[sdiy] Aphex Twin, Korg and 31.250 kHz

[Tom Wiltshire]

Most likely, but the choice between those two numbers boils down to what clocks have you got handy or what other frequencies are you using that you could divide - e.g. it's fairly arbitrary and not based on anything much "musical". 

Tom

On 11 Jul 2017, at 21:22, MTG <grant at musictechnologiesgroup.com> wrote:

> I think the Kawai R100 and other things of that era are either 31.25KHz or 32KHz.  Pretty sure it's just about storage/cost.
> 
> On 7/11/2017 12:09 PM, Ove Ridé wrote:
>> http://item.warp.net/interview/aphex-twin-speaks-to-tatsuya-takahashi/
>> This is an interview with Richard D James (aka Aphex Twin) and Tatsuya
>> Takahashi on their collaboration on the Korg Monologue. It's an
>> interesting interview in its own right, but one thing that stood out
>> to me was this detail about the Volca:
>> TT: "Talking of standards, the sample rate of 48 kHz is another one
>> for sampling and signal processing, but the volca sample uses a weird
>> one at 31.25 kHz. Purely because of technical constraints, but I was
>> thinking that might be part of the reason you liked it so much,
>> because the different sample rate gives it a unique sound."
>> I immediately recognized that as the baud rate of standard MIDI, which
>> in turn is chosen because it is 1/32 MHz so it's easy to derive
>> exactly from integer MHz clocks. But the interesting part is why he
>> would choose that as a sample rate. I'm assuming the technical
>> limitation he's referring to is choosing a sample rate based on a
>> clock crystal suitable for MIDI use. But using 48 kHz (at least as far
>> as math goes) should have been easy, by using a clock that's a
>> multiple of 6 MHz, which would make 48 kHz an integer division.
>> Just my thought of the day.
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