re: generalized keyboards

[ following up to MakeMicroMusic ]

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
>
> The Starr Labs 'board is certainly worth a shot if you have
> lots of money lying around. But it's not close enough to what
> I want for me to justify the expense.

What are its deficiencies from your perspective?

> The archives of this list and the makemicromusic list are full
> of discussions on keyboards.

Ahhh..that was a real winner. I hadn't been aware of that list.
George Secor's scalatron retrospectives were especially yummy.

I'm particularly interested in people's actual experiences with
generalized keyboards. Chris Mohr's report re some form of Microzone
on the tuning list was not particularly reassuring.

> What are your thoughts?

I'm considering a Starr Labs Microzone, ZBoard or even MiniZ. The
latter two may use more established and reliable technology than the
Microzone. The MiniZ certainly looks cozy.

I'm also thinking that a simple, conservative 6-white/6-black, while
not offering the transpositional bliss Mr. Secor speaks of, might be
more broadly viable and might do most of the job of eliminating
Halberstadt frustration.

Thanks for your helpful reply :)

E

>> The Starr Labs 'board is certainly worth a shot if you have
>> lots of money lying around. But it's not close enough to what
>> I want for me to justify the expense.
>
>What are its deficiencies from your perspective?

Try searching the archives. If you can't find anything, ask
again and I'll tell you.

>> The archives of this list and the makemicromusic list are full
>> of discussions on keyboards.
>
>Ahhh..that was a real winner. I hadn't been aware of that list.
>George Secor's scalatron retrospectives were especially yummy.
>
>I'm particularly interested in people's actual experiences with
>generalized keyboards.

My actual experiences have been limited to a few, a few hours
each. George and Chris are the only two people on this list
who can do better (that I know of), and in the world at large
there are only a handful more.

>> What are your thoughts?
>
>I'm considering a Starr Labs Microzone, ZBoard or even MiniZ. The
>latter two may use more established and reliable technology than the
>Microzone. The MiniZ certainly looks cozy.

Graham bought a ZBoard, I think.

-Carl

>> The Starr Labs 'board is certainly worth a shot if you have
>> lots of money lying around. But it's not close enough to what
>> I want for me to justify the expense.
>
>What are its deficiencies from your perspective?
>
>> The archives of this list and the makemicromusic list are full
>> of discussions on keyboards.
>
>Ahhh..that was a real winner. I hadn't been aware of that list.
>George Secor's scalatron retrospectives were especially yummy.

I believe I also mention my concerns re. the microzone in that
thread.

-Carl

At 05:51 PM 3/18/2005, you wrote:
>>> The Starr Labs 'board is certainly worth a shot if you have
>>> lots of money lying around. But it's not close enough to what
>>> I want for me to justify the expense.
>>
>>What are its deficiencies from your perspective?
>
>Try searching the archives. If you can't find anything, ask
>again and I'll tell you.

Oh sorry, this is MMM. I thought this was Tuning. Try there.

/tuning

-Carl

hi Eric and Carl,

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:

> > I'm considering a Starr Labs Microzone, ZBoard or
> > even MiniZ. The latter two may use more established
> > and reliable technology than the Microzone. The MiniZ
> > certainly looks cozy.
>
> Graham bought a ZBoard, I think.

i'm pretty sure he got a Ztar. anyway, i have a Mini-Z too.

i was really psyched about using it to play 72-edo, since
it has 144 buttons ... but unfortunately, it's set up to
emulate a guitar, and there seems to be no way to eliminate
the same-MIDI-note correspondence between a certain "fret"
distance on one "string" and the next "open string" ...
the best i could do was to tune the "open strings" to
octaves of C, so that the fret-to-next-open-string
correspondence occurs at the 12th "fret". mapping this
way, i do get one full octave of 72-edo, and another
12 different notes on the "bottom string", but also
60 duplicated notes.

i haven't tried any other microtunings yet ... been
really busy working on the Tonalsoft software and on
the Encyclopedia. i was so disappointed about being
stuck with this Ztar "feature" that i really lost a
lot of my enthusiasm for the instrument. i'm hoping
there's a way to tune the open strings so that the
correspondence is at the 23rd or 24th fret ... then
i'd be able to get the entire MIDI note range mapped
onto the fingerboard. but there's no way to do it from
the instrument's front panel ... i'm hoping that a
software editor will do the trick.

-monz

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@t...> wrote:
>
> i'm pretty sure he got a Ztar. anyway, i have a Mini-Z too.
>
> i was really psyched about using it to play 72-edo, since
> it has 144 buttons ... but unfortunately, it's set up to
> emulate a guitar, and there seems to be no way to eliminate
> the same-MIDI-note correspondence between a certain "fret"
> distance on one "string" and the next "open string" ...

Always the same fret I gather? Have you talked to Mr. Starr about this? I'm definitely
looking for independent keys..I don't care how many channels they need to be mapped to.
:)

How did you find the key action and other mechanics of the MiniZ?

Thanks a lot for your response. Sorry for your disappointment.

E

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "eucharistikos" <est@h...> wrote:
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@t...> wrote:
> >
> > i'm pretty sure he got a Ztar. anyway, i have a Mini-Z too.
> >
> > i was really psyched about using it to play 72-edo, since
> > it has 144 buttons ... but unfortunately, it's set up to
> > emulate a guitar, and there seems to be no way to eliminate
> > the same-MIDI-note correspondence between a certain "fret"
> > distance on one "string" and the next "open string" ...
>
> Always the same fret I gather? Have you talked to Mr. Starr about
this? I'm definitely

Yes, I too recommend consulting Harvey Starr about this. He has a
history of being very helpful and civil - if what you want isn't
implemented, he'll find a way to get it done.

Paolo

hi E and Paolo,

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "paolovalladolid" <phv40@h...>
wrote:

> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "eucharistikos" <est@h...>
wrote:
> >
> > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@t...> wrote:
> > >
> > > i'm pretty sure he got a Ztar. anyway, i have a Mini-Z too.
> > >
> > > i was really psyched about using it to play 72-edo, since
> > > it has 144 buttons ... but unfortunately, it's set up to
> > > emulate a guitar, and there seems to be no way to eliminate
> > > the same-MIDI-note correspondence between a certain "fret"
> > > distance on one "string" and the next "open string" ...
> >
> > Always the same fret I gather? Have you talked to Mr. Starr
> > about this? I'm definitely

no, not always the same fret. the "open strings" can be tuned
independently, so you can set up any fret correspondence you
like ... except the one i want, which would require each
adjacent pair of "open strings" to be tuned 2 octaves apart.

i can't do this simply because the Ztar's front-panel controls
will not allow me to tune the "open strings" to a range beyond
C1-C2-C3-C4-C5-C6 ... so the greatest uniform fret-correspondence
distance i can get is 12 frets. when i use this "open string"
tuning and map a 72-edo tuning table to the MIDI-notes, i
get one complete octave of 72-edo, plus another 60 notes of
the same 72-edo pitches on the 5 higher "strings", plus another
12 frets on the "lowest string" which i can use for anything
i'd like. but for my purposes, i'm wasting almost half of
the Ztar fretboard.

i had also hoped to be able to map one octave of a
144-tone 5-limit JI lattice to the Ztar, but again, the
fret-correspondence "feature" prohibits that.

> Yes, I too recommend consulting Harvey Starr about this. He has a
> history of being very helpful and civil - if what you want isn't
> implemented, he'll find a way to get it done.

yes, actually, i know Harvey quite well and even worked
in his shop a few years ago, doing some of the repair work
on previously sold Microzone keyboards. i definitely should
give him a call ... i'm so busy these days ...

-monz

I don't own this device, but given my experience setting up key-MIDI
note correspondences with devices like my Clavette and Starr's
Microzone, I would think there's some way to work around your
problem.

Couldn't you assign each "string" to a separate MIDI channel?
This way, you should be able to set one string to say one 72-EDO
register, and another to another.

And especially if you have a MIDI keyboard, module, or software
synth that can transpose whatever note number coming from the ZTar
to the pitch you want, you should be able to create the setup you
want. I know many devices don't allow you to make your own MIDI note-
pitch mappings, but the Kurzweil K2000 can do this very nicely--at
least within a several octave range with cent accuracy. And these
days, a decent used one shouldn't bankrupt anyone--check EBay or
your local used music store.

Of course, do check with Harvey Starr. I agree that he tries hard to
please his customers.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@t...> wrote:
>
> hi E and Paolo,
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "paolovalladolid"
<phv40@h...>
> wrote:
>
> > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "eucharistikos"
<est@h...>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@t...>
wrote:
> > > >
> > > > i'm pretty sure he got a Ztar. anyway, i have a Mini-Z too.
> > > >
> > > > i was really psyched about using it to play 72-edo, since
> > > > it has 144 buttons ... but unfortunately, it's set up to
> > > > emulate a guitar, and there seems to be no way to eliminate
> > > > the same-MIDI-note correspondence between a certain "fret"
> > > > distance on one "string" and the next "open string" ...
> > >
> > > Always the same fret I gather? Have you talked to Mr. Starr
> > > about this? I'm definitely
>
>
> no, not always the same fret. the "open strings" can be tuned
> independently, so you can set up any fret correspondence you
> like ... except the one i want, which would require each
> adjacent pair of "open strings" to be tuned 2 octaves apart.
>
> i can't do this simply because the Ztar's front-panel controls
> will not allow me to tune the "open strings" to a range beyond
> C1-C2-C3-C4-C5-C6 ... so the greatest uniform fret-correspondence
> distance i can get is 12 frets. when i use this "open string"
> tuning and map a 72-edo tuning table to the MIDI-notes, i
> get one complete octave of 72-edo, plus another 60 notes of
> the same 72-edo pitches on the 5 higher "strings", plus another
> 12 frets on the "lowest string" which i can use for anything
> i'd like. but for my purposes, i'm wasting almost half of
> the Ztar fretboard.
>
> i had also hoped to be able to map one octave of a
> 144-tone 5-limit JI lattice to the Ztar, but again, the
> fret-correspondence "feature" prohibits that.
>
>
> > Yes, I too recommend consulting Harvey Starr about this. He has
a
> > history of being very helpful and civil - if what you want isn't
> > implemented, he'll find a way to get it done.
>
>
> yes, actually, i know Harvey quite well and even worked
> in his shop a few years ago, doing some of the repair work
> on previously sold Microzone keyboards. i definitely should
> give him a call ... i'm so busy these days ...
>
>
>
> -monz

hi Harold,

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "harold_fortuin" <harold@m...>
wrote:

> I don't own this device, but given my experience setting
> up key-MIDI note correspondences with devices like my
> Clavette and Starr's Microzone, I would think there's
> some way to work around your problem.
>
> Couldn't you assign each "string" to a separate MIDI
> channel? This way, you should be able to set one string
> to say one 72-EDO register, and another to another.

yes, actually, the Ztar has a feature called "zones",
where any rectangular subset of the fretboard -- from
one button to the whole fretboard, and every rectangle
in between -- can bet set as a zone, on its own MIDI channel.

i just haven't had the time to really play around with
it as much as i want to ... i'm in the midst of converting
all 700+ webpages in the Tonalsoft Encyclopedia to our
new webpage format, and along with the rest of the company
am working hard to make sure that release 1.0 of Musica
comes out this summer.

i have my Ztar plugged into a Yamaha TX81z, which i did
indeed buy on Ebay. the TX81z has 768-edo resolution
(1.5625 cents), and allows each MIDI-note to be mapped
to any degree of 768-edo within a range of several octaves.

anyway, thanks for the helpful suggestions. i'm really
just too busy to mess around with it right now ... but
it will be fun making the Ztar and the TX interface with
Musica when the time comes for that.

PS -- belated congrats on your new family member!

-monz

Yes, "zones" are standard across many of the Starr controllers,
including the Microzone, and like you said, probably offer the
solution to your ZTar dilemma.

I'm glad you're gainfully employed in music & tuning-related endeavors
(not all of us can manage that!), and, like you, I wish I had more
time for my Starr device. I'm hoping that by the end of '05 I might
have a pitch label template generator program ready that works for the
Microzone, and possibly also for my Clavette, using Java (with Batik
open source Java libraries) to write SVG-XML , which can then be
easily converted into PDFs or JPEGs for viewing and/or printing. (And,
since it's in Java, it should run nicely on PCs, Macs, and Linux
boxes.) Of course, if I were paid for it, it could be ready sooner...

In the meantime, I work from home as a programming consultant on less
interesting stuff while helping my wife with our most remarkable
collaboration to date, Benjamin Lee Fortuin (hopefully one day a
generalized keyboardist too!)

I too have a TX81Z. When I'm ready to do more microtonal ensemble
performance I plan to loan it to a collaborator with say a MIDI wind
controller, or perhaps use it with other modules controlled from the
Microzone.

Let me know if you know how to create & dump ETs for the TX81Z from
Scala or some other software.

Your co-conspirator in the worldwide xenharmonic syndicate,
Harold
Boston, MA

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@t...> wrote:
>
> hi Harold,
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "harold_fortuin" <harold@m...>
> wrote:
>
> > I don't own this device, but given my experience setting
> > up key-MIDI note correspondences with devices like my
> > Clavette and Starr's Microzone, I would think there's
> > some way to work around your problem.
> >
> > Couldn't you assign each "string" to a separate MIDI
> > channel? This way, you should be able to set one string
> > to say one 72-EDO register, and another to another.
>
>
> yes, actually, the Ztar has a feature called "zones",
> where any rectangular subset of the fretboard -- from
> one button to the whole fretboard, and every rectangle
> in between -- can bet set as a zone, on its own MIDI channel.
>
> i just haven't had the time to really play around with
> it as much as i want to ... i'm in the midst of converting
> all 700+ webpages in the Tonalsoft Encyclopedia to our
> new webpage format, and along with the rest of the company
> am working hard to make sure that release 1.0 of Musica
> comes out this summer.
>
>
> i have my Ztar plugged into a Yamaha TX81z, which i did
> indeed buy on Ebay. the TX81z has 768-edo resolution
> (1.5625 cents), and allows each MIDI-note to be mapped
> to any degree of 768-edo within a range of several octaves.
>
> anyway, thanks for the helpful suggestions. i'm really
> just too busy to mess around with it right now ... but
> it will be fun making the Ztar and the TX interface with
> Musica when the time comes for that.
>
>
> PS -- belated congrats on your new family member!
>
>
>
> -monz

hi Harold,

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "harold_fortuin" <harold@m...>
wrote:

> I'm glad you're gainfully employed in music & tuning-related
> endeavors (not all of us can manage that!), and, like you,
> I wish I had more time for my Starr device.

well ... my employment is really not all that "gainful",
it just keeps me afloat, and it doesn't have anything to
do with tuning, aside from the occasional bit of tuning
theory and history that i can sneak into the music lessons
i'm teaching my students.

my other work, which is with Tonalsoft and which i what
i consider to be my really important work, has not yet
reached the status of "employment" ... i.e., my partner
and i are spending money and haven't received a penny
of income from it yet. but hopefully soon ...

> Let me know if you know how to create & dump ETs for
> the TX81Z from Scala or some other software.

not yet. i found a freeware TX81Z editor, and it does
allow the user to edit and dump tuning tables ... but
unfortunately, its default operation dumps a table as
soon as it's opened on the computer screen. it's easy
enough to change the default so that it doesn't do that,
but by the time i found out about it it was too late ...
it had already wiped out the 72-edo mapping which i had
slowly and painfully entered via the TX's front panel.
that pissed me off so much that i haven't looked at that
editor software since then, nor have i played my Ztar
since then.

i don't have a problem just putting the Ztar stuff on
the back burner for right now ... we at Tonalsoft are
determined to stick to our current release schedule
(the date has already been pushed back 3 times), so
work on that must progress. all of you microtonal/xenharmonic
brother and sisters will be happy about that decision.
:-)

-monz

monz wrote:

> no, not always the same fret. the "open strings" can be tuned
> independently, so you can set up any fret correspondence you
> like ... except the one i want, which would require each
> adjacent pair of "open strings" to be tuned 2 octaves apart.

I'm sure you can do this.

> i can't do this simply because the Ztar's front-panel controls
> will not allow me to tune the "open strings" to a range beyond
> C1-C2-C3-C4-C5-C6 ... so the greatest uniform fret-correspondence
> distance i can get is 12 frets. when i use this "open string"
> tuning and map a 72-edo tuning table to the MIDI-notes, i
> get one complete octave of 72-edo, plus another 60 notes of
> the same 72-edo pitches on the 5 higher "strings", plus another
> 12 frets on the "lowest string" which i can use for anything
> i'd like. but for my purposes, i'm wasting almost half of
> the Ztar fretboard.

I have a Z6 with the old software, but this looks familiar. It's also in a different continent, as I told you last night. But from what I remember, there's a transposition feature as well as the open string tunings. If you combine the two, you can get the full MIDI range. Perhaps you need zones for this.

> i had also hoped to be able to map one octave of a > 144-tone 5-limit JI lattice to the Ztar, but again, the > fret-correspondence "feature" prohibits that.

The 128 note MIDI limit prohibits that. You have to use multiple channels, which is easy for the ZTar. More of a challenge on the TZ81Z ... you can get some scales to work by transposing ... but it's easier to stick with the 128. Sequencers are a pig with either method. With a single channel, the notes jump all over place ... or maybe the Microsoft MIDI Mapper can fix this, if it's still around. With multiple channels, it's a pain to change them or draw in notes.

Rather than shelving your ZTar in favor of the software, I suggest you get something running on multiple channels for testing.

Oh yes, Kyma works fine for playing multiple channels, with the proviso that the polyphony has to be a multiple of the number of channels, which affects performance. I'm guessing CSound would be even better, but I'm not sure how the MIDI mapping works. Your software could translate to any real-time tuning method, of course, and so raise the MIDI tuning bar to 2048 notes.

Graham

hi Graham,

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <gbreed@g...>
wrote:

> monz wrote:
>
> > i had also hoped to be able to map one octave of a
> > 144-tone 5-limit JI lattice to the Ztar, but again, the
> > fret-correspondence "feature" prohibits that.
>
> The 128 note MIDI limit prohibits that.

duh ... right, of course. i meant a 128-note lattice.
which leaves 16 Ztar buttons for other things.

> Rather than shelving your ZTar in favor of the software,
> I suggest you get something running on multiple channels
> for testing.

it's not really that i'm "shelving the Ztar in favor of
the software" ... just that we are holding to our plans
for commercial release of the software by this summer,
and i don't have time to fool around with the Ztar.

i had programmed 72-edo into the TX81Z so that i could
at least play with the Ztar a bit, but when that editor
software zapped it, i just put the whole setup away for
awhile.

but we will be testing as much hardware as we can get
our hands on, with our software, and the Ztar will
certainly be a test instrument. we just have to get
the computer-only release 1.0 out the door.

-monz

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "harold_fortuin" <harold@m...> wrote:
>
> I don't own this device, but given my experience setting up key-MIDI
> note correspondences with devices like my Clavette and Starr's
> Microzone, I would think there's some way to work around your
> problem.

I'm curious what your Microzone experience has been like. Chris Mohr (in a
message on the tuning list) said it was great for exploration but not so great for
performance.

Thanks for any info,

E

much is covered by
http://anaphoria.com/key.PDF
all being derived from page 13 of
http://anaphoria.com/tres.PDF
--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles