Does anyone regularly use non 440Hz standard/different tunings when they play?
I have recently been doing a few songs as a tutor that haven't been in standard "concert pitch" whatever you call it, Coldplay's "In My Place" is actually in 432Hz, and for years I never understood why certain Oasis songs "Don't Look Back In Anger" "Married With Children" and "Some Might Say" my guitar was not in tune with the recording. Only since a few years back I discovered they're in 455Hz and 430Hz.
What is the effect of having a lower or higher Hz? I read somewhere 432Hz is more pleasant to listen to. Also as the older Oasis albums were heavily compressed when mixed it could have affected the Hz in some way.
Comments
A440 was fixed in (I think) 1939. Prior to that there was no international standard. Higher than 440 => tighter string tension and higher pitch, lower => the other way round. Many Baroque ensembles use A415, partially for historical accuracy, partially out of kindness to old instruments.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Historically, some older recordings are at different tunings because the musicians tuned to A=440Hz but the engineer changed the tape speed slightly (either by mistake or deliberately to make the song sound better).
I can feel us starting to enter the wormhole.... :-)
You'll find some songs that were recorded alongside instruments that aren't able to be, or aren't easy to retune, are tuned to whatever that instrument was tuned to.
A=440hz is the standard for guitar, and for many concert orchestras but not all. Many in Europe tune to 442hz. Some orchestras tune to 443hz as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch#19th-_and_20th-century_standards
Compression won't affect pitch, but as noted speed will.
http://recordingyourmusic.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/owen-morris-on-mixing-definitely-maybe.html
"Then I'd compress the overall mix very heavily… more than would normally be considered professional.” I would also varispeed the tape (usually speeding the track up slightly) to a place I felt was exciting."
I've heard of the whole thing where people think a different tuning sounds better and think it's as daft as conspiracy theories with the similar community and the occasional person stumbling by it, believing they've stumbled upon some rare truth.
The opposite can work too.
I actually think I'm naturally drawn to A=442hz. My only guess is this is due to listening to predominantly classical music until I was 11-12 or so. But it's just a guess, based on the fact a lot of European orchestras tune to 442hz and the only thing we ever listened to on the radio was Classic FM.
Also, I don't have perfect pitch but I'm very familiar with the tensions of the strings on my guitar. So I can get my guitar almost in tune from a restring without a tuner, but I'm almost always a bit sharp.
List of Eddie's offsets.