About 432Hz …

Some of you might have “picked something up” about this “432Hz thing” online, a tuning concept popular mostly among “New Age” and some underground producers, musicians and composers. When you browse the net you will come across a variety of blogs, websites and articles often containing facts and fiction all “mixed-up”, including proclaimed “healing powers” and claims of “Ancient origin”. If while listening to our album you see Angels coming down from the sky in a blaze of glory, or it feels like there is honey dripping into your ears, then it’s probably the spliff or mushrooms or something else you have consumed 😉 …

There isn’t anything “magical” about using the 432Hz reference pitch. Roel has written some articles on this topic on his blog “Roel’s World“, for example: “432 Tuning Basics” and “What is related and what not?“. None of those often “far fetched” claims is why we chose using a lower pitch! 

So, why did we chose a lower pitch? Well, the shortest and simplest answer to that question is “it sounds better to our ears”. We have compared the 440Hz and 432Hz versions by ear on various sound systems, from PA systems to high-end Hi-Fi (using Martin Logan electrostatic speakers and others like KEF and PSB). The 432Hz exports sounded and felt more “cored” in the low-end, warmer in the mid-range and more “transparent” and “spacious” in the high-end relatively to the 440Hz exports. In case you wish to read a more detailed (technical) explanation, do read the Roel’s World article “Why using a lower pitch then the standard of A4=440Hz“.

And at the end, that’s what it is all about with music, right? How it sounds to you, what you feel? We feel we have the artistic “right” to chose for what we think and feel makes our album sound best, right? 

Our Implementation

As you might have read at Roel’s World “432 Tuning Basics” already, the best implementation of 432-Tuning is using the A4=432Hz Concert Pitch in combination with Just Intonation. This though was problematic due to the limitations of some of the wind instruments (build for 440Hz) used for this album. We thus decided to record without changing the standard Concert Pitch (A4=440Hz) and temperament (12-Tone Equal Temperament) and in post production process the recorded material. We did not change the temperamental characteristics though (to prevent the appearing of undesired sonic artifacts), we only changed the speed (pitch & tempo) after the mixing stage, before the mastering stage.

With the earlier releases (“Ain’t So Blue” and “Summertime In Bombay”) the tuning conversion was done with Pro Tools and the Serato Pitch ’n Time plugin (after experimenting also with other tuning plugins). In the mean time Roel came across a high-end music server called “EVO 432″. The sound quality of the 432-conversions made with the EVO were even better, for future recordings (include the releases by JazzProfilactika – another Nu-Jazz project by some of the DJazz members) using the EVO became the preferred choice.

If you have questions and like to know more, feel free to contact us!