Blueprint for World Domination

What with all the theoretical stuff I've been putting up here
lately, some of you may like to know what it's all working
towards. As well as dabbling with theory and composition,
I'm working on various pieces of software that could be of use
to the microtuning community . . .

Firstly, I've got a Windows program that can relay notes from
a keyboard to a synth module, adding pitch bends to produce
the desired scale. I've also got a program that can convert
from my own 31tet files into standard MIDI files. I plan to
add a GUI to this, so that normal people can use it, and
generalise it to work with any scales. Plus I've got a MIDI
to MIDI file convertor. All these can/will work with the
same tuning files.

When I get around to writing the routines for editing tunings,
they will be based on my matrix ideas. Each note will be
specified as a number of steps on the chosen basis -- which
could be tones and semitones, ratio space axes, or an
orthonormal basis defined on either. This is the simplest
way I can think of of getting just or tempered scales into the
computer. As much of the maths as possible will be hidden
from the user.

As there doesn't seem to be a standard way of notating note
matrices, I'll use my own H notation.

The editing program will be able to work out the note name
from its definition. This will be more useful if I can get
it to work with a staff view, but that sounds difficult.
I also plan to add functionality for real-time retuning.
This means, firstly, that the computer will need to have a
dissonance function to minimise. Secondly, there will have
to be a facility for retuning a scale. A 2-D scale
approximating a 4-D scale can be defined by 2 intervals and
2 commas -- that is, intervals equal to a unison in this
scale. You can then define the scale in terms of these
intervals, and allow the computer to add or subtract a specific
number of commas to get the tuning right. All this can be
put in the tuning files.

This general method includes meantone scales as a subset. I'll
add routines for generating these with minimum fuss. Scales
can also be defined in terms of millioctaves/c*nts/etc, with
note names also specified in the tuning file, but these scales
will not work with the automatic retuning functions.

That's my plan, then. I'm not making much progress at the
moment, partly because I'm far more interested in the theory.
I'll get back to it before long, though, and most of the stuff
I'm thinking about will be shockingly relevant.



SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: Denis.Atadan@mvs.udel.edu
Subject: More Tape Swap Stuff
PostedDate: 27-07-97 20:55:29
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