Best Sequencer for Microtonal music

Good day. I am wondering which Sequencer is best suited for making
microtonal music on a PC or Mac. I'm interested in scales that have as
much as 53 tones per octave, nonoctave scales, & even Just Intonation.
I mostly work in the piano roll view in a Sequencer.

Thank you.

Well, these sequencers support microtuning of their internal
synthesizers: Logic, Orion Pro, and Plogue Bidule. I don't think they
have any special microtuning piano rolls. Maybe you can use Tonescape,
if your video card supports 'vertex shaders'.

Joe

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "saumsia" <saumsia@...> wrote:
>
> Good day. I am wondering which Sequencer is best suited for making
> microtonal music on a PC or Mac. I'm interested in scales that have as
> much as 53 tones per octave, nonoctave scales, & even Just Intonation.
> I mostly work in the piano roll view in a Sequencer.
>
> Thank you.
>

Is Plogue Bidule a sequencer? Kvraudio.com calls it a "modular synthesizer" From the looks
of it, Tonescape has something of a microtonal piano roll. Here is a screenshot: http://
tonalsoft.com/support/tonescape/help/tonescape-overview.aspx; look at the last pic.
How do i know of my video works w/ 'vertex shaders' Hopefully, i only need it for the Lattice
View, which i'm not too interested in.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "saumsia" <saumsia@...> wrote:
>
>
> Is Plogue Bidule a sequencer? Kvraudio.com calls it a
> "modular synthesizer"
>
> > From the looks of it, Tonescape has
> > something of a microtonal piano roll. Here is a screenshot:
> > http://tonalsoft.com/support/tonescape/help/tonescape-overview.aspx;
> > look at the last pic.
>
> How do i know of my video works w/ 'vertex shaders' Hopefully,
> i only need it for the Lattice View, which i'm not too
> interested in.

The part of Tonescape you'd be interested in is called
"Pitch-Height View", and yes, it is like "piano-roll"
except that the look of it mirrors the intervallic structure
of your tuning. So if you have unevenly-spaced intervals
in your tuning, you will have unevenly-sized bars in
your "piano-roll". Also, if you use an equivalence-interval
(typically the "octave"), then the "piano-roll" will have
however many steps your tuning has in that interval.

Tonescape supports just-intonation in up to 7 dimensions
(for example, you could use 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, and 19
as your generators, along with 2 as the equivalence-interval),
it lets you use non-prime generators if that's what you want,
it lets you temper a just-intonation tonespace in any way
you want (to create, say, a "linear temperament" such as a
fraction-of-a-comma meantone), and it supports equal-temperaments
from 5 to 799 tones per octave. 53-edo is totally supported.

Yes, the vertex shaders are only needed for the Lattice View,
which in fact is the main feature of Tonescape's user interface.
However, if your video card does not support vertex shaders,
Tonescape is supposed to use software emulation of them.
There apparently are a few problems with this, as some
people who have attempted to install or use Tonescape have
run into trouble with it, and we're working on fixing that.
Basically, if you have are using Windows XP for your
operating system and you have a fairly recent and decent
video-card, it should work OK.

Please note that you should install all the Windows updates
that you can before installing Tonescape. Also note that
in some cases, when it doesn't work at first, it will work
later -- i had a little bit of trouble getting it to work
correctly on my XP system, but since fixing something with
my system's audio software (now i don't remember what it was),
it has been running fine ever since, with only one minor
bug concerning the Lattice View which pops infrequently.

The current "Den Haag" version of Tonescape does not seem
to run under Windows 2000, altho older versions did.
We have not yet tested it on Vista.

-monz
http://tonalsoft.com
Tonescape microtonal music software

> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "saumsia" <saumsia@> wrote:
> >
> > I mostly work in the piano roll view in a Sequencer.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@...> wrote:
>
> The part of Tonescape you'd be interested in is called
> "Pitch-Height View", and yes, it is like "piano-roll"
> except that the look of it mirrors the intervallic structure
> of your tuning. So if you have unevenly-spaced intervals
> in your tuning, you will have unevenly-sized bars in
> your "piano-roll". Also, if you use an equivalence-interval
> (typically the "octave"), then the "piano-roll" will have
> however many steps your tuning has in that interval.
>
> <snip>
>
> Yes, the vertex shaders are only needed for the Lattice View,
> which in fact is the main feature of Tonescape's user interface.

One thing that i find interesting is that, as useful as
i thought the Lattice View would be for composing, i find
that i also use the Pitch-Height view almost all the time
when entering pitches, whether i'm composing or entering
a piece from someone else's score.

The Lattice View really comes into its own on playback:
it's very fun and educational to watch the notes highlight
on the Lattice in real-time as the piece is played.

-monz
http://tonalsoft.com
Tonescape microtonal music software

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@...> wrote:

> The current "Den Haag" version of Tonescape does not seem
> to run under Windows 2000, altho older versions did.
> We have not yet tested it on Vista.

Why not make a freeware version of the older stuff available also?

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith"
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@> wrote:
>
> > The current "Den Haag" version of Tonescape does not seem
> > to run under Windows 2000, altho older versions did.
> > We have not yet tested it on Vista.
>
> Why not make a freeware version of the older stuff available also?

Because they've been superceded. Chris is not going to
put any effort into resuscitating a dead version.
There was a lot of stuff involved with a user needing to
have a registered account and an activation code.
And it's only a matter of time before folks who are
running Win2000 upgrade to something newer.

-monz
http://tonalsoft.com
Tonescape microtonal music software

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@...> wrote:
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith"
> <genewardsmith@> wrote:

> > Why not make a freeware version of the older stuff available also?
>
>
> Because they've been superceded.

No they haven't, since you yourself use them.

> Chris is not going to
> put any effort into resuscitating a dead version.

How much effort is involved in a hack to remove the protection scheme?

> And it's only a matter of time before folks who are
> running Win2000 upgrade to something newer.

Plenty of people are still using W98. Just because Bill Gates tells
them to switch, they may not see the need.