Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (
More info?)
"Logan Shaw" <lshaw-usenet@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
news:0Indd.22261$Rf4.19316@fe2.texas.rr.com...
> Arny Krueger wrote:
>> I've noticed the same thing with analog faders. Don't you think that
>> might
>> be due to the Fletcher Munson effect?
> :
> :
>> When it comes to human perception, psychoacoustics rules.
>
> Oh, speaking of that, I've been wondering about something for a while,
> and I'm curious if maybe someone here has any insight.
>
> Sometimes I find myself hearing music at a level that is quite low.
> Not quite down to the level of barely perceptible, but more at the
> kind of level where I can hear the music well enough to recognize
> parts of it but not well enough to necessarily follow along. For
> instance, this happens in my car, where the aftermarket CD unit I
> installed has a habit of resetting its volume level to something
> way too low whenever I turn off the ignition. It is low enough
> that, because of ambient noise, I often don't even notice that it's
> playing.
>
> Anyway, if I'm listening at this low level, I get a certain idea of
> the pitch, i.e. the key that the song is in. If I then turn the
> volume up so that it's normal listening level (or even below normal
> listening level but high enough that I can clearly make everything
> out), then the pitch seems to increase by something on the order
> of 1/2 of a semitone to a full semitone! If I then lower the volume
> again, it doesn't seem to go back down in pitch and instead stays
> where it was at the higher volume, as if my brain has somehow "locked
> on" to the proper pitch once it got a taste of it.
>
> Perhaps coincidentally or perhaps not, I am trying to develop perfect
> pitch, and I have a habit of coming in about 1 semitone low or maybe
> a little less than that. For instance, I'll hear a song in my head
> and start singing it, and I'll be in C#, but then I'll put the CD in
> and play it to compare, and the song is actually in D.
>
> So am I a brain-damaged freak or is this a known phenomenon?
I don't know if you could say it's a known phenomenon exactly as you
describe it, but it's similar to an effect that happens to singers who are
trying to sing while monitoring with full cans (i.e. NOT leaving one ear
open/off), or even sometimes onstage/live... if the music's too loud -
relative to their own vocal volume in the mix - they tend to go sharp, if
the music's too soft - again, relative to their vocal volume - they tend to
go flat. This is certainly not universal, but it's common enough to where
I'd bet most everyone here has seen it happen.
Neil Henderson
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