Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Microtuning the orchestra...

This is kind of a techie question for those who are into plugging stuff together.

Long ago I bought Finale and I always upgrade. Expensive, but I don't want
to get stuck with a dead-end unsupported environment. Anyway, the 2006
update has a "lite" version of Garritan Personal Orchestra built into it. I
listened to the Garritan demos, etc, and I was impressed enough to buy the
full version. Alas...

Now, how the heck can you microtune the thing??? ;-)

Well... I tried a proof-of-concept with daisy chaining. Tobybear has this
cool Microtuner VST plugin that I always thought was cute, but couldn't use
it. Turns out, it *IS* useful and "almost works" for what I want. You can
take Microtuner and put it into SAVIHost, which takes a VST instrument and
turns it into a stand-alone app that can take MIDI input and produce MIDI
output. So, with Microtuner in SAVIHost, I made this configuration:

Finale(score) -> MIDIYoke -> Microtuner -> MidiYoke -> Garritan

And managed to get Finale to send notes to Microtuner, which re-tuned them
with a ".tun" file into Carlos "Alpha" scale, and sent them on to Garritan
Personal Orchestra (instantiated in their home-grown "Studio" app).

When I say this "almost" works, I mean that there's only one glitch:
Microtuner re-channels the MIDI, so effectively you can only do
mono-timbral work with it. Sigh. (I.e., it takes MIDI in on channel 1 or
whatever and outputs it on different channels with the right pitch-bends.)
That's the usual method of these things. As I recall, JIRelay also does
that re-channelling.

What I need is a standalone app like JIRelay (or a VSTi plugin) that will
do pitch-bending without re-channeling the output onto different channels.
In other words, treating each channel as monophonic, and just setting the
pitch-bend with each note-on.

Does anyone have such a beast? Could anyone program such a thing?

BTW, I wrote a note to Tobybear about Microtuner, but from his website I'm
guessing he doesn't have time to do any work on VST plugins. The
Microtuner could be a really useful, valuable plugin for microtuning the
untunable...!

And if I could get this tuning to work with Garritan, it would be very cool...

BTW, the most impressive things about the Garritan package are the
strings. You should check out some of their demos.

http://www.garritan.com/mp3.html

Try the Debussy. ;-)

Rick

🔗Jon Szanto <jszanto@...>

Rick,

I've tried Microtuner as well, and also tried to see if Tobybear could do some work on it. Couldn't seem to make anything happen. I admire your efforts in trying to string stuff together, and only offer two thoughts...

{you wrote...}
>When I say this "almost" works, I mean that there's only one glitch: >Microtuner re-channels the MIDI, so effectively you can only do >mono-timbral work with it. Sigh. (I.e., it takes MIDI in on channel 1 or >whatever and outputs it on different channels with the right pitch-bends.) >That's the usual method of these things. As I recall, JIRelay also does >that re-channelling.

I think that is pretty much the only way relaying microtuning works these days. I *can* think of a way you could do full orchestral scores this way:

- You didn't mention capturing output, but if you would be willing to do your piece one track at a time, you could capture each track separately. If you don't have a way to do it, get "TapeIt" from SilverSpike (free) and put it as the last VST insert - it will write audio to a file

- Do this for each 'line' of your score (vln, flute, tpt, whatever), rendering each by itself

- Gather the audiofiles and bring them into a multi-channel audio editor/mixer. That recent experimentation with the Kristal Audio Engine makes me think this would be ideal.

Arduous? Yep, but easier than building a harmonic canon.

>What I need is a standalone app like JIRelay (or a VSTi plugin) that will >do pitch-bending without re-channeling the output onto different channels. >In other words, treating each channel as monophonic, and just setting the >pitch-bend with each note-on.

It wouldn't work if you had any notes sustaining over, because per-channel pitchbending would bend the sustaining notes as well. Even round-robin re-channelling doesn't work with thick polyphony.

🔗Cody <codyhallenbeck@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Rick McGowan <rick@u...> wrote:
> This is kind of a techie question for those who are into plugging
stuff together.
>
> Long ago I bought Finale and I always upgrade. Expensive, but I
don't want
> to get stuck with a dead-end unsupported environment. Anyway, the 2006
> update has a "lite" version of Garritan Personal Orchestra built
into it. I
> listened to the Garritan demos, etc, and I was impressed enough to
buy the
> full version. Alas...
>
> Now, how the heck can you microtune the thing??? ;-)
>
> Well... I tried a proof-of-concept with daisy chaining. Tobybear has
this
> cool Microtuner VST plugin that I always thought was cute, but
couldn't use
> it. Turns out, it *IS* useful and "almost works" for what I want.
You can
> take Microtuner and put it into SAVIHost, which takes a VST
instrument and
> turns it into a stand-alone app that can take MIDI input and produce
MIDI
> output. So, with Microtuner in SAVIHost, I made this configuration:
>
> Finale(score) -> MIDIYoke -> Microtuner -> MidiYoke -> Garritan
>
> And managed to get Finale to send notes to Microtuner, which
re-tuned them
> with a ".tun" file into Carlos "Alpha" scale, and sent them on to
Garritan
> Personal Orchestra (instantiated in their home-grown "Studio" app).
>
> When I say this "almost" works, I mean that there's only one glitch:
> Microtuner re-channels the MIDI, so effectively you can only do
> mono-timbral work with it. Sigh. (I.e., it takes MIDI in on channel
1 or
> whatever and outputs it on different channels with the right
pitch-bends.)
> That's the usual method of these things. As I recall, JIRelay also
does
> that re-channelling.
>
> What I need is a standalone app like JIRelay (or a VSTi plugin) that
will
> do pitch-bending without re-channeling the output onto different
channels.
> In other words, treating each channel as monophonic, and just
setting the
> pitch-bend with each note-on.
>
> Does anyone have such a beast? Could anyone program such a thing?
>
> BTW, I wrote a note to Tobybear about Microtuner, but from his
website I'm
> guessing he doesn't have time to do any work on VST plugins. The
> Microtuner could be a really useful, valuable plugin for microtuning
the
> untunable...!
>
> And if I could get this tuning to work with Garritan, it would be
very cool...
>
> BTW, the most impressive things about the Garritan package are the
> strings. You should check out some of their demos.
>
> http://www.garritan.com/mp3.html
>
> Try the Debussy. ;-)
>
>
> Rick

The sad thing is that it would be very easy for Garritan to add
microtonal support. The Kontakt 2 engine (which Garritan runs on)
already allows for 12-tone temperament subsets, using a company
supplied microtuning script, and it can also be tuned to any EDO,
using a user-created script availible from the Native Instruments web
site. I have Garritan (which can load into the more featureful
Kontakt 2 engine) and Kontakt 2, so I'd absolutely love if this were
expanded further.

Basically, Kontakt 2 has a user scripting language that can retune
notes with something like a microcent accuracy, and all it needs is
someone with the programming skill (and frankly, it's not that hard, I
checked on how to do it) to write the script. Maybe if I get
frustrated enough I'll try it... I haven't tried programming anything
in years, and was never that good, but I think this wouldn't be
especially hard.

Of course, Garritan users would be SOL because they can't load
scripts. Perhaps if such a script were written Garritan would
consider including it in the standard distribution?

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

Hi Cody,

I wouldn't hope for too much support from Garritan. Being a small company
based where they are, they probably have their hands full. (They don't even
press their distribution DVDs, they appear to be one-offs burned at home
with paste-on labels!) But it's interesting to know that someone with a bit
of script-hacking ability could possibly do it, if they have Kontakt 2.

I am hoping (perhaps in vain) that Tobybear might "fix" his microtuner to
have a monophonic mode that would retain the same channel when it
pitchbends a note... Maybe if we all donated to Tobybear via Paypal he'd do
it for us? ;-)

Also, it has occurred to me that the Keynote language might be
programmable with fair ease to do re-tuning, and could be used in a
daisy-chain. In past years I have done a bit with that, but it's been a
loooong time. It has a rather idiosyncratic GUI; the Tobybear solution
would probably be easier to use.

Rick

-----------

> The sad thing is that it would be very easy for Garritan to add
> microtonal support.
> ...
> Basically, Kontakt 2 has a user scripting language that can
> retunenotes with something like a microcent accuracy
> ...
> Of course, Garritan users would be SOL because they can't load
> scripts. Perhaps if such a script were written Garritan would
> consider including it in the standard distribution?

🔗Jon Szanto <jszanto@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

Here's the latest in the saga... Jacky Ligon has been helping me work with
Scala's relay facility. The interface works OK, at least for monotimbral
work, but...

I think at least temporarily I've hit a brick wall with getting Garritan
Personal Orchestra to do microtuning. The GPO spec for the version that
works with Finale says that the pitch-bend range is set to +/- 12
semitones. Aargh! And there doesn't seem to be any way to *set* that
differently. I know that Scala and GM expect 2 semitones as the default.

The bottom line is that I could get Scala to relay to GPO and if I played
cleanly, things were OK... except *massively* out of tune according to what
the scl file would indicate! So much for *that* I guess...

Anyway, the setup was:

Finale(score) -> MIDIYoke -> Scala -> MidiYoke -> Garritan

There are two problems to be overcome... First, the pitchbend range on
GPO; second, Scala wants to re-channelize.

Scala can be set to exclude certain channels from its re-channelizing,
e.g., to avoid the drum channel. I took Jacky's advice to have it avoid
channels 2-16, and that worked, partially. It then re-channelizes
everything to channel 1. What I really wanted was a mode in Scala that
would not re-channelize at all, but retune on the same channel, for all
channels coming in (omni). If Manuel is listening, maybe he wants to add a
mode to Scala's relay? ;-)

The next step I'm afraid may be writing some code in Keykit... if I can
figure out how to do real-time stuff with it.

Cheers,

Rick

🔗Cody Hallenbeck <codyhallenbeck@...>

The EDO script for Kontakt is here:
http://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?id=kontaktuserlib_us&type=0&ulbr=1&plview=detail&patchid=3648

You can load KSP scripts in Kontakt by loading an instrument, pressing the
little wrench-shaped button that allows you to edit the instrument, press
the button called "script editor", press the button called script, and click
edit, and copy/paste the EDO script in, and save it. You can load
already-saved scripts (such as the 12 tone retuning script) by hitting the
script button. I hope that made sense.

I have no idea about the default library thing in Kontakt.

I don't think Kontakt is designed to render MIDI files to WAV files
directly. I think it's intended to be loaded into a DAW application, and fed
MIDI data from it, and then patched back into a digital audio channel for
recording.

On 9/15/05, Carl Lumma <ekin@...> wrote:
>
> >The sad thing is that it would be very easy for Garritan to add
> >microtonal support. The Kontakt 2 engine (which Garritan runs on)
> >already allows for 12-tone temperament subsets, using a company
> >supplied microtuning script,
>
> What is the procedure to load this script?
>
> >and it can also be tuned to any EDO,
> >using a user-created script availible from the Native Instruments web
> >site.
>
> Can you point us to this script?
>
>
> Does anyone know:
>
> () Where the default library is installed and why Kontakt is
> complaining it can't find it on startup.
>
> () If Kontakt can render MIDI files to WAV files, and if so, how.
>
> -Carl
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗Jon Szanto <jszanto@...>

Hi Cody,

I've been investigating the Kontakt 2 demo, for myself and for Carl, and he mentioned this. However:

{you wrote...}
>The EDO script for Kontakt is here:

Errmmm, they only allow registered users to access the file. Do you think you could get permission from Nicki (the scriptor) to allow us to try it with the demo? I ask because I've looked at the scripting code for the microtuning section, as well as what I refer to as a kludge to implement 24, and I'd be really curious to add to those the idea behind EDOs. I have a feeling one can start to catch the logic and work on some other ways to make it tune. Also:

>You can load KSP scripts in Kontakt by loading an instrument, pressing the >little wrench-shaped button that allows you to edit the instrument, press >the button called "script editor", press the button called script, and >click edit, and copy/paste the EDO script in, and save it.

Helpful.

>You can load already-saved scripts (such as the 12 tone retuning script) >by hitting the script button. I hope that made sense. I have no idea about >the default library thing in Kontakt.

Looks like anything related to the tuning is a script, including the multiple choice microtuning one. You can edit any of these, seems to me. It would be Really Great if you could simply load individual scripts automatically, or from a file list. And I note the following from MMM member Bill Sethares on the forum:

"Thanks Nicki, "Notes per Octave" works great -- now if only someone could figure out how to make a kontakt script that would read in Scala files..."

Here, here, Bill! Tell them you're a big mucky-muck published author with a book on sound, physics and music that is THIS THICK! Hopefully they'll code it up overnight.

If anyone has more developments on Kontakt's progress towards a *flexible* support of microtuning, could you drop a note on this list.

BTW, does it use a dongle, or PACE, or c/r, or what kind of authorization?

Cheers,
Jon

🔗Graham Breed <gbreed@...>

🔗Dave Seidel <dave@...>

Csound does not have any built-in way to support Scala files (although that is a good idea for a Csound5 plugin), but blue[1], which is an excellent frontend for Csound, does.

- Dave

[1] http://www.csounds.com/stevenyi/blue/

Graham Breed wrote:
> Jon Szanto wrote:
> > >>"Thanks Nicki, "Notes per Octave" works great -- now if only someone could >>figure out how to make a kontakt script that would read in Scala files..."
>>
>>Here, here, Bill! Tell them you're a big mucky-muck published author with a >>book on sound, physics and music that is THIS THICK! Hopefully they'll code >>it up overnight.
> > > Is there any way to do this in CSound? Its microtonal capabilities are > unquestioned, but I've never noticed any support for Scala files. Or > anybody asking for it...
> > You might be able to get your GM set with fluid. I can't say for sure > because I don't understand it myself. But I think it's a third party > Sound Font player that gets called from CSound somehow.
> > > Graham
> > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > > > > > > >

🔗Manuel Op de Coul <manuel.op.de.coul@...>

Rick wrote:
>Scala can be set to exclude certain channels from its re-channelizing,
>e.g., to avoid the drum channel. I took Jacky's advice to have it avoid
>channels 2-16, and that worked, partially. It then re-channelizes
>everything to channel 1. What I really wanted was a mode in Scala that
>would not re-channelize at all, but retune on the same channel, for all
>channels coming in (omni). If Manuel is listening, maybe he wants to
add a
>mode to Scala's relay? ;-)

Sure, you can download it now. It hasn't been tested very thoroughly, so
let me know if something's still wrong.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/software/Scala_Setup.exe

Another new feature in MIDI relaying are the multichannel keyboard
mappings.
So microtonal keyboards are supported now too. Also useable with stacked
12-note keyboards. The idea is quite simple, each MIDI channel gets
its own
.kbm file. The names should end in _1.kbm, _2.kbm etc. according to the
channels which are used. The rest of the name must be identical.

Manuel

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

Hi Manuel --

Thanks very much! I tried this out today. I loaded a .scl file, opened the
relaying window and checked "no channel swapping", and set it to not
exclude any channels.

This seems to "almost work" very well. It relays quickly, and I can play
in real-time, or send notes from Finale. It seems to get the notes right (I
tried Bohlen-Pierce scale and Werckmeister III).

However, if notes are overlapping on an input channel, Scala misses some
note-off messages. So you get infinitely sounding notes and have to stop
relaying and send all-notes-off. Or maybe it is throwing away some note-off
messages? Or it is getting confused about the overlapping notes? I can't
tell in what way it is misbehaving.

Obviously this only is supposed to work for truly monophonic voices, and
it's almost perfect. I know that when Finale plays Garritan Personal
Orchestra, it lets the notes overlap on a channel when it is "legato", and
sends the note-offs very soon after. I'm not sure if it will be best to
force the notes off, or just to let the note-offs go through normally. It
may be worth trying both ways, however, to see what works best.

Thanks so much for adding this; I think it will probably become quite
workable with a little bit of tweaking.

Cheers,
Rick

--------------

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Manuel Op de Coul" <manuel.op.de.coul@...>

Rick wrote:
>Scala can be set to exclude certain channels from its re-channelizing,
> ... etc.

Sure, you can download it now. It hasn't been tested very thoroughly, so
let me know if something's still wrong.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/software/Scala_Setup.exe

Another new feature in MIDI relaying are the multichannel keyboard
mappings.
So microtonal keyboards are supported now too. Also useable with stacked
12-note keyboards. The idea is quite simple, each MIDI channel gets
its own
..kbm file. The names should end in _1.kbm, _2.kbm etc. according to the
channels which are used. The rest of the name must be identical.

Manuel

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

🔗Manuel Op de Coul <manuel.op.de.coul@...>

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

Hello everyone,

Recently on the list, Manuel provided a new experimental version of Scala
that has the option to *not* switch channels on pitch-bend re-tuning. (See
earlier posts in this thread.) Today Manuel fixed a bug, and I have tried
out the new version. It works! So in addition to some success I have had
with Garritan (see below), Scala should be able to re-tune various
multi-channel synths using the new facility.

Here is a brief musical example, using a trio of solo oboe with violin and
cello sections accompanying. Some reverb added:

http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/temp/ GPO-trio-oboe-violins-cello-harmonic.mp3

The tuning is the Carlos harmonic scale distributed with Scala. The 3
channels were played from Finale in real time, together, through Scala's
relay facility, using the new "no channel swapping" option. The chain of
programs used was:

Finale -> MidiYoke(1) -> Scala -> MidiYoke(2) -> Garritan

This is a proof-of-concept, requiring a lot more experimentation, but I
think the bottom line is that many instruments of Garritan Personal
Orchestra *can* be re-tuned and played simultaneously in real-time using
pitch-bend with Scala.

Now for the details...

There is a problem playing legato with some tunings...should I say
"complex" tunings? For example, I tried a 15-tet tuning, where some
adjacent notes of the tuning happen to be pitch-bend versions of the same
MIDI note. I'm guessing that the note on/off on the same pitch is screwing
things up -- in legato mode, that situation doesn't work well at all: the
2nd slurred note on the same MIDI note always gets lost. This might be
fixable, but I'm not sure how. It may be simply endemic to the method. As
long as you're playing detached notes, it seems to work OK. So, the method
is probably only really usable in tunings where no two adjacent notes in
the tuning are required to be realized on the same MIDI note with different
pitch bends. (I suppose it might be possible to fudge a bit, if you have
carefully constructed instrumental parts such that they never have
successive notes realized as pitch-bend versions of the same MIDI note
number. There might also be some way to "fix" Scala for these tunings,
e.g., if a note can be realized as a pitch-bend version of more than one
MIDI note, then Scala could look for a *different* MIDI note than the
last-sounding note on the channel; that may be overkill, or not possible,
but it's a possible attack on the problem.)

Some instruments of the orchestra seem to not work properly at all with
regard to pitch bending, but I haven't tried them all to verify. Also, the
non-bending instruments like Piano of course don't bend. It also seems to
make a difference whether you use the Finale "built-in" version or the
"full GPO" version of an instrument. E.g., the full GPO version of the oboe
doesn't work properly, but the Finale version does!

So, GPO plus Scala is entirely useable with various baroque tunings,
harmonic tunings and others involving only 12 notes, etc., and to a limited
extent with arbitrary tunings. Many, many thanks to Manuel! I am so glad
that he implemented this. To my mind, this has quietly revolutionized
something...

Cheers,
Rick

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

>Hello everyone,
>
>Recently on the list, Manuel provided a new experimental version of Scala
>that has the option to *not* switch channels on pitch-bend re-tuning. (See
>earlier posts in this thread.) Today Manuel fixed a bug, and I have tried
>out the new version. It works! So in addition to some success I have had
>with Garritan (see below), Scala should be able to re-tune various
>multi-channel synths using the new facility.
>
>Here is a brief musical example, using a trio of solo oboe with violin and
>cello sections accompanying. Some reverb added:
>
>http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/temp/
>GPO-trio-oboe-violins-cello-harmonic.mp3
>
>The tuning is the Carlos harmonic scale distributed with Scala. The 3
>channels were played from Finale in real time, together, through Scala's
>relay facility, using the new "no channel swapping" option. The chain of
>programs used was:
>
>Finale -> MidiYoke(1) -> Scala -> MidiYoke(2) -> Garritan
>
>This is a proof-of-concept, requiring a lot more experimentation, but I
>think the bottom line is that many instruments of Garritan Personal
>Orchestra *can* be re-tuned and played simultaneously in real-time using
>pitch-bend with Scala.

Hi Rick,

I saw but didn't quite absorb the earlier parts of this thread. Can
you explain why you don't want to switch channels? How many notes
are in your tuning (you say "distributed with Scala")?

Thanks,

-Carl

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

Hi Carl --

> I saw but didn't quite absorb the earlier parts of this thread. Can
> you explain why you don't want to switch channels? How many notes
> are in your tuning (you say "distributed with Scala")?

In MIDI relaying to retune via pitch-bend, all of the applications switch
channels. That is, they relay notes from one channel to an "unused" channel
with a pitch-bend setting. This means that you can only really use 1
channel, and you end up with a mono-timbral result, though it can be
polyphonic. What I want to do is send a bunch of truly monophonic channels
simultaneously, and re-tune them via pitch-bend. I want to do poly-timbral
re-tuning. E.g., a wind quartet; an orchestra. Until now these re-tuning
relay applications could be used for doing keyboard pieces, but not really
for ensemble pieces (unless you record the parts of the ensemble
separately). Also, when switching channels, you could lose the "context"
that a channel has -- and with GPO, your context is a very important part
of expression (the state of controllers, etc, on each channel handle
slurring, volume, etc.).

Since the channels I am sending are truly monophonic, it seemed like it
shouldn't be necessary to re-allocate notes onto different channels. You
really need to do this channel switching when you have polyphonic music on
a channel, because all the sounding notes on a channel will get bent
simultaneously. If your channels are truly monophonic, it shouldn't matter;
hence you shouldn't *need* to switch channels.

Manuel implemented that feature in Scala's MIDI relaying. So I tried it
with Garritan Personal Orchestra, and it seems to work. Pitch-bending is
fast enough that it doesn't seem to affect the resulting music. The example
I posted was 3 monophonic channels sent simultaneously through Scala's
relay to GPO. The channels are each re-tuned via pitch-bend without channel
swapping.

The tuning I used is incidental. It was one of the ".scl" files that comes
with Scala -- or rather is in the Scala library.

Hope that answers your questions.

Rick

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

At 09:57 AM 10/7/2005, you wrote:
>Hi Carl --
>
>> I saw but didn't quite absorb the earlier parts of this thread. Can
>> you explain why you don't want to switch channels? How many notes
>> are in your tuning (you say "distributed with Scala")?
>
>In MIDI relaying to retune via pitch-bend, all of the applications switch
>channels. That is, they relay notes from one channel to an "unused" channel
>with a pitch-bend setting. This means that you can only really use 1
>channel, and you end up with a mono-timbral result, though it can be
>polyphonic. What I want to do is send a bunch of truly monophonic channels
>simultaneously, and re-tune them via pitch-bend. I want to do poly-timbral
>re-tuning. E.g., a wind quartet; an orchestra. Until now these re-tuning
>relay applications could be used for doing keyboard pieces, but not really
>for ensemble pieces (unless you record the parts of the ensemble
>separately). Also, when switching channels, you could lose the "context"
>that a channel has -- and with GPO, your context is a very important part
>of expression (the state of controllers, etc, on each channel handle
>slurring, volume, etc.).

I thought the standard method was to assign each note of the scale
to a channel and send a single bend appropriate for that note at the
beginning of the piece. No?

Here, are you assigning an instrument to each channel and then sending
the appropriate bend immediately before each note (this wouldn't work
in a realtime situation)?

>The tuning I used is incidental. It was one of the ".scl" files that comes
>with Scala -- or rather is in the Scala library.

Is there any limitation to the number of notes/octave that can be
tuned with this method?

-Carl

🔗Phi <phi@...>

Hi Carl,

> I thought the standard method was to assign each note of the scale
> to a channel and send a single bend appropriate for that note at the
> beginning of the piece. No?

You can attach a PB value to every note.

> Here, are you assigning an instrument to each channel and then sending
> the appropriate bend immediately before each note (this wouldn't work
> in a realtime situation)?

This works in realtime!
Also with CC#129 (Fine Tune), sending the following sequence of CCs before each note:
MSB: 100 1
LSB: 101 0
Data: CC#6 followed by the user value (0 <-> 127)

CC 129 is recognized by most of soft-synths, and lets free the pitch-bend at any range
(CC#128 Pitch-Bend Sensitivity).

It's also possible to use both!

> Is there any limitation to the number of notes/octave that can be
> tuned with this method?

With no dynamical channel addressing, this number varies according to the use of a same
MIDI note with different PB or CC129 values.

Cheers ;-)
Philippe

🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@...>

On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Philippe wrote:
> Hi Carl,
>
> > I thought the standard method was to assign each note of the scale
> > to a channel and send a single bend appropriate for that note at the
> > beginning of the piece. No?
>
> You can attach a PB value to every note.
>
> > Here, are you assigning an instrument to each channel and then sending
> > the appropriate bend immediately before each note (this wouldn't work
> > in a realtime situation)?
>
> This works in realtime!
> Also with CC#129 (Fine Tune), sending the following sequence of CCs before
each note:
> MSB: 100 1
> LSB: 101 0
> Data: CC#6 followed by the user value (0 <-> 127)
>
> CC 129 is recognized by most of soft-synths, and lets free the pitch-bend
at any range
> (CC#128 Pitch-Bend Sensitivity).
>
> It's also possible to use both!
>
> > Is there any limitation to the number of notes/octave that can be
> > tuned with this method?
>
> With no dynamical channel addressing, this number varies according to the
use of a same
> MIDI note with different PB or CC129 values.
>
> Cheers ;-)
> Philippe

Now this gets interesting ...!

Philippe, are you saying that, for example, in the octave from
MIDI note 60 to 71, we could have two _simultaneous_
different PB/CC129 values for each of those notes on the
same channel - in effect, a 24-note division of the octave?

Regards,
Yahya

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🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

Hi Philippe,

>Hi Carl,
>
>> I thought the standard method was to assign each note of the scale
>> to a channel and send a single bend appropriate for that note at the
>> beginning of the piece. No?
>
>You can attach a PB value to every note.
>>
>> Here, are you assigning an instrument to each channel and then sending
>> the appropriate bend immediately before each note (this wouldn't work
>> in a realtime situation)?
>
>This works in realtime!
>Also with CC#129 (Fine Tune), sending the following sequence of CCs before
>each note:
>MSB: 100 1
>LSB: 101 0
>Data: CC#6 followed by the user value (0 <-> 127)
>
>CC 129 is recognized by most of soft-synths, and lets free the pitch-bend
>at any range (CC#128 Pitch-Bend Sensitivity).

Can you explain what you mean by "lets free the pitch-bend at
any range"?

>It's also possible to use both!

Do you know of any software using CC#129?

>> Is there any limitation to the number of notes/octave that can be
>> tuned with this method?
>
>With no dynamical channel addressing, this number varies according to
>the use of a same MIDI note with different PB or CC129 values.

It's basically unlimited, huh?

-Carl

🔗Phi <phi@...>

Hi Carl,

> >CC 129... lets free the pitch-bend at any range
>
> Can you explain what you mean by "lets free the pitch-bend at
> any range"?

When I *only* use CC#129 to fine-tune each midi note, I can freely use
the pitch-bend wheel set to any value.

> Do you know of any software using CC#129?

I spoke too fast!
I only find QuickTime with any soundfont or DLS.
However, some others provide a midi learn to their fine tune setting.

> > Is there any limitation to the number of notes/octave that can be
> > tuned with this method?

Basically, less than or equal to 12.

> >With no dynamical channel addressing, this number varies according to
> >the use of a same MIDI note with different PB or CC129 values.
>
> It's basically unlimited, huh?

Monophonic and staccato: (half-tone / 64 steps) * 12 = 768 values
(768 - 12 unisons = 756)

Cheers,
Philippe

🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@...>

On Tue, 11 Oct 2005, Philippe wrote:
>
> Hello Yahya,
>
> > Philippe, are you saying that, for example, in the octave from
> > MIDI note 60 to 71, we could have two _simultaneous_
> > different PB/CC129 values for each of those notes on the
> > same channel - in effect, a 24-note division of the octave?
>
> Basically no, cause of note-offs.
> But you're bringing there an interesting challenge:
> 'Dynamical note-on addressing' instead of the standard
> 'dynamical channel addressing', by using CC#130 (Coarse Tune).
> It should be then possible to get a 24-note division of the octave
> (or anything else) on a same channel, and in real-time.
>
> Thanks a lot for this implicit suggestion! ;-)
> I'm going to prototype that in Max/MSP right now!
>
> Cheers,
> Philippe (still promoting microtuning ;-)

So glad whenever I can inspire someone to a creative
solution! (Particularly when I don't even understand
it ...) :-)

Looking forward to hearing more about your experiments,
- and hopefully to attaining some enlightenment.

Best,
Yahya

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🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

>Hi Carl,
>
>> >CC 129... lets free the pitch-bend at any range
>>
>> Can you explain what you mean by "lets free the pitch-bend at
>> any range"?
>
>When I *only* use CC#129 to fine-tune each midi note, I can freely use
>the pitch-bend wheel set to any value.

Ah yes; very good.

>> Do you know of any software using CC#129?
>
>I spoke too fast!
>I only find QuickTime with any soundfont or DLS.
>However, some others provide a midi learn to their fine tune setting.

What's DLS?

How does one load a soundfont in QuickTime?

>> > Is there any limitation to the number of notes/octave that can be
>> > tuned with this method?
>
>Basically, less than or equal to 12.

Ah, so for > 12 tones/oct. we need pitch bend?

>> >With no dynamical channel addressing, this number varies according to
>> >the use of a same MIDI note with different PB or CC129 values.
>>
>> It's basically unlimited, huh?
>
>Monophonic and staccato: (half-tone / 64 steps) * 12 = 768 values
>(768 - 12 unisons = 756)

Staccato is the thing, eh? Playing from a keyboard, notes
frequently overlap...

-Carl

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

Hello all... Here is some more information about my GPO testing so far.

Rick

-----------------------------------

I tested the GPO "Finale Edition" 2006 Built-in instruments for pitch-bend
range and usability for microtonal work. Not quite exhaustively, but
almost all of the variations of each instrument. I have not tested the GPO
"Notation Edition" full version instruments yet, just the set that comes
with Finale 2006, so I hope this is useful for people who have Finale but
don't have the full GPO version. By "usability" I mean it responds to pitch
bend in the "standard" range of plus or minus 2 semitones that is usable
with most of the current relay mechanisms that do pitch-bend retuning.

The pitch bend range in the built-in Finale Edition is supposed to be 2
semitones in either direction. In my list below, "OK" means that the
pitch-bend is correct and usable, with some caveats. Some instruments do
not respond to pitch-bend messages; some respond in a flawed way, as noted
below.

In *all* of the brass and woodwinds the pitch-bend seems to automatically
fly back to "zero" (center) at note-off. This is annoying, but apparently
they are still apparently usable, as per my recent sound examples.

The pianos and most other plucked, struck, or otherwise non-sustaining
instruments either do not respond to pitch-bend or do so unusably.

In short, most instruments are usable, but the following instruments have
fatal flaws for microtonal work:
English Horn 1 (all "plr")
Bass Clarinet (all "plr")
B-flat Clarinet (all "plr")
Bassoon 1 (all "plr")
all Trombones

(Note: There exist other, usable, English Horns, Bass Clarinets and
Clarinets, but no usable Trombones at all.)

-----------------

LIST OF INSTRUMENTS AND FINDINGS

Woodwind:
Alto Flutes - plr 1, 2, 3, and solo - OK
Bass Flute solo NV, V - both OK
Flute solo flutter, KS, NV, V - all OK
Piccolo - all OK
English Horn 1, 2 solo - OK
Oboe 1 modern plr 1, 2, 3 - all OK
Oboe 1, 2, 3 modern solo - all OK
Oboe classical solo - OK
Oboe d'amore solo - OK
Bass Clarinet solo - OK
B-flat Clarinet solo - OK
Contrabass Clarinet solo - OK
E-flat Clarinet solo - OK
Bassoon 1 solo - OK
Bassoon 2 plr 1, 2, 3, solo - all OK
Contrabassoon 1, 2 solo - OK
Brass:
French Horn 1, 2, 3 plr 2, 3, 4 - seem all OK, not all tested
Trumpet 1, 2, 3, plr 1, 2, 3 - all seem OK, not all tested.
Trumpet piccolo solo - seems OK
Contrabass Tuba - OK
Tuba 1, 2 solo, and others - seem all OK, not all tested

Keyboards:
Harpsichord KS - OK

Strings - all seem OK

-----------------------------------

I didn't test any of the real unpitched percussion, such as snare drums.

All of the following instruments behave "oddly" with pitch-bend.
Typically, if they respond to pitch-bend at all, they do so partially, then
slide back to the nominal tone in a weird way, instead of retaining the
pitch-bend across attacks.
Handbells
all Marimbas
Timpani
Tubular Bells
Vibraphone
all Harps
Celesta
Glass Harmonica
all Pianos
all Pipe Organs

-----------------------------------

The following instruments are fatally flawed for microtonal work for the
reasons mentioned:

Bass Flute plr 1, 2, 3 - pitch-bend goes up/down one semitone
Flute plr 1, 2, 3 - pitch-bend goes up/down one semitone
English Horn 1 plr 1, 2, 3 - pitch-bend goes up/down one semitone
Bass Clarinet plr 1, 2, 3 - pitch-bend goes up/down one semitone
B-flat Clarinet plr 1, 2, 3 - pitch-bend goes up/down one semitone
Bassoon 1 plr 1, 2, 3 - no pitch-bend response at all
Bass Trombone 1, 2, 2ag solo - pitch-bend goes augmented 4th up/down
Tenor Trombone plr 1 - pitch-bend goes augmented 4th up/down

-----------------------------------

The trombones all have fatal flaws that render them unusable for
microtonal work of any type, which is very unfortunate. Note however that
in the GPO "Notation Edition" full version, the trombones all seem to go
up/down 12 semitones as documented, which is good news. The trombones would
be usable under two conditions: 1) the pitch-bend range of the relay
system could be set plus or minus arbitrary semitones, and 2) it could be
set on a per-channel basis. In fact, with GPO generally, to make fullest
use, one would probably want the pitch-bend range to be settable per
channel, given the different sizes of hard-wired pitch-bend ranges. Perhaps
a future version of GPO will fix these problems, and also allow settable
pitch-bend range.

[end]

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

By the way, for what it's worth... Below text posted on the official GPO
forum under Support & Technical, Oct 19. We'll see if there's any answer.

Rick

-------------------

Recently bought GPO and love it, etc. It does what it's supposed to do,
but I'm into alternative tuning, so I have been pushing the envelope a bit
and made some experiments.

I find the pitch-bend range inconsistent in some of the instruments in the
Finale Edition of GPO. (I haven't yet tested the "Notation Edition" full
version, which I also purchased.)

Most instrument pitch-bend ranges in the Finale Edition are set as
documented to 2 semitones up/down, which is great. That's the MIDI spec
standard starting position, and the range most used by MIDI relay systems
that do real-time re-tuning via pitch-bend. Some of the GPO Finale Edition
instruments, however, have different settings. I'd consider these "bugs".

All of the Trombone instruments (Tenor and Bass included) go up/down an
augmented 4th.

All of these instruments go up/down one semitone:
Bass Flute plr 1, 2, 3
Flute plr 1, 2, 3
English Horn 1 plr 1, 2, 3
Bass Clarinet plr 1, 2, 3
B-flat Clarinet plr 1, 2, 3
Bassoon 1 plr 1, 2, 3

Is there any bug-fix patch in the works that might address this inconsistency?

I've asked before about microtonal support in GPO, and that seems like a
dead-end. But solving these inconsistencies would help some of us who are
experimenting with use of GPO for this work. You see, most of GPO actually
is very usable with alternative tunings with some of the MIDI-relay
mechanisms that this community uses (e.g., Scala). It's not just useful for
avant garde tunings, but historical tunings such as meantone, etc.

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

Hello all...

Here is another experiment with Garritan Personal Orchestra, perhaps a bit
more musical, with larger scoring. This was written in the Carlos harmonic
scale, with a root of "D". Here it is as written:

http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/temp/GPO/HarmonicTest2-playedInD.mp3

And here is the same music, again harmonic scale, played in a tuning
rooted on "C":

http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/temp/GPO/HarmonicTest2-playedInC.mp3

(I guess that just proves that the thing really is being re-tuned.)

And here it is, in the "bland" 12-tET version, which allows you to hear
the tuning difference between 12-tET and the harmonic scale on "D" above.

http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/temp/GPO/HarmonicTest2-in12equal.mp3

The scoring for the example is: GPO flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, with
strings (no bass), and a piano-like patch in Rhino. This is Finale
outputing to two separate MIDI devices. One MIDI device is relayed through
Fractal Tune Smithy 3 (beta) to GPO Studio; FTS does the pitch-bend
retuning on each channel, as we've discussed previously in this thread. The
other MIDI device is sent from Finale directly to VAZ Modular 3 with one
instance of Rhino. FTS and Rhino are both using the same ".tun" files for
tuning.

This also shows that it's possible to combine Finale->FTS->GPO with
Finale->VAZ to use Rhino or VAZ sounds with the orchestra.

Cheers,
Rick

----
PS, in the "other non-essential details department": The first time I
tried this, yesterday, VAZ/Rhino kept crashing every few seconds whenever I
would switch to/from the "piano" part for editing, and I almost gave up on
the whole scheme. Today it works flawlessly! Go figure... I also
discovered yesterday that the GPO "keyswitch" pizzicato/arco shifting
apparently does not work when the signal is routed through FTS; I'll try to
get to the bottom of that problem later with Robert.

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

🔗Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@...>

I have tried 'Unison.sf2', and it's pretty good as far as GM instruments go.

much much better than 'Chaos-Bank' and 'Personal-Copy', which I think sound
really bad.

'Unison.sf2' has the best clarinet i have heard on a soundfont so far, and
pretty decent strings. Brass, especially trumpet and horns, sound great. The
pizzicato sounds great, but as usual, string tremolo sucks terribly. and the
tympani is pretty mediocre at best.

1) does anyone know how to massage a good string tremolo out of a soundfont?

2) where can I get a decent, rich, tympani soundfont?

3) what is everyone's overall impression of what the best GM soundfont out
there is?

the good news is that through WINE and JACK-VST, Windows API VST plugins
mostly work in Linux now. The bad news is, and this has been discussed, many
of these plugins have poor support for microtonality. So TiMidity++ and
soundfonts are right now my best option. TiMidity has always had great
microtuning support built-in.

does anyone have any experience with Edirol Orchestral? microtuning-wise? the
johann strauss 'blue danube waltz' demo is stunningly good, i think up there
with synful's demos, and if it behave better for a microtonal project, that
would make it beat Synful, hands down. i imagine, since it's a roland
product, that microtuning would be somewhat supported?

-aaron.

🔗Paul Erlich <paul@...>

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

In our last episode, you may recall that I mentioned there were some
glitches in using Scala and FTS relaying to GPO when there are more than 12
notes in an octave, in "legato" mode. Well, Manuel recently fixed the
problem in Scala! It works great! I don't know if he's released this
version yet, but it worked for me this evening in extensive experiments.
Here is a little musical demo. (Bad music, but I was trying to make the
things exhibit any possible glitching, so there's a lot of 15-TET
chromaticism.) You'll hear some scales and a bad little "atonal duet" for
oboe and clarinet. The two files are identical except that one is relayed
through Scala, and one through FTS. Scala was tuned with the command
"equaltemp 15" and the .tun file used by FTS was also originally generated
from Scala.

http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/temp/Oboe-FTS-test15tet-1-Scala.mp3

http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/temp/Oboe-FTS-test15tet-1-FTS.mp3

(Robert pointed out to me that if you set the "legato trills" mode in FTS
the problem I had is solved; this works and has been in FTS all along.)

I can't exactly write a how-to manual, but I've found that relaying from
Finale through this latest version of Scala and the beta FTS 3.0 both work
OK to retune Garritan Personal Orchestra.

In Scala, you open "Microtuning MIDI Relay" from the "Tools" menu. Choose
the option "no channel swapping". Now you can relay up to 16 channels of
monophonic MIDI through it to GPO. I've been using the free "GPO Studio"
and sending Finale's output via Midi Yoke to Scala (or FTS).

In FTS 3.0, the setup appears frighteningly complicated and I'm not sure I
can explain it quite yet. You need to get all the options set just right
for it to work for relaying with retuning; but once you do, you can open
".tun" files and ".scl" files.

Overall comparison of microtuning GPO with Scala versus FTS:

* Scala is free. FTS is $45.

* Scala can retune 1 MIDI devices (16 channels). FTS can retune multiple
MIDI devices (> 16 channels).

* Scala can load .scl files for tuning. FTS can load .tun files or .scl files.

* Scala is hard-wired to 2-semitones up/down standard pitch bend range.
FTS has configurable pitch-end range up to 12 semitones.

The last bullet item is important for people who will be working with the
GPO "Finale Notation Version" where all of the pitch-bend ranges are
hard-wired to 12 semitones up/down (some kind of Finale standard
apparently) The latest Scala will work with the free "GPO Lite" version
that comes with Finale 2006, but *not* with the "Finale Notation Version"
upgrade. (BTW, I'm running Scala 2.21u kernel build 1.86e.) I don't know if
Manuel might someday be partial to changing the configuration of
pitch-bend range ;-) but it would be helpful eventually to some people.
Meanwhile, when FTS 3.0 is released, it will work with both GPO versions,
the Lite and Full.

For people working with more than 8 monophonic instruments there is
another little gotcha: the Kontakt "lite" player that comes with GPO only
has 8 patch slots; you need to use 2 of them on different MIDI "devices" to
get a full 16 channels, so the reality with Scala for now is that it's
limited to 8 real channels for GPO work. FTS can do more channels and
multiple devices; however, I haven't yet tested Robert's new input/output
configuration features, so I'll save that topic for another day.

Cheers,
Rick

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

Thanks for the update, Rick. This is definitely the best how-to
on this I've ever seen. You've clearly done a tremendous amount
of work on this, and it's starting to pay off!

-Carl

At 10:42 PM 11/8/2005, you wrote:
>In our last episode, you may recall that I mentioned there were some
>glitches in using Scala and FTS relaying to GPO when there are more than
>12 notes in an octave, in "legato" mode. Well, Manuel recently fixed the
>problem in Scala! It works great! I don't know if he's released this
>version yet, but it worked for me this evening in extensive experiments.
>Here is a little musical demo. (Bad music, but I was trying to make the
>things exhibit any possible glitching, so there's a lot of 15-TET
>chromaticism.) You'll hear some scales and a bad little "atonal duet" for
>oboe and clarinet. The two files are identical except that one is relayed
>through Scala, and one through FTS. Scala was tuned with the command
>"equaltemp 15" and the .tun file used by FTS was also originally generated
>from Scala.
>
>http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/temp/Oboe-FTS-test15tet-1-Scala.mp3
>
>http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org/temp/Oboe-FTS-test15tet-1-FTS.mp3
>
>(Robert pointed out to me that if you set the "legato trills" mode in FTS
>the problem I had is solved; this works and has been in FTS all along.)
>
>I can't exactly write a how-to manual, but I've found that relaying from
>Finale through this latest version of Scala and the beta FTS 3.0 both work
>OK to retune Garritan Personal Orchestra.
>
>In Scala, you open "Microtuning MIDI Relay" from the "Tools" menu. Choose
>the option "no channel swapping". Now you can relay up to 16 channels of
>monophonic MIDI through it to GPO. I've been using the free "GPO Studio"
>and sending Finale's output via Midi Yoke to Scala (or FTS).
>
>In FTS 3.0, the setup appears frighteningly complicated and I'm not sure I
>can explain it quite yet. You need to get all the options set just right
>for it to work for relaying with retuning; but once you do, you can open
>".tun" files and ".scl" files.
>
>
>Overall comparison of microtuning GPO with Scala versus FTS:
>
>* Scala is free. FTS is $45.
>
>* Scala can retune 1 MIDI devices (16 channels). FTS can retune multiple
>MIDI devices (> 16 channels).
>
>* Scala can load .scl files for tuning. FTS can load .tun files or .scl files.
>
>* Scala is hard-wired to 2-semitones up/down standard pitch bend range.
>FTS has configurable pitch-end range up to 12 semitones.
>
>The last bullet item is important for people who will be working with the
>GPO "Finale Notation Version" where all of the pitch-bend ranges are
>hard-wired to 12 semitones up/down (some kind of Finale standard
>apparently) The latest Scala will work with the free "GPO Lite" version
>that comes with Finale 2006, but *not* with the "Finale Notation Version"
>upgrade. (BTW, I'm running Scala 2.21u kernel build 1.86e.) I don't know if
>Manuel might someday be partial to changing the configuration of
>pitch-bend range ;-) but it would be helpful eventually to some people.
>Meanwhile, when FTS 3.0 is released, it will work with both GPO versions,
>the Lite and Full.
>
>For people working with more than 8 monophonic instruments there is
>another little gotcha: the Kontakt "lite" player that comes with GPO only
>has 8 patch slots; you need to use 2 of them on different MIDI "devices" to
>get a full 16 channels, so the reality with Scala for now is that it's
>limited to 8 real channels for GPO work. FTS can do more channels and
>multiple devices; however, I haven't yet tested Robert's new input/output
>configuration features, so I'll save that topic for another day.
>
>Cheers,
> Rick