MTS, tone deaf

I'm replying to two items in the digest at once here- sorry for the sudden
topic shifts.

>From: non12@delta1.deltanet.com (John Chalmers)
>I just got a letter from Erv Wilson who has a question about
>the new Ensoniq MR-Rack. Does it really support the new MIDI
>Tuning Standard? Erv can easily hear a 2 cent interval and finds the
>current 1024 and 728 tone/octave M(pitch resolutions far too coarse
>for his work.
>
>For my own information, is the new MIDI Tuning Standard really
>196,608 tones (1/(3x2^16)) per octave?

The MR certainly supports MTS, both tuning dump and note change. MTS does
specify a 21-bit tuning code, which I think comes out to the number above.
However, the fine print states that synth manufacturers don't have to live
up to that in their hardware- in fact most interpolating oscillator chips
can't resolve more than 2048 divisions of the octave. Physical modelling
and other DSP-oriented techniques may do better. The ASR-10 has a
resolution of 728 tones/octave and the MR-Rack doubles that with 1024.

For JI on current hardware what's really required are techniques such as
Marion McCoskey's, in which interpolation parameters are combined with
sample loop lengths to get beatless, essentially infinite resolution. MTS
doesn't really tell you what ratio a given frequency is supposed to be- any
ideas out there on an extention? Maybe the frequency triplet could be
interpreted as octave, numerator, denominator?

>From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@compuserve.com>
>Subject: Amusing Quote
> I can't recall which, but one of the generals of the American Civil War
>readily admited that he was utterly and completely tonedeaf. He was quoted as
>saying that he recognized only two tunes: One of them was Yankee Doodle, and
>the other, he said, was not.
> Sorry, I'm off the subject, but I thought that quote amusing. I've met
a few
>people like that!

The members of the Residents also claim to be tone deaf. Make of this what
you will- it may have influenced their (what I consider to be) very
interesting music!

Steve Curtin
Ensoniq Corp


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