Harmonics

[Powder Kutz]

Even, Odd, 2nd, 4th.....how can harmonics be altered to acheive a desired effect/sound. I've read statements that odd harmonics sound ***** and evens sound ***** but i just don't get it yet. Are there methods to eqing the harmonics? What situations lead you to making changes to them? I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. Thank you for your time.

[pasarski]

Originally Posted by Powder Kutz

Even, Odd, 2nd, 4th.....how can harmonics be altered to acheive a desired effect/sound. I've read statements that odd harmonics sound ***** and evens sound ***** but i just don't get it yet. Are there methods to eqing the harmonics? What situations lead you to making changes to them? I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. Thank you for your time.

You're talking about distorion, overdrive. Even, odd, depends if it's tube or transistor distortion, or something. You can't eq just the harmonics, you'll eq the rest of the signal also. But you can make distorted sound smoother with high cut for example.

[pasarski]

http://www.milbert.com/tstxt.htm

[Powder Kutz]

Last time i checked they apply to more than just distortion.

I am still reading the rest of the article linked above but this is exactly what i was talking about....

"

[top]SIGNIFICANCE OF MUSICAL HARMONICS

The primary color characteristic of an instrument is determined by the strength of the first few harmonics. Each of the lower harmonics produces its own characteristic effect when it is dominant or it can modify the effect of another dominant harmonic if it is prominent. In the simplest classification, the lower harmonics are divided into two tonal groups. The odd harmonics (third and fifth) produce a "stopped" or "covered" sound. The even harmonics (second, fourth, and sixth) produce "choral" or "singing" sounds.
The second and third harmonics are the most important from the viewpoint of the electronic distortion graphs in the previous section. Musically the second is an octave above the fundamental and is almost inaudible; yet it adds body to the sound, making it fuller. The third is termed a quint or musical twelfth. It produces a sound many musicians refer to as "blanketed." Instead of making the tone fuller, a strong third actually makes the tone softer. Adding a fifth to a strong third gives the sound a metallic quality that gets annoying in character as its amplitude increases. A strong second with a strong third tends to open the "covered" effect. Adding the fourth and the fifth to this changes the sound to an "open horn" like character.
The higher harmonics, above the seventh, give the tone "edge" or "bite." Provided the edge is balanced to the basic musical tone, it tends to reinforce the fundamental, giving the sound a sharp attack quality. Many of the edge harmonics are musically unrelated pitches such as the seventh, ninth, and eleventh. Therefore, too much edge can produce a raspy dissonant quality. Since the ear seems very sensitive to the edge harmonics, controlling their amplitude is of paramount importance. The previously mentioned study of the trumpet tone [6] shows that the edge effect is directly related to the loudness of the tone. Playing the same trumpet note loud or soft makes little difference in the amplitude of the fundamental and the lower harmonics. However. harmonics above the sixth increase and decrease in amplitude in almost direct proportion to the loudness. This edge balance is a critically important loudness signal for the human ear."


How do we use this information? Are these controllable? What does "stopped" or "covered" sound like? What does "choral" or "singing" sound like? Do we aim for one and not the other in different situations?

They use an example of a trumpet tone......

let's say the fundamental is 220

so the 6th overtone is 1540

am i wrong to think i could place a high shelf eq at 1540hz in order to control the amplitude of the 7th and above harmonics?I'm gonna go read more

[pasarski]

Originally Posted by Powder Kutz

Last time i checked they apply to more than just distortion.

I am still reading the rest of the article linked above but this is exactly what i was talking about....

"

[top]SIGNIFICANCE OF MUSICAL HARMONICS

The primary color characteristic of an instrument is determined by the strength of the first few harmonics. Each of the lower harmonics produces its own characteristic effect when it is dominant or it can modify the effect of another dominant harmonic if it is prominent. In the simplest classification, the lower harmonics are divided into two tonal groups. The odd harmonics (third and fifth) produce a "stopped" or "covered" sound. The even harmonics (second, fourth, and sixth) produce "choral" or "singing" sounds.
The second and third harmonics are the most important from the viewpoint of the electronic distortion graphs in the previous section. Musically the second is an octave above the fundamental and is almost inaudible; yet it adds body to the sound, making it fuller. The third is termed a quint or musical twelfth. It produces a sound many musicians refer to as "blanketed." Instead of making the tone fuller, a strong third actually makes the tone softer. Adding a fifth to a strong third gives the sound a metallic quality that gets annoying in character as its amplitude increases. A strong second with a strong third tends to open the "covered" effect. Adding the fourth and the fifth to this changes the sound to an "open horn" like character.
The higher harmonics, above the seventh, give the tone "edge" or "bite." Provided the edge is balanced to the basic musical tone, it tends to reinforce the fundamental, giving the sound a sharp attack quality. Many of the edge harmonics are musically unrelated pitches such as the seventh, ninth, and eleventh. Therefore, too much edge can produce a raspy dissonant quality. Since the ear seems very sensitive to the edge harmonics, controlling their amplitude is of paramount importance. The previously mentioned study of the trumpet tone [6] shows that the edge effect is directly related to the loudness of the tone. Playing the same trumpet note loud or soft makes little difference in the amplitude of the fundamental and the lower harmonics. However. harmonics above the sixth increase and decrease in amplitude in almost direct proportion to the loudness. This edge balance is a critically important loudness signal for the human ear."


How do we use this information? Are these controllable? What does "stopped" or "covered" sound like? What does "choral" or "singing" sound like? Do we aim for one and not the other in different situations?

They use an example of a trumpet tone......

let's say the fundamental is 220

so the 6th harmonic is 1540

am i wrong to think i could place a high shelf eq at 1540hz in order to control the amplitude of the 7th and above harmonics?I'm gonna go read more

Ok, now I understand, sorry tha distortion BS, I'm not a expert on these things When people talk about wich sounds better it's usually about distortion, well saturation. You were talking about different thing. (EDIT: actually not so different as the last paragraph of my post shows)

I suggest that don't read too much and over complicate things. I can tell what I know:

EDIT: I THINK I HAVE TERMS MIXED UP, WHEN I SAY UPPER I MEAN LOWER, WHEN I SAY LOWER I MEAN HARMONICS BELOW THE FUNDAMENTAL (WHICH PROBABLY ARE NOT HARMONICS AT ALL?). THIS IS NOT HIP HOP

Only sound wave that has no harmonics is a pure sine wave, the alarm clock sound (well, it's rarely pure). Every other sound has harmonics, upper and lower. Upper are what counts the most. They make the tone of a sound. That's why a violin sounds different than a piano. Lower harmonics affect also, but not so much. You can usually high pass them if you're not doing some audiophile classical recording.

One practical thing about upper harmonics is that you can make a bass come through a crappy system eq'ing its upper harmonics (octaves). If you're bass is at 50hz and you want it to be heard on little speaker you can eq 100hz, 200hz ,maybe even 400hz. Narrow boost. Though, if your bass line has more than one note, which it probably has, it gets complicated.

Some plugins like waves maxbass emphatize upper harmonics in some mysterious way I don't understand for similar purpose.

Boosting higher upper harmonics is done by exciters. I think they usually sound like crap.

Tube or tape kind of saturation (~distortion) is better for that, as it is BTW also for boosting bass harmonics IMO.

[Powder Kutz]

Overcomplicate.....me...........yeah that sounds like me.

[Storyville]

Originally Posted by Powder Kutz

Even, Odd, 2nd, 4th.....how can harmonics be altered to acheive a desired effect/sound. I've read statements that odd harmonics sound ***** and evens sound ***** but i just don't get it yet. Are there methods to eqing the harmonics? What situations lead you to making changes to them? I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. Thank you for your time.

The easiest way is with an eq. You can suppress or exaggerate harmonics by effecting harmonically relevant frequencies. Harmonics effect timbre, which is analogous to "tone" and "texture", with some amount of argument permitted. If you want a different tone without changing the basic harmonic structure - just the degrees at which harmonics are emphasized, get to an eq.

However, other effects such as distortion/saturation/excitation will change the fundamental shape of the sound, which alters the harmonics in much more complex ways, generates non-harmonically related sound, changes the contour of the sound envelope in various ways across the frequency spectrum, and changes the micro-harmonics as well.

Long of the short - you can think of "tone" instead of "harmonics" and go from there. The even partials are generally characterized as "smooth", while the odds are generally characterized as "hard." However, I've found this not to be a perfectly adequate description.

[Powder Kutz]

Good stuff as always from Storyville...much appreciated

[Storyville]

I aims to please.


As a follow up note - if a sound needs to "open up", this often means that there is excess of non-harmonically relevant frequencies in the sound. This is where using the eq in cut mode is helpful. Things like resonances, noise, and wide band frequency information can be eliminated to help the sound feel more "focused" or "open" by getting rid of things that take up sonic space and emphasizing the more relevant sonic info.

Although, it should be mentioned that non-harmonically related sound has it's place and shouldn't be over filtered.