Re: CronoX VSTi

Good news indeed.
Hope LinPlug will make Albino tunable as well.
And I think Native Instruments should adopt TUN format too.
I bought FM7 just to find out that microtuning SysEx dump won't work
with my CubaseSX.

Yeah, FM7 comes stand-alone and as plugin both.

I was disappointed with the FM7 also. It really didn't support any sort of
tuning file that works with Scala... I corresponded with the people a
while back and ended up not buying it. But it does have a rather nice
interface for tuning experimentation (in 12 tones/octave).

Rick

> Did the FM7 package come with the standalone version as well as plugin?

X J Scott wrote:

> Rick, it seems to be me that the NI way is fantastically more
> versatile than the .TUN file. By accepting MIDI Standard Retuning
> messages via sysex in *real time* - the FM7 can have it's tuning
> changed arbitrarily at any time

Sounds cool, but I don't work that way. I don't want to have to specify
the re-tuning of each note, except for temporary pitch-bends. I set the
synths to a static tuning and deal with scores in Finale. I don't like
working at the MIDI level. Just personal preference.

> By the way, it is not "the Scala TUN format" -- the TUN file format was
> invented by VAZ software's Martin Fay (www.software-technology.com) and both
> Manuel and I have added support to our programs for it.

Oh... Thanks for the info.

You went on to mention:

> > It really didn't support any sort of
> > tuning file that works with Scala...
>
> Oh, and this is not actually true - Scala DOES output MIDi files containing
> Standard MIDI Tuning messages, as does LMSO.

Again, that wouldn't be useful from my point of view. I don't like working
that way.

By the way, this must be a new update of FM7? I thought last time I
checked into it there was nothing like that available... None of their
on-line literature/features list seems to talk about any of this.

Again, thanks for the up-to-date info.

Rick

X J Scott was saying...

> Finale is capable of sending MIDI data, correct?

Mmm, well... I messed around a lot with Finale and read the manual and
could not at all figure out how to insert arbitrary MIDI goop into a score.
Yes, it can send MIDI data and gives you fine control over many things,
but I scratched my head for a long time over sysex in Finale & gave up.

> Anyway, see the advantage is that you open your score in Finale which can
> have MIDI data in it right and it has your tuning data.

Yup, I see the advantage...

In any case, except for the FM7, I don't have any synths right now that
use the MIDI tuning standard.

Rick

X J Scott said...

> OK, I see the problem - so Finale works with MIDI but it can't open up .MID
> files.

Well, it actually Finale can open them, but an arbitrary ".mid" file
translates into an equally arbitrary common music notation score. MIDI
files usually don't have enough information score-wise, nor are they
strictly enough timed to make good scores from. MIDI files are performances
while Finale scores are scores. Having said that, there are definitely
MIDI files that contain enough information to open as reasonable vanilla
score files, as long as they are really clock-work performances with
vanilla time signatures.

> So you *do* have the fm7?

Well, no. As I said, I didn't think it had what I needed. At this point,
I'm holding out for Big Tick's new entry into the game.

Rick