Scala and USB controller as MIDI retuning relay

Whoo-hoo!

Well, it works- for a monosynth anyway.

I picked up the Behringer UMX MIDI controller (<130 Euros), which
also has a little RCA USB I/O and a bunch of softsynths thrown in.
Very nice, knobs and buttons, velocity sensitive. Very, very
lightweight. No aftertouch, unfortuantely.

So, it's the UMX to the laptop, Scala doing the retuning relay, then
back out through the UMX, which has a MIDI out to the Waldorf Pulse
analog monosynth. Fortunately, the MIDI out on the UMX is set up
intelligently, I was afraid it might be hardwired to the keyboard so
to speak, but it is not. Scala sees UMX as a MIDI in and out.

The latency is stunningly low, imperceptible (the UMX comes with
some hotrod ASIO driver). Now of course, all synths except for no-
MIDI analogs have some latency; the near-lightspeed quality of a
discrete analog is a special and palpable thing, especially when
tweaking the filters live.

But, whatever, in the year 2007, MIDI latency can be made a non-
issue for cheap and that's great news.

The keyboard mapping in Scala has to be set to "linear", at least in
this case, or I get strange dead keys here and there. I'm not
getting the queasy spongy feeling we all have had to battle when
retuning via MIDI. As the Pulse is a 3-osc synth, I tune one osc at
12'oclock and the other two osc, a little lower in level, to either
side- say, 2 cents high and 1 cent low, or 3 and 2 cents. This
softens the point, so to speak, and since I'm not working with
deadpan sines, the issue of tuning accuracy can also be rendered a
non-issue.

As far as sequencing, I'm getting note-off problems, this is
something I'll have to poke at a bit. Even if I can't solve that
problem I'm still happy.

-Cameron Bobro