RE: TUNING digest 1444

>> >I'm having difficulty imagining an ET like this--can you give me an
>> >example of such an ET, and then I'll try Fokker's method on it?
>
>> In all the cases you've mentioned so far, it is the case that the ETs
>> have no better approximations to the just intervals than the ones
>> represented by one step along the axes.

>No, I meant can you give me an example of an ET which _does_ have a
>better approximation.

I would guess that 24tET would be a good example, since its best
approximations of 3 and 5 coincide with those of 12tET, so the only way
to generate it with Fokker's method would be to choose some rather large
"comma" to vanish. For example, if the chromatic semitone vanishes, then
(1 -2) is a unison vector, and then if the Pythagorean comma vanishes as
well, (12 0) is a unison vector, and the determinant is
(1*0)-(-2*12)=24. The 5 axis is then represented by 7deg24, while 8deg24
is of course a better approximation.

>>... but Gary was more interested in the FM synthesis
>>side, which uses oscillators (sine wave and variants) as raw material
>>for cooking up much more complex sounds.

I'm somewhat interested in FM, yes. The idea of resonant filters
sweeping through nonharmonic partials strikes me as interesting to explore.
But FM in particular isn't a major goal in itself.

What I'm more specifically interested in is more abstract sorts of
sounds. I've mostly been working with simulations of traditional
instruments. I'm interested in composing music approximately in the
stylistic vein of W. Carlos' "Timesteps" or "Geodesic Dance".

That not in the sense of "knocking off" those particular compositions,
or regenerating the particular synthetic sounds used in them. But more
generally speaking, I'm interested in a synthesizer for music of more or
less that general sort of genre:
1. Abstact, nonacoustic timbres - not imitating anything in particular, or
often not even particularly reminiscent of anything immediately
recognizable.
2. Although timbres are nonorchestral, the texture and drama of the music IS
nevertheless typical of orchestral music.
3. Not spacey in the New-Age sense of the word; it expresses fairly concisely
a very specific musical point.
4. Nontraditional to semitraditional form, sometimes a bit programmatic in
nature.
5. No underlying "beat", unlike much of Jean-Michel Jarre's music which usually
has a steady, quasi-jazz-rockish beat. (Not that there's anything wrong
with that pe se, but that's just not what I'm interested in composing for
now).
6. Not serial nor minimalistic.

Do you folks suppose that a TG77 would be appropriate for that sort of thing?

By the way, I'm assuming that the TG77 is multitimbral; is that
correct? By "multitimbral", I mean able to play in more than one timbre at
a time, typically one per MIDI channel.

John (Loffink), that might be a useful column to add to your web page.
A fair number of synthesizers are not multitimbral, and I suspect that
people would like to know that.