Wishlist, TG77, Resolution, Commas

DFinnamore wrote:

> (BTW, if you have access to a Mac and haven't yet gotten the JICalc, do it
> now!)

No Mac, I'm afraid. Is there a PC equivalent?

Drew wrote:

>> Hate to be a wet blanket, but how many commercial synth co.s do
>>you think are actually ever going to implement realistic
>> microtuning capabilities ?

Totally agreed with John Loffink's reply to this - there has been
progress, and there will be more.

Carter Scholz wrote:

>Talking to programmers is far more likely to be productive than
>talking to executives or marketing types.

Exactly. And we need to talk to _both_. Anyone on good terms with a
programmer at Roland?

Drew wrote:

>Another way is using samplers. You can use a software synthesis
>system like Csound, CLM,etc.,etc. to synthesize a whole bunch of
>samples at any pitch you want, perfectly tuned. Then if you can
>figure out a way to get them into a sampler ASAP with little pain and
>time ( and have the RAM for it), you're done.

Lets get _rid_ of the pain.

> It would take mucho
>RAM, @ 100Kb for ea. mono sample @ one second long. I don't think
>looping all those samples to conserve memory is a good way to keep
>sane. Besides, I think David First said something important about the
>nitty gritty of the looping process. If you need to set up all 128
>MIDI notes, that's 100Kb * 128= @12.5MB per "instrument",per layer
>(if you need velocity switching samples,etc). It would take one of
>those 128MB samplers to pull it off.

I'm not sure I undertood this correctly, or whether it's
(remotely?) true for all samplers.

John Loffink wrote:

>I feel the wish list is still in a somewhat formative stage so I'd
>prefer to wait before [referring to wishlist URL in ltter to
Roland]. .

OK.

>Is there a citeable reference that gives pitch discrimination in
>terms of harmonic context? I know list members have done these
>experiments, but have the results ever been published anywhere that
>carries the weight of a JASA paper?

Good point. I'll start looking. Anybody have JASA on CD-ROM?

I wrote:

> >Will the Ensoniq extrapolate an arbitrary-number-division
> >*non-equally- tempered* non-octave scale?

Gary replied:

> Yes. You describe any sequence of intervals between any group of keys,
> and it will duplicate that sequence of intervals across successive keys.

(example snipped)

Thanks for the example - perfectly clear.

Gary again:

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

Gary, this won't answer you question, but maybe its of use.

When I first looking to put my studio together (1989-91) the TG77 was
at one time top of my list. In the end, I didn't buy it because I
was interested almost entirely in simulating acoustic instrs in
microtones, and for what I wanted the S770/ S750 blew the TG out of
the water. The other drawback I found with the TG was that sounds on
their own were fine, but when mixed together they never seemed to
retain individuality (even through a desk etc). But I never owned
the TG. A while later (1992?) an electroacoustic composer friend
bought a K2000 - which is hugely more powerful and sonically superior
to the TG. To my ear the K2000 still didn't match the Roland in sheer
audio quality, but its programmability is indeed VAST. Of course
there's major differences in price between these beasts (the TG
should be dirt cheap now(?) while a s/h K2000 may still be pricey).

Gary again:

>To me personally, entirely new harmonic resources and melodic scale
>structures are more interesting than one- to five-cent distinctions
>of the temperament of a well-known scale structure.

I agree with this, but I would still like (ideally) to see a better
resolution than 1 cent. 0.1 cents seems ideal, although (a) I can
understand others wanting better resolution (b) I can understand
others being perfectly content with 2 cent resolution. My guess is we
need to strike a realistic compromise. Personally, I think that
compromise ought to be something in the region of 0.5 to 0.1 cents.

Commas:

I wrote (re syntonic comma):

> I have always assumed it could [function effectively, ie go
> unnoticed' at no
>more than] more than about 21-24 cents.

>Paul Hahn wrote:

> In addition to the 81/80, in traditional 12TET the 128/125 of ca. 41
> cents also vanishes. Moreover, their combination, the 648/625, of
> over 62 cents, even vanishes. This comma is exploited each time
> someone uses a diminished 7th chord in 12TET.

Yes, of course, there are those commas too. (I did mean the
syntonic comma). But maybe that begs the question.

Paul Erlich wrote:

>Barbershop harmony seems to be able to take the septimal comma,
>which would be 27 cents in just intonation, and by adjusting the
>(harmonic and/or melodic) intervals in the comma's context, and/or
>shrinking the comma itself, make it an effective "performance
>comma".

Interesting, thanks.

>>It occurred to
>>me, as both Pauls reactions seem to confirm, that the ancient
>>notion of a 'comma' is (kind of) the original root of the idea of
>>consistency.

>I don't see it.

Paul, I'll send you some stuff on consistency shortly (too long for
the list) which will answer your questions. I only meant (above)
that consistency of ETs is based on comparing combinations of nearest
approximations to JI intervals in n-ET to the nearest approximation
of its JI combinatory eqivalent. The 'construction' of a comma has
some similarity: eg., whether the combinations of 3 5/4s are
equlvalent to an octave (etc). But, obviously, there's more than
this in consistency.

>and I wonder if Paul would give us a couple of examples of what he
>means?

>For the syntonic comma, calculate the difference between four 3/2s
>up and a 5/4 down. If the tuning is 5-limit consistent, then this
>will be the same as the (absolute) difference between three 3/2s up
>and a 5/3 down. In 19-tone equal temperament, four 3/2s up is 6
>steps (neglecting octaves), and that is the 5/4, so the comma is 0
>steps. In 22-tone equal temperament, four 3/2s up is 8 steps, but
>the 5/4 is 7 steps, hence the comma is 1 step.

Great, that's perfectly clear. Thanks.

Patrick O-L

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End of TUNING Digest 1448
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