Talk:Carlos Alpha
This page also contains archived Wikispaces discussion.
Reference issues w/r/t tuning value, optimization targets, and name
This wiki page claims that the "standard tuning" for Carlos Alpha is 77.965 ¢, giving her "Tuning: At the Crossroads", Computer Music Journal vol. 11 no. 1, 1987, pp. 29-43 as a reference (here's a link to that article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3680176). However, I've reviewed the article and can't find where it defines this tuning, let alone where it refers to it as a "standard" tuning.
The wiki page later explains that this 77.965 ¢ tuning is the result of optimizing on 3/2, 5/4 and 6/5. That may be so, but it does not come either from this CMJ article, or from the one external link this wiki page gives (https://www.wendycarlos.com/resources/pitch.html). Both of these articles only give the tuning 78.0 ¢, and find it as an optimization not only for 3/2, 5/4, and 6/5, but also for 7/4 and 11/8.
Probably there is some other article out there that gives 77.965 ¢ as the tuning optimized for only 3/2, 5/4, and 6/5, but this reference needs to be found, and we should replace the incorrect one currently on the wiki page with it. Also, unless this reference refers to this as a "standard" tuning, that claim should be removed.
I see that similar problems occur on the other Carlos scale pages, but maybe we can centralize the discussion here. --Cmloegcmluin (talk) 18:06, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
- There is a similar formula on the corresponding Wikipedia article, and the associated reference indicates indeed that Carlos's papers only included the rounded figure of 78.0¢ per step. Nonetheless, if we are to believe that the 78.0¢ figure was obtained using the same formula, then it seems natural for one to want the exact figure, or at least a more accurate one. I haven't checked the original papers to see if they included the formula or an equivalent explanation, so that might require some fact-checking to be sure. That said, I agree that the three-decimals figure (77.965¢) is not of a "standard" by any means that I know of, except maybe that the Xen Wiki tends to keep cents values to three decimals most of the time. Fredg999 (talk) 05:01, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
- For context, the discussion occurred on Facebook. Carlos Alpha was treated as exactly 9edf before he pointed out it wasn't that, and it was suspected 78.0 ¢ of Carlos Alpha, 63.8 ¢ of Carlos Beta, and 35.1 ¢ of Carlos Gamma were approximate values of 9edf, 11edf, and 20edf, respectively. FloraC (talk) 08:31, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
- Wow, beautiful work Flora! Above and beyond. Those Carlos Alpha, Beta, and Gamma pages are looking spic and span now. Thanks for looking into it. --Cmloegcmluin (talk) 21:24, 9 November 2023 (UTC)