Comment by squarefoot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by squarefoot | Hacker News Reader

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Does this apply also to sax? I've listened to some (mainly old) recordings where the sax seems clearly out of tune; sometimes it's subtle but there are recordings in which it's so off that one wonders if it's done on purpose (1) and personally I really dislike it. Back in the day there weren't digital effects or they were so primitive that applying pitch correction on the fly while maintaining sound quality and spectral integrity was out of question, still tape recorders allowed to finely set their speed, so tuning the song to a sax being recorded would have been trivial.

(1) Example: "get up an get out" by Iggy Pop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1ld5jG3f-M

As far as I know it applies to both brass and woodwinds, though the degree of difficulty involved probably varies between types of instruments and also (at least on the woodwinds I'm familiar with) note to note.

A sax is really easy to control (or lose control) of the pitch. And in fact, many saxophonists will just shift various ranges around sharp or flat to suit their style (cough Phil Woods cough).

So basically, a woodwind like a sax will tune a few notes with a piano or whatever, but it's really up to the player to keep playing in tune. I would not even bother trying to autotune or use post-processing; it'll just sound weird.

This is also how you can get a room full of student musicians "tuned" but it still sounds like a disaster.

If you listen to the start of Acker Bilk's "Stranger on the Shore", you can hear him bending the notes deliberately.

retuning via tape velocity modulation would be easiest if the instrument in question was consistently out of tune with the rest of the band - like if the sax was always 15 cents flat relative to the harmonic structure.

usually that’s not the case though. typically it’s individual notes. much harder to precisely and accurately modulate tape velocity (especially by hand).

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