Re: [MMM] Proteus 1000/2000?

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "X. J. Scott" <xjscott@e...> wrote:
> on 11/13/02 3:52 PM, Marc Macauley wrote:
>
> > Has anyone had any experience with E-MU's Proteus 1000 or Proteus
2000
> > sound modules? They both look attractive and have microtuning
> > capabilities, but I'd love to hear from anyone who has actually
used
> > them, both with respect to microtuning (how it's implemented) and
also
> > the sounds and other features in general.
>
> Hi Marc,
>
> The 1000/2000 series instruments have the same OS and same tuning
support.
> They use the MIDI Tuning Standard for setting their tunings and
thus each of
> all 128 MIDI keys can be arbitrarily tuned to any pitch you like
within a
> resolution of 0.0061 cents.

wow, that's a resolution of about 196721 parts per octave! pretty
impressive, if true. has anyone actually analyzed its output to
determine if this resolution is actually achieved?

----- Original Message -----
From: "wallyesterpaulrus" <wallyesterpaulrus@...>

> --- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "X. J. Scott" <xjscott@e...> wrote:

> > They use the MIDI Tuning Standard for setting their tunings and
> thus each of
> > all 128 MIDI keys can be arbitrarily tuned to any pitch you like
> within a
> > resolution of 0.0061 cents.
>
> wow, that's a resolution of about 196721 parts per octave! pretty
> impressive, if true. has anyone actually analyzed its output to
> determine if this resolution is actually achieved?

I always thought the Proteus synths were more like 1 cent and change.

* David Beardsley
* http://biink.com
* http://mp3.com/davidbeardsley

On 14 Nov 2002 at 16:54, David Beardsley wrote, responding to Wally's
response to somebody's

> > within a
> > > resolution of 0.0061 cents.
> >
> > wow, that's a resolution of about 196721 parts per octave! pretty
> > impressive, if true. has anyone actually analyzed its output to
> > determine if this resolution is actually achieved?
>
> I always thought the Proteus synths were more like 1 cent and change.

I myself doubt I can tune better than I can hear, and I think it's
more like 5 cents. Well, maybe 1 cent and change. Does anybody here
claim to be able to hear .0061 cents difference? Is there some
religious principle involved that makes tuning better than you can
hear matter?

Judy
--
http://home.mindspring.com/~judithconrad/index.html

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., judithconrad@m... wrote:
On 14 Nov 2002 at 16:54, David Beardsley wrote, responding to
> I always thought the Proteus synths were more like 1 cent and
> change.

John Loffink's info page reports 1.56 cents. I think most people could work with this kind of resolution.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., judithconrad@m... wrote:
> Is there some religious principle involved that makes tuning
> better than you can hear matter?

I'm sure that for everyone that can make that claim there are principles, but I'll be willing to bet they are different: some philosophical, some physio-acoustic, etc.

I just like to make music.

Cheers,
Jon

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@...>

> --- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., judithconrad@m... wrote:
> On 14 Nov 2002 at 16:54, David Beardsley wrote, responding to
> > I always thought the Proteus synths were more like 1 cent and
> > change.
>
> John Loffink's info page reports 1.56 cents. I think most people could
work with this kind of resolution.
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., judithconrad@m... wrote:
> > Is there some religious principle involved that makes tuning
> > better than you can hear matter?
>
> I'm sure that for everyone that can make that claim there are principles,
but I'll be willing to bet they are different: some philosophical, some
physio-acoustic, etc.
>
> I just like to make music.

I haven't plugged my Proteus/2 into an amp in a while,
but I noticed some drift. I got the impression that
all the Proteus synths use the same tuning system.

* David Beardsley
* http://biink.com
* http://mp3.com/davidbeardsley

David,

>From: "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@...>
> > John Loffink's info page reports 1.56 cents. I think most people could
>work with this kind of resolution.

You replied:
>I haven't plugged my Proteus/2 into an amp in a while, but I noticed some >drift. I got the impression that all the Proteus synths use the same >tuning system.

You were actually one of the type of musician/composer/performers that I imagined it *would* matter to (very tight tuning resolution, or lack thereof).

What I ineptly attempted to highlight was the differing uses of the tuning of an instrument - in Judith's case, she is tuning various historical tunings and performing music written for such, but not music written necessarily to 'exploit' the exacting nature of the tuning; David, on the other hand, most certainly *would* be using the nature of the tuning itself, including beating, combinational tones, etc., that would most definitely be affected by just how accurate the range of tuning was, and also whether the box would hold tune or drift.

Hope that clarifies a bit...

Cheers,
Jon

I believe the resolution of the Proteus is unchanged. Have you tested
the actual resolution on the /3 and above? Yes, you can send finer
resolution through MTS, but that doesn't mean the instrument will use
all of that resolution. A good way to check is to create the tuning in
a MIDI patch editor, send it to the Proteus, then capture it back. Is
the resolution still there, or did they truncate some bits?

John Loffink
jloffink@...
one@...
The Microtonal Synthesis Web Site
http://www.microtonalsynthesis.com/

>
> Yes, the Proteus/1 & /2 had limited resolution. They switched to the
MIDI
> Tuning Standard on the /3. The resolution available with a sysex dump
can
> be
> greater than that available from the front panel.
>

On 14 Nov 2002 at 17:07, Jonathan M. Szanto wrote:

> What I ineptly attempted to highlight was the differing uses of
> the tuning of an instrument - in Judith's case, she is tuning
> various historical tunings and performing music written for such,
> but not music written necessarily to 'exploit' the exacting nature
> of the tuning; David, on the other hand, most certainly *would* be
> using the nature of the tuning itself, including beating,
> combinational tones, etc., that would most definitely be affected
> by just how accurate the range of tuning was, and also whether the
> box would hold tune or drift.

Well, actually there are many people in acoustic early music who will
argue with you about hundredths of cents on tuning tables; often they
are people who use the kind of tuners that play a pitch and one tunes
to it by ear. Often their tunings, however good the table, don't
sound too good.

And of course in any acoustic instrument one is listening to many
things besides the exact pitch of the fundamental. There are all the
overtones, difference tones, resonances with other things, pitchless
clatter. Some of it is as important as, or moreso than, the exct
pitch of the fundamental.

And Jon's right, there are other uses for tuning tables. If you are
using them in fancy engineering, for instance, there can be a big
difference between things almost adding up to zero and things adding
up exactly to zero. A good machine undoubtedly needs to reach a level
of accuracy one can't hear, in and of itself. I didn['t mean to
belittle it, as least not quite the way it sounded.

Just a random thought: I remember an engineer piano student of mine
telling me about a projectile project he was working on, it was
something or other that got shot up, it came down on its own. For
peaceable reasons, I hope, but I didn't ask.Some other engineer tried
to model its flight and wound up dividing something by zero so that
it appeared in the model to be going up in a sawtooth curve....
Sounded like it would be quite hard to a shoot down, anyhow.

Judy

--
http://home.mindspring.com/~judithconrad/index.html