Fun activity:
So we've been working within the realms of the 12 tone equal temperament scale for a while now. Every once so often someone comes to the conclusion that the next big break is in using new tunings and thus new scales and modes. 20 note octaves? bring 'em on. So anyway, that's also been going on for past 30-40 years (or even more).
Where do you stand?
just curious, who's into microtones and alternative tunings
to be honest, I can't stand it 
if someone wants more then 12 tones, ok, there's more than one octave, isn't it ?
if he (or she) wants another scale, then why doesn't the person detune the instrument according to personal prefs ? The latter may have been demanding at Bach's time, but today the technology to adjust to whatever frequency is just a mouseclick away...
cheers, Tom
...option one in your vote would be too embarassing due to my age
if someone wants more then 12 tones, ok, there's more than one octave, isn't it ?
if he (or she) wants another scale, then why doesn't the person detune the instrument according to personal prefs ? The latter may have been demanding at Bach's time, but today the technology to adjust to whatever frequency is just a mouseclick away...
cheers, Tom
...option one in your vote would be too embarassing due to my age
you have to have some constraints for it to be music. if you do all sounds at the same time(no constraints), it's just loud silence, white noise.
i think people find lots of excuses for not having any solid ideas...that said, if tones are needed that are between half steps(as in a shakuhachi or sarod melody), there are many ways to get them. this is quite different from "no restraints". infact, the melody needs specific notes, quite a restraint in itself.
sorry Ken, you are very smart, one of the sharpest i know of, and talented as any, but ____________________
i really want to choose number one myself, but i'm too much of a goody-good. i'm working on being more gangsta though....
i think people find lots of excuses for not having any solid ideas...that said, if tones are needed that are between half steps(as in a shakuhachi or sarod melody), there are many ways to get them. this is quite different from "no restraints". infact, the melody needs specific notes, quite a restraint in itself.
sorry Ken, you are very smart, one of the sharpest i know of, and talented as any, but ____________________
i really want to choose number one myself, but i'm too much of a goody-good. i'm working on being more gangsta though....
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Liquid Len
- Posts: 652
- Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2003 4:00 pm
- Location: Home By The Sea
There are mathematical reasons certain combinations of notes sound pleasing to the ear. The overtone series, for instance, which gives music tonality and a sense of chordal direction. And the fact that words in a language have been found to consist of harmonically related pitches - the music that is prevalent in a given culture bears harmonic resemblance to the language of that culture. Music is to express something, it's more than just arbitrary notes. Before we invent new scales, maybe we need to start speaking a new language.
The scales that you find built into a lot of hardware synthesisers, pythagorean, perfect major, perfect minor, are not really 'new' scales as much as they are 'adjusted' scales. The mean (average) tuning we find in synthesisers is made by splitting an octave equally afaik, but this will lead to harmonic distortions in chords, depending on what key you're in. C sharp is not really D flat, but we've been treating them more or less the same. The sound difference is the same as the difference between a B3 emulation and sample playback (the sample playback introduces harmonic distortions that aren't there with a real Hammond).
Now bring on the sister's girlfriends.
Edit : the sound difference is 'comparable' in terms of perceived distortion, but not 'the same' - you hear distortions but with sample playback they are caused by multiple samples that are identical, being played at the same time, and as everyone knows, if you issue say, two C3 notes on the same instrument at the same time, you get a doubling, phasing effect (the instrument won't create those two notes at PRECISELY the same time). But there's only one C3 oscillator in a real hammond, so you can't play it 'twice', though it may be 'invoked' several times.
The scales that you find built into a lot of hardware synthesisers, pythagorean, perfect major, perfect minor, are not really 'new' scales as much as they are 'adjusted' scales. The mean (average) tuning we find in synthesisers is made by splitting an octave equally afaik, but this will lead to harmonic distortions in chords, depending on what key you're in. C sharp is not really D flat, but we've been treating them more or less the same. The sound difference is the same as the difference between a B3 emulation and sample playback (the sample playback introduces harmonic distortions that aren't there with a real Hammond).
Now bring on the sister's girlfriends.
Edit : the sound difference is 'comparable' in terms of perceived distortion, but not 'the same' - you hear distortions but with sample playback they are caused by multiple samples that are identical, being played at the same time, and as everyone knows, if you issue say, two C3 notes on the same instrument at the same time, you get a doubling, phasing effect (the instrument won't create those two notes at PRECISELY the same time). But there's only one C3 oscillator in a real hammond, so you can't play it 'twice', though it may be 'invoked' several times.
Last edited by Liquid Len on Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
That says it pretty much Brotha' Man Len,
I have a custom made GS3 instrument called American Zither that is perfectly recorded, and perfectly tuned, so it's actually imperfect.
I have corrected this by detuning ( cents ) the octaves. Staring @ A440, I go down 12 whole steps and start the process, then repeat it till the lowest notes are, mathematically speaking, an eighth of a whole step off the uncorrect perfect recording. Then that process is done from the A440 up to the top notes as well. This will produce the false beats that sound so good on acoustic instruments.
I then apply the built in convolution / impulse reverb that comes in GS3 Orchestra, for the resonant body impulse, which is an impulse of the space inside, and directly outside of say an acoustic guitar. It is a generic application of the space as it was a guitar, and not a zither, but it sounds great anyway. Then I have the choice of adding room ambience w/ another instance of GigaPulse, or use the hardware Lexicon reverb. I choose the latter, as I play different rooms, and re-adjust the effect accordingly. I also have to change the mix of the hardware as the room becomes more populated. But this depends what has been moved on the stage each night more than the crowd.
These tunings add live charcter to the perfect digital world we live in, and I have come to love the sound of many of my libraries. After you hear so many perfect libraries this technique is a life saver. Can you imagine how sterile it would sound on a Nylon string guitar if the player hit perfect intonation so low and high on the neck w/ evey note? I have a friend with perfect pitch which I believe is a curse, most of us have good relative pitch, and unknowingly enjoy our imperfection. But notes that are slightly off pitch don't bother us, my friend hates playing pianos slightly out of tune. He even hears every note in a 5 note cluster 2 octaves below middle C. What a drag.
I Find It Amusing That I Purposely Tweak Perfect Recordings To Make Them More Realistic,................A contradiction in terms I suppose.
But when I have to cover guitarists here in town on acoustical songs such as Dust In The Wind, I'm Gonna Leave You, And You And I, etc. I do get a charge out of watching people ping pong their head my way after correctly looking towards the guitarist, only to discover his lack of gear, and notice that the arogant, crabby bastard on dual 88's is doing it, along w/ fret noises as well !!
It's A Good Thing,
I have a custom made GS3 instrument called American Zither that is perfectly recorded, and perfectly tuned, so it's actually imperfect.
I have corrected this by detuning ( cents ) the octaves. Staring @ A440, I go down 12 whole steps and start the process, then repeat it till the lowest notes are, mathematically speaking, an eighth of a whole step off the uncorrect perfect recording. Then that process is done from the A440 up to the top notes as well. This will produce the false beats that sound so good on acoustic instruments.
I then apply the built in convolution / impulse reverb that comes in GS3 Orchestra, for the resonant body impulse, which is an impulse of the space inside, and directly outside of say an acoustic guitar. It is a generic application of the space as it was a guitar, and not a zither, but it sounds great anyway. Then I have the choice of adding room ambience w/ another instance of GigaPulse, or use the hardware Lexicon reverb. I choose the latter, as I play different rooms, and re-adjust the effect accordingly. I also have to change the mix of the hardware as the room becomes more populated. But this depends what has been moved on the stage each night more than the crowd.
These tunings add live charcter to the perfect digital world we live in, and I have come to love the sound of many of my libraries. After you hear so many perfect libraries this technique is a life saver. Can you imagine how sterile it would sound on a Nylon string guitar if the player hit perfect intonation so low and high on the neck w/ evey note? I have a friend with perfect pitch which I believe is a curse, most of us have good relative pitch, and unknowingly enjoy our imperfection. But notes that are slightly off pitch don't bother us, my friend hates playing pianos slightly out of tune. He even hears every note in a 5 note cluster 2 octaves below middle C. What a drag.
I Find It Amusing That I Purposely Tweak Perfect Recordings To Make Them More Realistic,................A contradiction in terms I suppose.
But when I have to cover guitarists here in town on acoustical songs such as Dust In The Wind, I'm Gonna Leave You, And You And I, etc. I do get a charge out of watching people ping pong their head my way after correctly looking towards the guitarist, only to discover his lack of gear, and notice that the arogant, crabby bastard on dual 88's is doing it, along w/ fret noises as well !!
It's A Good Thing,
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hubird
who'd like to deny the worldwide use of microtones in non-western music?
Creamware obviously didn't have much (turkish) friends in Kreuzberg/Berlin back in those days, as they never implied microtonality in their synths.
I'm not really waiting for it, but it's a matter of time and of social-economical emancipation of non-western cultures for instruments to have it in the future.
My guess
Creamware obviously didn't have much (turkish) friends in Kreuzberg/Berlin back in those days, as they never implied microtonality in their synths.
I'm not really waiting for it, but it's a matter of time and of social-economical emancipation of non-western cultures for instruments to have it in the future.
My guess
But how to do those scales where the tuning of a particular interval depends on the direction of approach?
This i find interesting - i remember playing a song where (in D) the 2nd on the way up is 1/3 semitone flat E, on the way back down 2/3 semitone flat E.
I'd like to see a good fretless/slide synth controller...
This i find interesting - i remember playing a song where (in D) the 2nd on the way up is 1/3 semitone flat E, on the way back down 2/3 semitone flat E.
I'd like to see a good fretless/slide synth controller...
as far as tuning like 19 tet and the like goes (more than 12 steps), i cannot get my head around it. but i'm all over retuning minor and major thirds to more consonant intervals. equal temperament thirds annoyed me since i started to learn guitar and it took a few years before i understood why. OTOH when one uses a synth sound of tr..ce supersaw type it doesn't really matter, as those tend to be detuned much broader than they could be compromising intonation 
tonewheel organs (like B3) not only feature tuning constrained by gear ratios, but as tonewheels are 'locked' together by gears, all notes are kind of 'in sync' which makes wildest chords sound good on it.
i am very attached to NuBi organ vsti, because it emulates exactly this aspect of an instrument
i am very attached to NuBi organ vsti, because it emulates exactly this aspect of an instrument
ok, my bad.
still, i thought that it existed?
http://www.microtonal-synthesis.com/micro_ns.html
there are so many japanese, chinese, arabic and bollywood productions.....
still, i thought that it existed?
http://www.microtonal-synthesis.com/micro_ns.html
there are so many japanese, chinese, arabic and bollywood productions.....
does this work?
http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/
http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/
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Mr Arkadin
- Posts: 3280
- Joined: Thu May 24, 2001 4:00 pm
i love Harry Partch so listening to scales of 43 notes to the 'octave' doesn't really bother me much. In fact some even tempered music can really annoy me - i play guitar and apart from the even tempered compromise there's also the fact that a guitar can't even do that properly because of string lengths and straight frets - i swear a play some scales and they just don't sound right - and no, it's not an intonation problem, that can only solve so much. That's probably what Michu heard too.
It seem odd though that the instruments that can do it far more easily than real instruments, i.e. software, doesn't have more recognition. Certainly i would love Scope to have it - you wouldn't be forced to use it Gary. i would love to be able to write something in the harmonic series for instance.
It seem odd though that the instruments that can do it far more easily than real instruments, i.e. software, doesn't have more recognition. Certainly i would love Scope to have it - you wouldn't be forced to use it Gary. i would love to be able to write something in the harmonic series for instance.
yeh, scala is an excelent app and there is a bunch of synths or modules that it supports (i could even use it on my ancient M1 if i wouldn't use it just as master keyboard).
and a certain upcoming modular extension pack has a 'scale tuning' module announced (among many others)
obviously, microtuning is my personal pet peeve and i'm constantly amazed how even my friends with music degrees have little idea about just intonation and history of instrument tuning in western tradition
and a certain upcoming modular extension pack has a 'scale tuning' module announced (among many others)
obviously, microtuning is my personal pet peeve and i'm constantly amazed how even my friends with music degrees have little idea about just intonation and history of instrument tuning in western tradition
just because you cannot imagine something that doesn't exclude it from reality.
I'm in no way against micro-tonal scales of whatever dimension - I'm pretty sure tweaking an FM synth (partly) does exactly the same in some situations.
But since (developement) resources aren't free or available in arbitrary amounts, there would be a ton of stuff I'd prefer instead of an extension in that direction.
Of course that's not directly related to Ken's question, but '...they should have implemented etc etc...' is unavoidable in this context.
cheers, Tom
But since (developement) resources aren't free or available in arbitrary amounts, there would be a ton of stuff I'd prefer instead of an extension in that direction.
Of course that's not directly related to Ken's question, but '...they should have implemented etc etc...' is unavoidable in this context.
cheers, Tom
