parameter of "pleasantness" and fitting in with other instruments.

And the tuning of an acoustic piano is hardly "perfect" either, nor it's meant to be.

As for your problem...you're trying to turn this into a theoretical conundrum. It's not. Listen to what works and what doesn't. It's as simple as that.
 
instruments are the way they are for example
you cant bass with harmonica

but synth has no rules like that because you can bass with harmonica presets , you can bass with flute presets , you can do whatever you like
 
In the age of being able easily sample anything, you can well bass with a harmonica :) I often do bass guitar mockups with a guitar simply by pulling the clip an octave down. This is straying a bit from the original question though...
 
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