Ultimately the entire technical operations in musical correctness will be controlled by the method of tuning. The music industry has battled with this thought ever sense the birth of the audio engineer, but as time moves on the connection between the musical instrument and the technologies that serve as the application for musical balance grows ever closer and can not be denied. "music and tuning are dependent upon each other".
This thread tells the story, my story, and how I am linked to the pursuit of making the audio chain complete.
You might think this would be a walk in the park right? After all we have musical instruments and music structure classes to spell it out for us. It would be great if life was that simple, but I assure you, the resistance to this simple train of logic has eluded a whole sector of audio minds over the last few decades. An entire market of audio equipment has been in stall and engineers and designers have been stumped as to what is going on. It's a mental disconnect that has stopped the advancement of music reproduction. But finally the light is starting to break through the clouds and when tuning becomes the accepted science, what was wrong with the music industry, will be made right.
above Sound Stage studio in Nashville, TN
The image that must be seen to gain understanding of audio is to take a look at the audio chain from start to finish. The audio chain does not start with the playback system (the home stereo). It starts in either the live room or electronically.
below one of our live rooms and a look at my mentored past
Mick Ronson, Mick Jones and Ian Hunter at the Power Station NY
Another reason I ask you to take a look at descripted pictures is so you can visualize what this technology is about. From the very moment we are exposed to sound as a child there is one word that has represented and quantified the event of sound, vibration. No matter how we wish to theorize audio it can not be done without the word vibration. Vibration is a mechanical phenomenon whereby oscillations occur about an equilibrium point. In music that equilibrium point is called the fundamental. To make the fundamental function of a note with timbre, a physical harmonic structure is needed. The harmonic series is a part of all things audio, from the mechanics of a musical instrument, to the electrical/mechanical audio chain, to acoustics and even the nerve system in the human body and brain.
Making this simple, music and the audio chain are scientifically tied together by the laws of physics. There's no mechanical separation (isolation) between the physical function of music played and the conduits that are used to carry audio along the electronic/mechanical signal pathway.
Saying these words may make sense, but the audio community is not so inclined to move forward on technical issues until empirical evidence is supplied. Empirical evidence is a term for the knowledge acquired by means of the senses, particularly by observation and experimentation. Empirical evidence is the highest form of proof concerning the sciences.
Michael Green has confirmed the laws of physics in regards to the audio signal being vibration by putting into action a series of listening tests throughout the world over a 25 year period and has documented this on the TuneLand forum since 2004. These tests have been done by individuals independent from each other using Michael's methods and tuning tools as the only part of the testing in common. The results have not been prompted.
The audio chain from start to finish is one long musical instrument and every inch of its signal/mechanical conduit uses the same laws of physics and practical applications in its performance criteria. This is especially important as recording and playback head into the future, but also plays a specific role of importance in reproducing the past. The search for the illusive absolute sound is finally over.
There is one criteria of the absolute sound that remains consistent through the entire audio chain. On both the origin and the playback end I call this Real Size and Real Space. Real space relates to the original recorded space and is apparent in both live space (room) recording and electronic (internal) recording. All recordings have a real space to them encoded into the recoded code that is reproduced by realigning a recordings fundamental and harmonic structures at the playback end of the chain. Real size relates to the received pickup pattern relationships between the microphones and instruments. These are two components to recordings that work hand and hand. While you have the real size (mic pattern and pressure) influencing specifics of a recorded object, real space is at play as an overall environment reality. This can be the pickup of the live room environment or the size of the 360 environment inside of the electrical recording component. The absolute sound is found within the recorded code, which is turned into the audio code as the signal is put into motion. The audio pathway, or audio chain, carries the recorded information as a vibratory mechanical function.
real space recording
The main component of the audio signal is vibration. Vibration is the energy in motion that makes audio. Without it you would not be able to hear or feel, or for that matter, record and playback music. This might seem pretty fundamental science for the practical person but somewhere along the audio story line the word vibration has been confused with the word distortion. Distortion is when the oscillatory equilibrium point balance is thrown off track enough to not be able to return to its pattern, which in music terms, the pattern is called pitch. What happens when something goes off pitch, or out of tune, is the harmonics are no longer keeping the fundamental true to it's core. When the fundamental looses its identity, function and power, this is called distortion. Distortion happens when the vibrations become uncontrollably random, or not able to fully develop. The first and most prominent symptom of distortion that we can witness is not being able to reproduce the entire size of the environment sound stage in playback.
below, tunable studio in Washington state