M
mauidan
Guest
- Thread Author
- #1
From: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/rmaf-2017-show-report-personal-portable-and-digital/
RMAF 2017 Show Report: Personal, Portable, and Digital Show report
By Steven Stone,TAS
Other News - C=256
While RMAF was full of new products, few pushed the limits of the sonic horizon as completely as the new device from Schitt Audio called the Gadget. It’s not a DAC, preamplifier, or headphone amp, it is a device that can lower the pitch of any piece of digital music without altering the tempo. And why, outside of a recording studio, would anyone want to do this? Let’s look at musical history.
Currently C4 is exactly 261.63 Hz, but it wasn’t always at that pitch. In baroque times A, which is now at 440 Hz, was only 415 Hz, which is almost a complete half-step lower than current tuning. Mike Moffat, Schitt’s digital designer, was doing some research when he came across the patent papers from Lloyd Loar, who was Gibson’s acoustical engineer in the 1920’s. Loar was responsible for creating the modern, F-5 style mandolin. Mike noticed that one of the primary specifications for the F-5 mandolin was that the top was hand carved and then “tap-tuned” to a frequency of C=256 Hz, which is lower than the standard C at 261.63 Hz. That got Mike thinking about and trying out the pitch altering plug-ins available on the commercial market. In Mike’s words, “They all sounded like a**.” Schitt then hired a full-time employee with a PHD in mathematics to work on what was dubbed “the Manhattan Project.” It took over a year before the first version, which in Mike’s words, “Did NOT sound like a**” was created. The current version went through several more revisions before production. Official release date and price are still to be determined.
The Gadget consists of a small box, about the same size as the Schitt Magni3 headphone amp, that is inserted into the digital SPDIF signal chain between the source and the DAC. It has one knob, a toggle switch, and one LED light. The knob adjusts the pitch downward, the toggle is a bypass, and the LED lights up when you reach C=256 Hz. The Gadget can lower the pitch even more than C=256 so that if you have an older recording that was pitched above C=261.63, you can still lower to C=256. Many live recordings of bluegrass bands done in the fifties and even into the sixties are pitched higher than A=440 because they tuned to each other and didn’t go by tuning forks, so by the end of a tour a band could be over a full step sharp!
I spent a good chunk of time on Sunday listening to the Gadget and I was impressed. When toggled between bypass and the pitch correction, with corrected pitch the music was more musical and euphonic. While the demo shown could only support up to 44.1/16, the final production one will support higher PCM bit rates. I look forward to adjusting and then listening to some of my favorite older live folk and bluegrass recordings through the Gadget. I may even, finally, begin to play along…
RMAF 2017 Show Report: Personal, Portable, and Digital Show report
By Steven Stone,TAS
Other News - C=256
While RMAF was full of new products, few pushed the limits of the sonic horizon as completely as the new device from Schitt Audio called the Gadget. It’s not a DAC, preamplifier, or headphone amp, it is a device that can lower the pitch of any piece of digital music without altering the tempo. And why, outside of a recording studio, would anyone want to do this? Let’s look at musical history.
Currently C4 is exactly 261.63 Hz, but it wasn’t always at that pitch. In baroque times A, which is now at 440 Hz, was only 415 Hz, which is almost a complete half-step lower than current tuning. Mike Moffat, Schitt’s digital designer, was doing some research when he came across the patent papers from Lloyd Loar, who was Gibson’s acoustical engineer in the 1920’s. Loar was responsible for creating the modern, F-5 style mandolin. Mike noticed that one of the primary specifications for the F-5 mandolin was that the top was hand carved and then “tap-tuned” to a frequency of C=256 Hz, which is lower than the standard C at 261.63 Hz. That got Mike thinking about and trying out the pitch altering plug-ins available on the commercial market. In Mike’s words, “They all sounded like a**.” Schitt then hired a full-time employee with a PHD in mathematics to work on what was dubbed “the Manhattan Project.” It took over a year before the first version, which in Mike’s words, “Did NOT sound like a**” was created. The current version went through several more revisions before production. Official release date and price are still to be determined.
The Gadget consists of a small box, about the same size as the Schitt Magni3 headphone amp, that is inserted into the digital SPDIF signal chain between the source and the DAC. It has one knob, a toggle switch, and one LED light. The knob adjusts the pitch downward, the toggle is a bypass, and the LED lights up when you reach C=256 Hz. The Gadget can lower the pitch even more than C=256 so that if you have an older recording that was pitched above C=261.63, you can still lower to C=256. Many live recordings of bluegrass bands done in the fifties and even into the sixties are pitched higher than A=440 because they tuned to each other and didn’t go by tuning forks, so by the end of a tour a band could be over a full step sharp!
I spent a good chunk of time on Sunday listening to the Gadget and I was impressed. When toggled between bypass and the pitch correction, with corrected pitch the music was more musical and euphonic. While the demo shown could only support up to 44.1/16, the final production one will support higher PCM bit rates. I look forward to adjusting and then listening to some of my favorite older live folk and bluegrass recordings through the Gadget. I may even, finally, begin to play along…