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fretless intonation and practicing w/ headphones

#22
jweiss said:
Onboard sound card.
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You're going to have a hard time getting the proper levels with your bass to compete with the song you're playing along with at a volume level loud enough to hear the wave interference you're looking for. This is different than the vocalist phenomenon that people are comparing your issue to. With a vocalist it's completely valid that singing with headphones could cause them to hear things a little differently, anyone can verify this easily (remember hearing your voice recorded for the first time?).

I'm fairly certain you wouldn't have this problem with a proper recording interface that provides a decent bass signal. I play fretless exclusively, I've learned plenty of tunes over the years in a dorm room with headphones, I've never ever ever noticed this problem and I have gone through years of ear training and have very good intonation.

I just don't like to see junk science spread around. Doubt me all you like :-\ My headphones must be magical I guess.
 
#23
hunta said:
You're going to have a hard time getting the proper levels with your bass to compete with the song you're playing along with at a volume level loud enough to hear the wave interference you're looking for. This is different than the vocalist phenomenon that people are comparing your issue to. With a vocalist it's completely valid that singing with headphones could cause them to hear things a little differently, anyone can verify this easily (remember hearing your voice recorded for the first time?).

I'm fairly certain you wouldn't have this problem with a proper recording interface that provides a decent bass signal. I play fretless exclusively, I've learned plenty of tunes over the years in a dorm room with headphones, I've never ever ever noticed this problem and I have gone through years of ear training and have very good intonation.

I just don't like to see junk science spread around. Doubt me all you like :-\ My headphones must be magical I guess.
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So your explanation is that his sound card doesn't go loud enough?

I don't believe there's any actual problem with the pitch coming out of headphones, but that Link Removed for one reason or another. So someone with lots of a) ear training and b) experience with headphones wouldn't have this problem as much as a beginner - the experience easily overcomes the difficulty a beginner experiences.

Personally, I think your explanation is just as junk science as any other - if anything bass frequencies are easier to reproduce accurately at the sound card level, their waves being so damned big. It's the higher frequencies that are more likely to get muddied - unless this is what you're referring to, tones over 5khz for example, when you get into clock-time errors and the limits of the frequency response (44.1k) itself and all waves begin to look like square waves.

On the other hand, bass frequencies are harder to reproduce at the earphone itself. When the driver is just a few mm across, it's sort of difficult to produce an 18 foot sound wave.
 
#26
Here is what my instructor had to say when I asked him to clarify why it was easier to work on intonation with speakers / amplifier than headphones:

hearing the waves from two different sources...

the air waves collide and are more obvious when heard from two separate sources...

they still do this with headphones too, but the drone is right by your ear and reaches it first, your brain makes up the difference and you could be playing out of tune...
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#28
jweiss, that would have been my logic, too, but I was too paranoid to say it. You try to say anything on here without a hundred charts and graphs to prove it and all the manual readers on here come at you like a pack of wolves.
 
#33
It shoudn't matter too much, but I guess if you wanted to be very precise about it, the main thing to check for is that that both sound sources are the same distance from your head & neither is significantly off to one side or the other, or that one sound source is balanced stereo on both sides (like a home theater system). This way the sound reaches your ear at the same time.

Secondary reflections - sound bouncing off the walls & floor isn't something I'd worry too much about here, but it is possible that the slightly delayed sound will muck up the phase of the higher pitch sounds reaching you ear and ever so slightly screw up your sense of pitch.... But I wouldn't worry about it, if you try to create an anechoic chamber in your room, it's really about the same as using headphones. The fact is the brain *needs* to hear the secondary reflections - it needs to know that the sound is coming from somewhere in 3 dimensional space in a room of understandable dimensions and the reflections are an essential part of that, and it knows how to compensate for it.
 
#34
jweiss said:
Good discussion here.

Hunta - exactly what type of interface are you referring to? Do you mean something like this:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Echo-AudioFire2-2-Channel-Firewire-Audio-Interface?sku=245640

Does this type of unit allow higher headphone volumes without distortion?

I still think it's a headphone versus room issue but would be willing to give this a try.
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That's a nice interface but it doesn't have preamps so you'd need a separate pre. Maybe look at something like this: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ART-USB-Dual-Pre?sku=703092.

If you get enough gain on your bass signal you should be able to hear the interference when you're out of tune. The only reason you wouldn't is if the CD is all in the left channel and the bass is all in the right channel (although I'm not even positive about that, I was reading something about binaural beats which is something of a psychoacoustic effect when the conflicting sounds are in different headphone channels). I'm fairly certain that in this case it's just a volume issue, but I'm not a science professor so there may be some other explanation for it. I can definitely hear "beats" (wave interference) with headphones.
MarkTAW said:
Personally, I think your explanation is just as junk science as any other - if anything bass frequencies are easier to reproduce accurately at the sound card level, their waves being so damned big. It's the higher frequencies that are more likely to get muddied - unless this is what you're referring to, tones over 5khz for example, when you get into clock-time errors and the limits of the frequency response (44.1k) itself and all waves begin to look like square waves.

On the other hand, bass frequencies are harder to reproduce at the earphone itself. When the driver is just a few mm across, it's sort of difficult to produce an 18 foot sound wave.
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You're talking about reproducing bass frequencies on a computer sound card, that's not what I'm talking about. I believe he's not getting a strong enough signal going INTO the sound card from his bass. It's true that headphones can't reproduce bass like an 18" woofer, but you can certainly hear bass in any decent headphones. When the speaker is right up against your ear, it doesn't need to be huge to reproduce bass. You're not going to feel the bass like you would from an 18" woofer, but you can hear it fine.

Here's a little blurb from an old soundstage mag I found online: "Do you need a room with at least one 60-foot dimension in it to hear a real 20Hz in the room? No. Your ears actually pick up sound in a different way, reacting to the compressions and rarefactions that happen in the air as the sound propagates though the room. Twenty Hertz creates 20 compressions and rarefactions per second and your ear will pick that up even if you are listening to headphones that respond to frequencies that low. Otherwise your ear canal would have to be 60 feet long -- we would look rather odd if our heads were 60 feet wide."
 
#35
hunta said:
That's a nice interface but it doesn't have preamps so you'd need a separate pre. Maybe look at something like this: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ART-USB-Dual-Pre?sku=703092.

If you get enough gain on your bass signal you should be able to hear the interference when you're out of tune.
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Thanks for the pointer hunta. I'm actually looking for a firewire interface rather than USB. Perhaps this should go in the "recording" forum, but what is the difference between the unit that you linked versus the one that I linked that makes one have a "preamp"? Is there just more gain available with the ART unit versus the Echo?

I do have a Sansamp Paradriver that I could use as a pre if necessary.

Although I'm not yet convinced that this is the issue, I have been meaning to get a proper audio interface for my computer for some time. So this seems like a good reason to buy one now :)

Cheers,

Jeff
 
#36
jweiss, most audio equipment is at "line level" - this way your CD player's output matches the input of your stereo system. There are two different "line levels" - one for consumer equipment and one for pro equipment.

Your bass or your microphone doesn't output line level, its much weaker and must be brought UP to line level. In order to do this, you need a preamp. Preamps are often selected for their coloration (or lack of coloration) as different preamps can offer different tonal options.

hunta - my bad, you're right about the headphones. I actually know better, but was just being argumentative. Though I still contend that for one reason or another, many people have more trouble with pitch in headphones than without.
 
#37
jweiss said:
Thanks for the pointer hunta. I'm actually looking for a firewire interface rather than USB. Perhaps this should go in the "recording" forum, but what is the difference between the unit that you linked versus the one that I linked that makes one have a "preamp"? Is there just more gain available with the ART unit versus the Echo?

I do have a Sansamp Paradriver that I could use as a pre if necessary.

Although I'm not yet convinced that this is the issue, I have been meaning to get a proper audio interface for my computer for some time. So this seems like a good reason to buy one now :)

Cheers,

Jeff
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Ahh, I linked that USB interface just because of the price mainly. The Audiofire interfaces have really good converters (I was thinking about getting an Audiofire 12 recently). As for a pre, I think the Sansamp would work (forgot you had that), although if you're going to record anything other than bass you would want to have a more general purpose pre to use. The Audiofire 4 might be a good choice, it's $100 more than the Audiofire 2 but it's 4 channels with 2 preamps.

The Audiofire 2 spec page kind of omits the fact that it has no preamps, but it doesn't. A preamp basically amplifies a mic level signal to a line level signal. The signal you get out of your DI will be at mic level (on most DI's), so you need a preamp to juice it up. Generally, higher quality preamps will give you a cleaner boost (although many high end pres will color the sound in a desirable way based on the application), give you more gain, and introduce less noise. If you don't use a pre or use a pre that can't provide enough gain you're going to have a very thin sound. Different pres will sound better with different instruments/mics/etc..
 
#38
Hey, thanks to both of you for explaining this! I think I get it. Let me know if this sounds about right:

1) I need to get signal from my bass to the computer up to line level from instrument level.

2) Echo Audiofire 2 does not have a built in preamp. To use this with my bass, I would have to use a preamp (like my Sansamp) in front of it to get the input signal to the Audiofire 2 up to line level.

3) Audiofire 4 has a built in preamp, so I could just plug my bass into the front and adjust the gain to get the signal to line level. This seems like the easiest and best option. It would also allow me to use the Audiofire 4 "stand alone" for headphone practice away from my computer.

Well the Audiofire 4 is $300 versus $200 for the Audiofire 2... I might look around a little to see if there are any cheaper firewire interfaces that have built in preamps... I can't ever see myself needing more than 2 inputs either... the Echo stuff is attractive though since reviews are nearly uniformly positive...

Cheers,

Jeff
 
#39
jweiss said:
3) Audiofire 4 has a built in preamp, so I could just plug my bass into the front and adjust the gain to get the signal to line level. This seems like the easiest and best option. It would also allow me to use the Audiofire 4 "stand alone" for headphone practice away from my computer.
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For the most part you've got it, I don't think you can use the Audiofire as a stand-alone unit though.

I'm not sure I would trust any of the firewire interfaces below the $250-$300 range (the audiofire 2 is an exception but no pres). The Saffire is alright, I think the Echo is probably better though. Make sure you've got a TI firewire chip if you're going to use firewire too, most other firewire chips will cause problems. For 1 or 2 inputs USB isn't bad, FW rocks though.
 

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