Rainbow 2.5 News: microtuning!

Holy Sine Waves, Batman! It's more news from Big Tick Audio!

As you'll recall in the last episode, Big Tick had introduced microtonal
capability into their vocal formant synth Angelina:

http://bigtick.pastnotecut.org/index.php

Today, I received a beta copy of Rainbow 2.5, the FM synth from Big Tick Audio.

As of Version 2.5, soon to be released, Rainbow will have the same
microtuning capability as Angelina! It uses the same tuning tables as
Angelina and the VAZ line of soft synths, so it has 1 cent tuning
resolution across the entire MIDI range. And Scala can directly output
tuning tables for it.

Rainbow is similar to the TX81Z, but with a bit more flexibility, since it
doesn't have a "fixed" set of FM algorithms. Rainbow 3.0, the next
version, is supposed to have 6 operator FM with the same envelope control
as Angelina. This is getting to be pretty hot FM synthesis! Rumor has it
that registered users of Rainbow 2.X will get a free upgrade to 3.0.

Check it out, if you haven't already, and catch the 2.5 update!

Rick

Rick,

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., Rick McGowan <rick@u...> wrote:
> Holy Sine Waves, Batman! It's more news from Big Tick Audio!
>
> As you'll recall in the last episode, Big Tick had introduced microtonal
> capability into their vocal formant synth Angelina:
>
> http://bigtick.pastnotecut.org/index.php
>
> Today, I received a beta copy of Rainbow 2.5, the FM synth from Big Tick Audio.
>
> As of Version 2.5, soon to be released, Rainbow will have the same
> microtuning capability as Angelina!

...and all the rest. Thanks for keeping us posted on this, I've bookmarked the pages and will demo the apps and synths. Question: what are *you* using to drive the VST synths? I don't use any of the bigger sequencers (right now) that support the VST format, but I took a look at FruityLoops (and, yes, it does feel funny saying that) which appears to be reasonable. Let me know (or anyone else can chime in) if you have info/yeas/nays on FLoops.

These are all moderate cost apps, and I'm willing to be with a decent host (FruityLoops), one or two soft synths with microtuning, and Scala, you could have an awful lot of people starting to explore outside of 12tET! What a cool thing it would be if some forward-looking music department could get a volume discount on a package of these apps (together) and setup, for nominal cost, a number of workstations for students to start working in microtonal composition.

Is that a light at the end of the tunnel, or is it the Xenon headlights of a new MiniCooper?

Cheers,
Jon

Jon S asked,

> Question: what are *you* using to drive the VST synths?

Well, I bought both VAZ 2010 and VAZ Modular. VAZ Modular is only VST 1.0,
so it can't use the VST instruments, only effects. But VAZ 2010 is a VST
2.0 compatible host. You can "insert" a soft synth into an empty channel
and drive it. If you go here:

http://www.kvr-vst.com/index.php

you can find a number of free and/or open-source hosts, like Psycle:

http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/portal.php

I haven't used Psycle, but the Rainbow author pointed it out. With Psycle
(free) and Rainbow 2.5 ($60) you can have a pretty nice microtonal setup
for under a hundred bucks.

Rick