TUNING digest 872

tuning@eartha.mills.edu,Internet writes:
Topic No. 10

Dear Denis,

I was glad to hear that the Kurzweil 2000 is totally retunable. I would
like to ask you another few questions about the tuning:

1) Can you tune the samples?

2) What the tuning precission?

3) How many midi chanels has it got? and do you know if they can be tuned to
different tunings or the tuning applies to all the chanels at the time?

**********************For Everybody:

Dear Tuners

Does any of you know a keyboard that has 16 or 32 midi chanels that
can be retuned independently, wether with the internal sounds or with your
own samples ???

Tony Salinas

1) Samples can be tuned by keymaps so that each key has its own unlimited
microtonal scale with any number of notes per octave. This is more tedious
than the global intonation tables because you have to create a keymap for
each tuning and instrument. You can store up to 999 keymaps and instruments
in a K2000/K2500.

You can also retune any instrument using the intonation table. These tables
are limited to 12 note per octave scales. Note however that the tonic itself
can be retuned, making just key modulations possible by selecting a new
scale. Instruments will not glitch or turn off when a new intonation table
is selected. The intonation table is effective globally to all instruments
and MIDI channels. Currently, only new notes will be affected by an
intonation table change, not sustaining notes. You could not use keymap
tunings and intonation table tunings realistically at the same time. You can
store up to 255 intonation tables in a K2000/K2500.

2) The tuning precision is currently limited by software to 1 cent. It is
closer to 1/20th of a cent in the hardware in most situations. Transposing a
sample downwards 4-5 octaves or more reduces the tuning accuracy.

3) The K2000/K2500 have 16 MIDI channels. Intonation tables apply to all the
channels at the same time. Keymap tunings apply only to individual
instruments.

4) The Ensoniq EPS/EPS-16+/ASR-10 and Kurzweil K2000/K2500 are the only
full-fledged samplers that allow user friendly retuning. Using an E-mu
sampler, for instance, requires creating a sample range for each key and
retuning each sample for the individual notes. Very tedious. The
EPS/EPS-16+/ASR-10 have no internal sounds, unless you count the Flash ROM
option for the EPS-16 + (up to 1Mbyte). The Ensoniqs have 16 MIDI channels
but since you can load only 8 instruments at a time you are realistically
limited to 8 channels. The Ensoniqs have an unlimited tuning range per
instrument, not limited to 12 note octaves or to the system or MIDI channel.
There are 8 pitch tables available per instrument, however, the sysex codes
to access them never worked so you're limited to 4 different pitch tables per
instrument by using the patch select buttons.

There may be a few obsolete (Yamaha, Peavey, etc.) and current (General
Music?) synthesizers with microtonal capabilities and small RAM options,
probably 2 Mbyte or less. Back issues of Keyboard Annual Synth/Sampler
reports are good for this type of information (sorry, I can't access them at
the moment).

John Loffink
Senior Hardware Engineer
Young Chang Research & Development Institute
(Kurzweil Music Systems)












Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 23:44 +0200
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA32042; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 23:46:10 +0200
Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA30497
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id OAA15514; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 14:46:06 -0700
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 14:46:06 -0700
Message-Id: <199610251744_MC1-B40-FE27@compuserve.com>
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu

Re: ratios as notation

It doesn't work unless the player has already translated the values into
cents or at the very least, had frequent previous performance.

If notation is required, nothing beats cents for clarity and ease.
Hearing the interval "sensibly" is surely as important as quick
determination of accurate notation intellectually.

Johnny Reinhard
American Festival of Microtonal Music
318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW
New York, New York 10021 USA
(212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495
reinhard@ios.com


Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 26 Oct 1996 03:57 +0200
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA32467; Sat, 26 Oct 1996 03:59:50 +0200
Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA26747
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id SAA23846; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 18:59:48 -0700
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 18:59:48 -0700
Message-Id:
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu