Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!cynic!curt
From: curt@cynic.wimsey.bc.ca (Curt J. Sampson)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch
Message-ID: <1991Mar28.042610.15332@cynic.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 28 Mar 91 04:26:10 GMT
References: <27ec3160.9d3@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> <1991Mar24.122605.8262@cynic.wimsey.bc.ca> <32083@mimsy.umd.edu>
Organization: Mad Artists' Technological Hangout
Lines: 26

In article <32083@mimsy.umd.edu>
ogata@leviathan.cs.umd.edu (Jefferson Ogata) writes:

> The problem is not always the consistency of each individual tape deck.
> If the deck always plays at the same speed, it doesn't matter when you
> record and play back on that deck, since the playback speed is the
> same as the recording speed. If you move over to another deck, though,
> the playback speed may now be slightly different.

It depends on the vintage of your deck.  All modern studio decks
use a crystal locked capstan.  My Tascam 48, which is a typical
low-end studio deck, is within +/-0.2% of 15 ips when in proper
working order.  That means that an A 440 can vary (worst case) from
439.12 Hz to 440.88 Hz between machines.  Not a terribly large
difference.

Machines that were consistent with themselves but not others would
not be acceptable because many people do the drum tracks in a studio
with an appropriate room and then do overdubs in a smaller, cheaper
studio.

cjs
-- 
                        | "It is actually a feature of UUCP that the map of
curt@cynic.uucp         | all systems in the network is not known anywhere."
curt@cynic.wimsey.bc.ca |    --Berkeley Mail Reference Manual (Kurt Schoens)