Microtonal iPhone apps?

Hello microtonalers and microtonalettes (yeah right),

I am now the proud owner of a brand new iPhone. This means that I can
do things that I was previously unable to do. Alright!

Hopefully some of those things will include the usage of iPhone apps
that are somewhat useful for a budding microtonal theorist and
composer and musician. Does anyone know of anything like that? I
remember seeing some kind of generalized keyboard app a while ago for
iPad, and I know a buddy of mine made a Fokker periodicity block
iPhone app for his senior project. Does anyone know of anything else?

I am also willing to do unspeakably terrible things to get Scala
ported to iPhone, so if anyone has any insight on that...

-Mike

cosmovox is fun

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 1, 2011, at 11:37 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> Hello microtonalers and microtonalettes (yeah right),
>
> I am now the proud owner of a brand new iPhone. This means that I can
> do things that I was previously unable to do. Alright!
>
> Hopefully some of those things will include the usage of iPhone apps
> that are somewhat useful for a budding microtonal theorist and
> composer and musician. Does anyone know of anything like that? I
> remember seeing some kind of generalized keyboard app a while ago for
> iPad, and I know a buddy of mine made a Fokker periodicity block
> iPhone app for his senior project. Does anyone know of anything else?
>
> I am also willing to do unspeakably terrible things to get Scala
> ported to iPhone, so if anyone has any insight on that...
>
> -Mike
>

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

Hi Mike and other iPhone users,
here's my survey of microtonal apps.

1. MorphWiz. Fun and easy to play, impressive sounds and visuals, lots of presets and user-programmability. Continuous control of pitch (polyphonic), like in the Haken Continuum, with adjustable locking-into-scale (can be turned off for totally continuous control). The scale is user-definable but regrettably always in 12tet, unlike in the Continuum. The same goes for…

2. Bebot which has a similar user interface to that of Morphwiz but is a simpler instrument. Fun to play, though.

3. Qiano is a simple little instrument for playing tunes in quartertones (24tet). It has a very clear and playable keyboard layout. However, the quality of its sole "piano" sound is hideous! This must be the worst sounding software instrument I've ever played. There are no controls for the sound.

(Virtuoso, on the other hand, is a wonderful iPhone piano, with a good adjustable-sized keyboard and nice piano sound. If only it had microtuning!)

4. SSquares is in my opinion the most useful microtonal iPhone synth so far. It has only a couple of basic waveforms and effects but what makes it stand out is its keyboard, a grid of 35 rectangles in 5 times 7 rows. Each key can be tuned to any pitch in cents! This is done by choosing the chromatic 12tet pitch class (C, C#/Eb, D, etc), octave, and microtuning +/- 100 cents for each key. So any key can have any note. However, the keys will be named with the 12tet note names - you can't write your own names such as ratios. You can save and name your keyboard mappings. I've made things like a 5-limit lattice, a 3,7-lattice and so on. The instrument is polyphonic but chords are rather awkward to play.

5. Cosmovox. Inventive interface. Again, fun to play: you play it by wiggling the phone in the air. It's possible to get a nice flute sound from it, as well as noisier, modulated synth sounds. Lots of microtonal scales, many of them Indonesian or Indian, as well as an otonal and a utonal scale. No user-definable scales, though, unless I just haven't found out how to add them.

6. iBOne. Realistic trombone simulation with slide positions visually marked, and overtones up to the 9th harmonic from each. Handy tool for composers writing for the trombone.

7. Harmonium. Indian-style harmonium with a clever, adjustable (piano) keyboard in two ranks. The sound is nothing to write home about but suitable for practising intervals. Only two 12-note scales: 12tet, and "harmonic scale", which is as follows:
1/1 (user-definable key), 1059/1000, 9/8, 32/27, 5/4, 4/3, 729/512, 3/2, 405/256, 5/3, 16/9, 15/8, That is, with schismatic versions of 64/45 and 128/81, and a complicated ratio for the lowered second degree. I found out the rest by ear but these three were given in email by the author of the program. He said that in future versions may have user-definable scales.

8. Shruti Box. From the same author as Harmonium. Very similar; for producing drones (single pitches or chords). Has the same 'harmonic' scale as above.

9. Droneo. One more for the same author; for producing drones and droning textures with more varying and colorful sounds. Still rather basic, and the sound quality doesn't impress. However, this one has a lot of microtonal possibilities. The drones can be built of eight pitches (with adjustable volume) that can be freely defined in 12tet note names with cent corrections, Herz or ratios. This is the only app that I know of that uses ratios. As an alternative, it also has an interface with an interesting continuous spiral onto which you drop your drone notes. These can be made to snap to a 14-note 7-limit scale, as well as to the Partch scale.

10. JustDrones. A very simple app. Produces a steady drone (one of ET 12), to which you can add another tone with adjustable volume, a lower octave, 2/3, 5/4, 4/3 or 3/2. Richer and more pleasing sound than in Shruti Box.

11. Meantone. A kind of a polyphonic tuning fork with nine temperaments, 1/4 comma meantone, 1/5 comma meantone, Werckmeister III, Pythagorean etc. Good interface: you touch a stave and a note appears and it starts playing; touch a note and it is erased; add notes to produce a chord. No user-definable temperaments.

12. Cleartune. A tuning meter with lots of temperament presets plus user-definable scales.

Finally, two calculators:

Fraction Calc. Nice app for ratio calculations.
I haven't been able to find a ratio/cent converter or a scientific calculator with programmable functions (that stay in the memory) but Scientific Calculator and many others have logs.

I don't think there is yet any synth app that can read tuning scripts such as scala files. Let's hope that somebody comes up with at least a simple synth that has access to the Scala library. There's a very cheap Mac softsynth with surprisingly good sound that would be the obvious model for such an app: Vogue Mk2.

The Nanostudio has a great analogue modelling synth - a real instrument, not a toy! If only it were retunable...

Mike and other iPhone users, please share information on any microtonal apps you have found. There might be microtonal apps out there that don't come up when you write 'microtonal' or 'tuning' etc. in the searc box. The Fokker app you mention - did you find it?

Juhani

Thanks Juhani!! I didn't know about Qiano or Sound Squares.
Sound Squares in particular is awesome. Qiano could be too if
they had a native iPad version. Perhaps I'll try it scaled on
an iPad (the buttons are really small on the iPhone). -Carl

At 01:56 PM 4/3/2011, you wrote:
>Hi Mike and other iPhone users,
>here's my survey of microtonal apps.
>
>1. MorphWiz. Fun and easy to play, impressive sounds and visuals, lots
>of presets and user-programmability. Continuous control of pitch
>(polyphonic), like in the Haken Continuum, with adjustable
>locking-into-scale (can be turned off for totally continuous control).
>The scale is user-definable but regrettably always in 12tet, unlike in
>the Continuum. The same goes for…
>
>2. Bebot which has a similar user interface to that of Morphwiz but is
>a simpler instrument. Fun to play, though.
>
>3. Qiano is a simple little instrument for playing tunes in
>quartertones (24tet). It has a very clear and playable keyboard
>layout. However, the quality of its sole "piano" sound is hideous!
>This must be the worst sounding software instrument I've ever played.
>There are no controls for the sound.
>
>(Virtuoso, on the other hand, is a wonderful iPhone piano, with a good
>adjustable-sized keyboard and nice piano sound. If only it had microtuning!)
>
>4. SSquares is in my opinion the most useful microtonal iPhone synth
>so far. It has only a couple of basic waveforms and effects but what
>makes it stand out is its keyboard, a grid of 35 rectangles in 5 times
>7 rows. Each key can be tuned to any pitch in cents! This is done by
>choosing the chromatic 12tet pitch class (C, C#/Eb, D, etc), octave,
>and microtuning +/- 100 cents for each key. So any key can have any
>note. However, the keys will be named with the 12tet note names - you
>can't write your own names such as ratios. You can save and name your
>keyboard mappings. I've made things like a 5-limit lattice, a
>3,7-lattice and so on. The instrument is polyphonic but chords are
>rather awkward to play.
>
>5. Cosmovox. Inventive interface. Again, fun to play: you play it by
>wiggling the phone in the air. It's possible to get a nice flute sound
>from it, as well as noisier, modulated synth sounds. Lots of
>microtonal scales, many of them Indonesian or Indian, as well as an
>otonal and a utonal scale. No user-definable scales, though, unless I
>just haven't found out how to add them.
>
>6. iBOne. Realistic trombone simulation with slide positions visually
>marked, and overtones up to the 9th harmonic from each. Handy tool for
>composers writing for the trombone.
>
>7. Harmonium. Indian-style harmonium with a clever, adjustable (piano)
>keyboard in two ranks. The sound is nothing to write home about but
>suitable for practising intervals. Only two 12-note scales: 12tet, and
>"harmonic scale", which is as follows:
>1/1 (user-definable key), 1059/1000, 9/8, 32/27, 5/4, 4/3, 729/512,
>3/2, 405/256, 5/3, 16/9, 15/8, That is, with schismatic versions of
>64/45 and 128/81, and a complicated ratio for the lowered second
>degree. I found out the rest by ear but these three were given in
>email by the author of the program. He said that in future versions
>may have user-definable scales.
>
>8. Shruti Box. From the same author as Harmonium. Very similar; for
>producing drones (single pitches or chords). Has the same 'harmonic'
>scale as above.
>
>9. Droneo. One more for the same author; for producing drones and
>droning textures with more varying and colorful sounds. Still rather
>basic, and the sound quality doesn't impress. However, this one has a
>lot of microtonal possibilities. The drones can be built of eight
>pitches (with adjustable volume) that can be freely defined in 12tet
>note names with cent corrections, Herz or ratios. This is the only app
>that I know of that uses ratios. As an alternative, it also has an
>interface with an interesting continuous spiral onto which you drop
>your drone notes. These can be made to snap to a 14-note 7-limit
>scale, as well as to the Partch scale.
>
>10. JustDrones. A very simple app. Produces a steady drone (one of ET
>12), to which you can add another tone with adjustable volume, a lower
>octave, 2/3, 5/4, 4/3 or 3/2. Richer and more pleasing sound than in
>Shruti Box.
>
>11. Meantone. A kind of a polyphonic tuning fork with nine
>temperaments, 1/4 comma meantone, 1/5 comma meantone, Werckmeister
>III, Pythagorean etc. Good interface: you touch a stave and a note
>appears and it starts playing; touch a note and it is erased; add
>notes to produce a chord. No user-definable temperaments.
>
>12. Cleartune. A tuning meter with lots of temperament presets plus
>user-definable scales.
>
>Finally, two calculators:
>
>Fraction Calc. Nice app for ratio calculations.
>I haven't been able to find a ratio/cent converter or a scientific
>calculator with programmable functions (that stay in the memory) but
>Scientific Calculator and many others have logs.
>
>I don't think there is yet any synth app that can read tuning scripts
>such as scala files. Let's hope that somebody comes up with at least a
>simple synth that has access to the Scala library. There's a very
>cheap Mac softsynth with surprisingly good sound that would be the
>obvious model for such an app: Vogue Mk2.
>
>The Nanostudio has a great analogue modelling synth - a real
>instrument, not a toy! If only it were retunable...
>
>Mike and other iPhone users, please share information on any
>microtonal apps you have found. There might be microtonal apps out
>there that don't come up when you write 'microtonal' or 'tuning' etc.
>in the searc box. The Fokker app you mention - did you find it?
>
>Juhani
>
>

Fabulous work gathering these apps in a list Juhani. I wonder how much
they cost in a bundle? Maybe Apple would make a micropack discount?

Oz.

--

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

Juhani wrote:
> Hi Mike and other iPhone users,
> here's my survey of microtonal apps.
>
> 1. MorphWiz. Fun and easy to play, impressive sounds and visuals, lots of presets and user-programmability. Continuous control of pitch (polyphonic), like in the Haken Continuum, with adjustable locking-into-scale (can be turned off for totally continuous control). The scale is user-definable but regrettably always in 12tet, unlike in the Continuum. The same goes for…
>
> 2. Bebot which has a similar user interface to that of Morphwiz but is a simpler instrument. Fun to play, though.
>
> 3. Qiano is a simple little instrument for playing tunes in quartertones (24tet). It has a very clear and playable keyboard layout. However, the quality of its sole "piano" sound is hideous! This must be the worst sounding software instrument I've ever played. There are no controls for the sound.
>
> (Virtuoso, on the other hand, is a wonderful iPhone piano, with a good adjustable-sized keyboard and nice piano sound. If only it had microtuning!)
>
> 4. SSquares is in my opinion the most useful microtonal iPhone synth so far. It has only a couple of basic waveforms and effects but what makes it stand out is its keyboard, a grid of 35 rectangles in 5 times 7 rows. Each key can be tuned to any pitch in cents! This is done by choosing the chromatic 12tet pitch class (C, C#/Eb, D, etc), octave, and microtuning +/- 100 cents for each key. So any key can have any note. However, the keys will be named with the 12tet note names - you can't write your own names such as ratios. You can save and name your keyboard mappings. I've made things like a 5-limit lattice, a 3,7-lattice and so on. The instrument is polyphonic but chords are rather awkward to play.
>
> 5. Cosmovox. Inventive interface. Again, fun to play: you play it by wiggling the phone in the air. It's possible to get a nice flute sound from it, as well as noisier, modulated synth sounds. Lots of microtonal scales, many of them Indonesian or Indian, as well as an otonal and a utonal scale. No user-definable scales, though, unless I just haven't found out how to add them.
>
> 6. iBOne. Realistic trombone simulation with slide positions visually marked, and overtones up to the 9th harmonic from each. Handy tool for composers writing for the trombone.
>
> 7. Harmonium. Indian-style harmonium with a clever, adjustable (piano) keyboard in two ranks. The sound is nothing to write home about but suitable for practising intervals. Only two 12-note scales: 12tet, and "harmonic scale", which is as follows:
> 1/1 (user-definable key), 1059/1000, 9/8, 32/27, 5/4, 4/3, 729/512, 3/2, 405/256, 5/3, 16/9, 15/8, That is, with schismatic versions of 64/45 and 128/81, and a complicated ratio for the lowered second degree. I found out the rest by ear but these three were given in email by the author of the program. He said that in future versions may have user-definable scales.
>
> 8. Shruti Box. From the same author as Harmonium. Very similar; for producing drones (single pitches or chords). Has the same 'harmonic' scale as above.
>
> 9. Droneo. One more for the same author; for producing drones and droning textures with more varying and colorful sounds. Still rather basic, and the sound quality doesn't impress. However, this one has a lot of microtonal possibilities. The drones can be built of eight pitches (with adjustable volume) that can be freely defined in 12tet note names with cent corrections, Herz or ratios. This is the only app that I know of that uses ratios. As an alternative, it also has an interface with an interesting continuous spiral onto which you drop your drone notes. These can be made to snap to a 14-note 7-limit scale, as well as to the Partch scale.
>
> 10. JustDrones. A very simple app. Produces a steady drone (one of ET 12), to which you can add another tone with adjustable volume, a lower octave, 2/3, 5/4, 4/3 or 3/2. Richer and more pleasing sound than in Shruti Box.
>
> 11. Meantone. A kind of a polyphonic tuning fork with nine temperaments, 1/4 comma meantone, 1/5 comma meantone, Werckmeister III, Pythagorean etc. Good interface: you touch a stave and a note appears and it starts playing; touch a note and it is erased; add notes to produce a chord. No user-definable temperaments.
>
> 12. Cleartune. A tuning meter with lots of temperament presets plus user-definable scales.
>
> Finally, two calculators:
>
> Fraction Calc. Nice app for ratio calculations.
> I haven't been able to find a ratio/cent converter or a scientific calculator with programmable functions (that stay in the memory) but Scientific Calculator and many others have logs.
>
> I don't think there is yet any synth app that can read tuning scripts such as scala files. Let's hope that somebody comes up with at least a simple synth that has access to the Scala library. There's a very cheap Mac softsynth with surprisingly good sound that would be the obvious model for such an app: Vogue Mk2.
>
> The Nanostudio has a great analogue modelling synth - a real instrument, not a toy! If only it were retunable...
>
> Mike and other iPhone users, please share information on any microtonal apps you have found. There might be microtonal apps out there that don't come up when you write 'microtonal' or 'tuning' etc. in the searc box. The Fokker app you mention - did you find it?
>
> Juhani
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

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

Juhani - Wow! SSquares is amazing! Just set it up in 15-tet so that
the 5-axis has the major whole tone, and the 7-axis has the minor
whole tone. That way you get porcupine in one direction and blackwood
in the other.

Damn! Thanks Dante as well, Cosmovox is also pretty sweet.

As for the Fokker app, I don't think it's on the market, it was a
friend's senior project. I'll let you know if he puts it up for sale.

-Mike

On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Juhani <jnylenius@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Mike and other iPhone users,
> here's my survey of microtonal apps.
>
> 1. MorphWiz. Fun and easy to play, impressive sounds and visuals, lots of presets and user-programmability. Continuous control of pitch (polyphonic), like in the Haken Continuum, with adjustable locking-into-scale (can be turned off for totally continuous control). The scale is user-definable but regrettably always in 12tet, unlike in the Continuum. The same goes for…
>
> 2. Bebot which has a similar user interface to that of Morphwiz but is a simpler instrument. Fun to play, though.
>
> 3. Qiano is a simple little instrument for playing tunes in quartertones (24tet). It has a very clear and playable keyboard layout. However, the quality of its sole "piano" sound is hideous! This must be the worst sounding software instrument I've ever played. There are no controls for the sound.
>
> (Virtuoso, on the other hand, is a wonderful iPhone piano, with a good adjustable-sized keyboard and nice piano sound. If only it had microtuning!)
>
> 4. SSquares is in my opinion the most useful microtonal iPhone synth so far. It has only a couple of basic waveforms and effects but what makes it stand out is its keyboard, a grid of 35 rectangles in 5 times 7 rows. Each key can be tuned to any pitch in cents! This is done by choosing the chromatic 12tet pitch class (C, C#/Eb, D, etc), octave, and microtuning +/- 100 cents for each key. So any key can have any note. However, the keys will be named with the 12tet note names - you can't write your own names such as ratios. You can save and name your keyboard mappings. I've made things like a 5-limit lattice, a 3,7-lattice and so on. The instrument is polyphonic but chords are rather awkward to play.
>
> 5. Cosmovox. Inventive interface. Again, fun to play: you play it by wiggling the phone in the air. It's possible to get a nice flute sound from it, as well as noisier, modulated synth sounds. Lots of microtonal scales, many of them Indonesian or Indian, as well as an otonal and a utonal scale. No user-definable scales, though, unless I just haven't found out how to add them.
>
> 6. iBOne. Realistic trombone simulation with slide positions visually marked, and overtones up to the 9th harmonic from each. Handy tool for composers writing for the trombone.
>
> 7. Harmonium. Indian-style harmonium with a clever, adjustable (piano) keyboard in two ranks. The sound is nothing to write home about but suitable for practising intervals. Only two 12-note scales: 12tet, and "harmonic scale", which is as follows:
> 1/1 (user-definable key), 1059/1000, 9/8, 32/27, 5/4, 4/3, 729/512, 3/2, 405/256, 5/3, 16/9, 15/8, That is, with schismatic versions of 64/45 and 128/81, and a complicated ratio for the lowered second degree. I found out the rest by ear but these three were given in email by the author of the program. He said that in future versions may have user-definable scales.
>
> 8. Shruti Box. From the same author as Harmonium. Very similar; for producing drones (single pitches or chords). Has the same 'harmonic' scale as above.
>
> 9. Droneo. One more for the same author; for producing drones and droning textures with more varying and colorful sounds. Still rather basic, and the sound quality doesn't impress. However, this one has a lot of microtonal possibilities. The drones can be built of eight pitches (with adjustable volume) that can be freely defined in 12tet note names with cent corrections, Herz or ratios. This is the only app that I know of that uses ratios. As an alternative, it also has an interface with an interesting continuous spiral onto which you drop your drone notes. These can be made to snap to a 14-note 7-limit scale, as well as to the Partch scale.
>
> 10. JustDrones. A very simple app. Produces a steady drone (one of ET 12), to which you can add another tone with adjustable volume, a lower octave, 2/3, 5/4, 4/3 or 3/2. Richer and more pleasing sound than in Shruti Box.
>
> 11. Meantone. A kind of a polyphonic tuning fork with nine temperaments, 1/4 comma meantone, 1/5 comma meantone, Werckmeister III, Pythagorean etc. Good interface: you touch a stave and a note appears and it starts playing; touch a note and it is erased; add notes to produce a chord. No user-definable temperaments.
>
> 12. Cleartune. A tuning meter with lots of temperament presets plus user-definable scales.
>
> Finally, two calculators:
>
> Fraction Calc. Nice app for ratio calculations.
> I haven't been able to find a ratio/cent converter or a scientific calculator with programmable functions (that stay in the memory) but Scientific Calculator and many others have logs.
>
> I don't think there is yet any synth app that can read tuning scripts such as scala files. Let's hope that somebody comes up with at least a simple synth that has access to the Scala library. There's a very cheap Mac softsynth with surprisingly good sound that would be the obvious model for such an app: Vogue Mk2.
>
> The Nanostudio has a great analogue modelling synth - a real instrument, not a toy! If only it were retunable...
>
> Mike and other iPhone users, please share information on any microtonal apps you have found. There might be microtonal apps out there that don't come up when you write 'microtonal' or 'tuning' etc. in the searc box. The Fokker app you mention - did you find it?
>
> Juhani