UPDATE:
Since I wrote this 3 years ago I have expanded on my knowledge of 432 and made a more comprehensive work around tuning in Ableton Live, theory, and using third party plugins. Check out the three articles below for a deeper look at 432:
432 with VST’s and Third Party Plugins
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Lately I have heard a lot about 432 tuning and wanted to try it out. I’ve been experimenting with returning in Ableton Live. Before that lets review about the idea behind 432 versus 440 tuning.
The idea is that the natural world resonates with 432 and it’s tuning more than 440. This get very theoretical, but let me put it this way. Tuning was histrionically free game. You could tune your orchestra up or down. There was actually a problem called “pitch inflation”. Basically the higher the tuning, the sharper the sound. It would also make it sound louder to the listener.
At some point the decided to standardize it. I believe 440 was chosen because it’s mathematically easy to deal with. 440 x 2.5 is a lot easier then 432 x 2.5 Read more about the history here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_(pitch_standard)
Now 432 does seem to have a lot of resonances and correspondences. I am still exploring this deep subject, and am taking it with a grain of salt as well. What I can tell you is this. The lower the tuning the more calm and lush the music sounds. I actually really like 432 tuning because of the quality of the harmonics and resonances. Feel free to comment below on this thread to share your thoughts. I would love to hear them.
Also here is a picture of a water image at the different tuning.
image showing 432 in music.
So now back to tuning our synths and production. The problem with 432 tuning is that there is no master tuning in Live. All your different samples and synths also have their own tuning center. The video below shows how you might tune your different synths as well as elements.
Here is the Tune It! Vst: http://freemusicsoftware.org/
A fellow Max For Live user has made a better micro tuner. Here is the link: http://maxforlive.com/library/index.php?by=any&q=microtuner
Love to hear your comments on how you are using 432 tuning, thoughts behind it, and more.
Wow, this is fantastic! Totally opening my eyes and possibilities. Going to try this out and share what I find.
When retuning audio files in Live, you should use Repitch warp mode, as any of the others will degrade the sound. Repitch just plays the file at a different speed with no quality loss or samples added / removed.
Great call on that!
[quote name=”spire”]When retuning audio files in Live, you should use Repitch warp mode, as any of the others will degrade the sound. Repitch just plays the file at a different speed with no quality loss or samples added / removed.[/quote]
Yeah totally! I forgot to mention that. Thanks Spire.
Some years ago I started to experiment with microtuning, and broc from the ableton forum made this device. I only did the cosmetic look of it ;)
So all credits to him !
http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1758/microtuner
How to get Max for live device file of 432 retuning. The file i downloaded from your website is not working (I think it is preset file). I love your tutorials and i like to try your 432 retuning.
Thanks
440 x 2.5 is a lot easier then 432 x 2.5
cAN YOU TELL ME PLEASE, WHERE IS THE ” 2.5″
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/note/
This site is great. I use it for programming any synth to do binaural beats and stuff.
It was just an example. It is saying that 440 is a lot easier math then 432.
Do you know any way to retune each key ?
Cheers
Marc
Thanks for this :) Can you think of anything wrong with fine tuning oscillators in Operator to +968 and then either coarse tuning down one octave or programming notes at one octave down?
Also, I’ve been finding this webpage (http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html) very useful, but although there are options for alternative tunings, 432 isn’t one of them. Does anyone know of a handy list like this for 432 tuning? The website does give the formula for the tables but I wouldn’t know what to do with it :p
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I have written a book with tutorials for every possible method of micro-tuning,
even how to make tuning files in scala and make any scale you like for Logic, and many VST synths.
The link is right at the end of my website: http://mathemagicalmusic.weebly.com/
Hi all,
The device is updated…here it is…
http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1758/microtuner-x
Hello, do you know if changing the Tone Frequency in Preferences from 440Hz to 432Hz will affect all of the instruments/synths etc or would I have to change each instrument individually?
Is there also a way to test if a sound is at 440 or 432?
You have to change it to 432 for each individual synth and sample in Ableton live.
so i use the microtuner and works fine cause i check it using abletons tuner from the beta…. how would i tune my drums to 432hz though?
same way with a tunner.
But why wont it work adjusting from 440 to 432 in preferences? If one need to adjust each instrument what is the point in making it possible to adjust the overall frequency? I don’t get it. What’s the difference?
hey, doesnt it work a little bit different – that tuning to 432 meant also different ratios between the notes and that just detuning “-32” wouldn’t be enough?? i mean – maybe detuning the A note -32 is ok, but you should detune G somehow different? to put it in different words – do the “distance” between notes remain 100cents, or does it change to for ex. to 99 or so as a result of some different mathematical relation? I hope that you get what I mean :)
If you detune the root note then all other notes will be tuned correctly because they are built from a ratio and the root not.
The link of the VST is dead
amazing thankyou for this post and the knowledge
Thanks for these! I’m a believer! We recorded my latest releases in 432hz. has a deeper emotion to it–the “darker” moments are darker, and the brighter moments aren’t exaggerated, theyre more meaningful. You can check it out here: chldartist.com @chld_artist
Hi, first off thanks for these! I have a noob question: I have a piece with 1 instrument in 432HZ, 1 at 110 and 1 at 55. Give the first instrument is detuned by 8HZ would I have to detune the other 2 too? By the same 8HZ I assume?