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Posted by Synchronicity on Jul-08-2006 10:41:

Pitch Illusions!

Has anyone here heard pitch illusions?

Something cool I found messing around once...

2 note harmony, always hitting C6 (for this example). Hold the notes for two beats, playing a slightly distorted sound high on the keyboard. I've used V-Station 'Strings1' with the distortion up half.

Descending, with the C6 play the B below it, then A,G,F,E,F#,G,A, end on C5+C6+E6.

Even though the notes are descending, they sound like they are rising! There's something I really love about this.

Click here for sample (quite loud)

Posted by tom_langford on Jul-08-2006 13:17:

I've had to do some of this stuff for my degree, it appears when your hearing is driven to distortion, there are a ton of them out there and some pretty interesting sites.

Diana Deutsch has done some pretty interesting experiments in this field.

Regards, tom

Posted by Synchronicity on Jul-08-2006 13:41:

Even though I can't hear a note from the C+B, I'll just call it C4.

So the harmonics created by the harmony are C4,E4,C4,F4,G4,A4,C4,E4

The E4's seem to be out of tune towards the F4's, but I'd still say they're closer to E4.

quote:
Originally posted by tom_langford
I've had to do some of this stuff for my degree, it appears when your hearing is driven to distortion, there are a ton of them out there and some pretty interesting sites.

Diana Deutsch has done some pretty interesting experiments in this field.

Regards, tom

'Diana Deutsch' great name! I'll check it out, cheers

Posted by IDarkISwordI on Jul-09-2006 16:52:

Hey. I always thought this was one of the coolest illusions. Audio sample in site. Really fucks with your head.

[COLOR=orange[Shephard Tone[/COLOR]

Cheers,
Zac

Posted by Synchronicity on Jul-10-2006 17:07:

quote:
Originally posted by dj_palm
it wasnt a mp3 link? just alot of text?

Ha ha, there's an mp3 at the bottom of the page

I liked the Shepard Tone illusion but I definately think it could be better executed. There's a clip every few seconds in the audio file, and shortly afterwards you can hear it start from the top again. The whole point was that the sound should be infinitely descending!

Some of the links from the page were good as well

Posted by Diginerd on Jul-10-2006 17:15:

Not so much illusions, but very cool audio demonstrations nonetheless

Corenll University Physics Sounds

Posted by Synchronicity on Jul-10-2006 18:02:

quote:
Originally posted by Diginerd
Not so much illusions, but very cool audio demonstrations nonetheless

Corenll University Physics Sounds

Nice one I liked the tests for the frequency response of the ear - something I'm going to look into more actually.