Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup mills-tuning-list Broadcasting of Royaumont Concert

Here's a forward of an earlier evaluation from Brian McLaren. I suppose it's
worth pointing out though, that many people took exception to some of his
evaluations. But as I recall, most of those were a result of misunderstanding
his premise, which if memory serves, he did in fact clearly state at the
beginning. That premise was that he was speaking of 100%, completely,
unlimitedly retunable instruments, meaning that each key may be tuned to any
pitch whatsoever, without any regard whatsoever to how any other key is tuned.

Most of the objections I recall were things like, "that's not true; my ___
allows retunability", but when you look into it more closely, it has a
limitation like the tables having to be 12-tone, or have to repeat in octaves.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the few disadvantages of a thread as
active as this tuning forum is the fact that
many new subscribers are constantly coming
on line and asking questions answered
in posts 6 or 10 months back.
There seems to be continuing confusion about
which synths are microtonal & which aren't. Also
about which manufacturers support non-12, and
to what extent.
Here's a recap:
-------------------------------------------------
First, the manufacturers. Yamaha, Waldorf, E-Mu
(in its line of stand-alone sound modules) and Ensoniq are
firmly dedicated to supporting microtonality on their
synths.
Akai, Peavey , Roland and Kawai, on the other hand, are
implacably hostile to microtonality. These companies
have never manufactured a synth that can be detuned.
They'd be delighted if everyone on this tuning forum
died of Ebola virus. These companies are ruthlessly
dedicated to preventing anyone, anywhere from breaking
out of the twelve-tone equal tempered scale.
Oberheim, Kurzweil and Korg are sitting on the fence. Some of
their synths support non-12, some don't. Kurzweil and
Korg both build synths that allow all 12 notes per octave
to be retuned--but ONLY 12 notes at a time, and ONLY
within the octave.
----------------------------------------------------
The companies can be broken down into:
GOOD GUYS BAD GUYS FENCE-SITTERS
Yamaha Kawai Oberheim
Ensoniq Akai Korg
Waldorf Peavey Kurzweil
E-Mu Alesis
Roland

This is important to those of you who want to compose
non-12 music. If you buy the wrong synth, you're stuck.
And I mean *stuck.* There's just no way to get out of 12
without adding a pitch-bend to each and every note--a
process of which you will tire very VERY quickly.
Pitch bends also destroy the attack of percussive timbres.
This is *not* subtle. A piece composed by a member of
this forum using pitch-bends for retuning has prompted
the question from everyone who's heard it: "What's wrong
with the weird sliding attacks on those notes?"
Plus pich-bends clog MIDI's datastream, especially in fast music.
If you're thinking of composing in non-12, best to pick
up a synth by Yamaha, Ensoniq, Waldorf, Oberheim or E-Mu.
Avoid synths by Peavey, Akai, Kawai, Alesis, Roland or Korg.
-----------------------------------------------------
Second:
A lot of people are confused about what "retunable" means.
By retunable, I mean that any key on the synth can be tuned
to any pitch desired. So middle C can sound A0, 27.5 Hz, or
it can sound A8. The keyboard can be turned upside-down,
tuned to a just scale, an equal-tempered scale, a non-just
non-equal-tempered scale, a non-octave scale, or anything
at all.
Any other synth is *not* retunable. It may allow you to
tweak a few notes, or mess with pitch-bend, but sooner
or later you'll get frustrated. Sooner or later a synth
without full keyboard retuning will *PREVENT* you from
producing the pitches you want to hear.
Only a few synths are retunable. They have what are called
pitch tables. A pitch table is a set of 128 memory locations
that contain the note number and a pitch. By setting each of
the 128 internal memory locations to any pitch, you can get
any tuning desired.
Tuning accuracy is usually not nearly as important as full-
keyboard retunability. Very few people will notice the
difference between a tuning resolution of 768 parts per
octave and a resolution of 1024 parts per octave... But
everyone with ears instantly hears the difference between a
synth which only allows 12 notes of 19 and a synth that
allows ALL 19 NOTES of 19.
A few synths even allow more than 1 tuning table. The
advantage of these is that they permit just intonation
composers to modulate quickly and easily between
different just arrays. If you're a JI composer, this is no
trivial matter! In fact it may well prove the most
important decision you make when choosing a synth
to compose with.
So JI fans, pay special attention to the section
marked MULTIPLE TUNING TABLES below.
------------------------------------------------
Here in detail are the models (by manufacturer) :

ENSONIQ
Mirage - Full keyboard, 256 parts per octave or
4096/octave by entering all 60 notes
Requires Dick Lord's UPWARD CONCEPTS
alternative operating system disk or
Buzz Kimball's alternative OS disk.
ESQ-1, ESQ-M, SQ-80 - Only retunable within 12 notes
per octave. Details published in a 1986
KEYBOARD magazine article.
VFX, VFX- SQ, TS-10 - Full keyboard, 768 parts per octave.
EPS, EPS-16+, ASR-10 - Full keyboard, 768 parts
per octave. Tuning is stored on disk along
with the sound sample.
SQ-1, SQ-1R - NOT RETUNABLE!
Also, none of Ensoniq's dedicated piano modules are
retunable.

KURZWEIL
Only one of their modules or synths built before the
company was sold to Young Chang is retunable.
K-150, K-1000 - Only within 12 notes per octave.
K-2000, K-2000S - Only within 12 notes per octave

ROLAND
None of this company's synths can be retuned in
any way, shape or form

ALESIS
Quadrasynth - NOT RETUNABLE!

YAMAHA
FB-01 - Retunable ONLY by sending each note-on
as a sys-ex message. Only Larry
Polansky's HMSL currently supports
retuning on this synth. The advantage,
however, is that (unlike any other synth
on this list) you get a FULL 10 OCTAVES
of notes in any scale you want, 768/oct
resolution.
TX81Z, DX11 - Full keyboard retuning, 768/oct.
DX7 with E! - Full keyboard retuning, 1024/oct.
TX7 - NOT RETUNABLE!
TX816 - NOT RETUNABLE!
DX7II, TX802 - Full keyboard retuning, 1024 /oct
SY-22, TG-55 - NOT RETUNABLE!
TG-77, SY-77, SY-99 - Full keyboard retuning, 1024/oct.
>>>>> IMPORTANT! No Yamaha sampler can be retuned. <<<<<
VL-1, VL-1M - Full keyboard retuning, 1024/oct.

OBERHEIM
Their latest (1993) rack-mount synth apparently allows
+ and - 50 cents retunability for each of the
12 notes in the octave. No more than 12 retuned
notes per octave are allowed.

E-MU
Proteus I, Proteus XL - Full keyboard retuning, 768/oct.
Ultraproteus -- full retuning, 768/oct.
Proteus II, Proteus IIXL - Full keyboard retuning, 768/oct.
Proteus III World - Full keyboard retuning, 768/oct.
Proteus FX - Full keyboard retuning, 768/oct
Proteus Classic Keys - Full keyboard retuning, 768/oct.
Morpheus - Full keyboard retuning, 768/oct
Proformance, Proformance Plus - NOT RETUNABLE!
Emax, Emax II, ESi, Emulator II, Emulator III - NOT RETUNABLE!
No E-Mu samplers can be retuned without "tricking"
the operating system by detuning each note and
storing it as a separate sample, etc. (At best the
results from detuning E-Mu and Yamaha and Akai
and Kawai samplers are poor and it gobbles RAM
like you wouldn't believe.)

KORG
T-1, T-2, T3 - Retunable only within12 notes per octave
Wavestation - Retunable only within 12 notes per octave
O1/W, O1/W Pro - Retunable only 12 notes per octave
X20, X30, X50 - NOT RETUNABLE!
X5, i4, i4S - Retunable only within 12 notes per octave

KAWAI
None of this company's synths can be retuned in any
way, shape or form.

AKAI
None of this company's synths can be retuned in any
way, shape or form.

WALDORF
MicroWave - Full keyboard retuning, 768/oct.
Wave - Full keyboard retuning, 768/oct.

PEAVEY
None of this company's synths can be retuned in
any way, shape or form.
------------------------------------------
MULTIPLE TUNING TABLES:

COMPANY SYNTH # OF TUNING TABLES
Yamaha TX802 8
Ensoniq VFX, TS-10 12
Ensoniq EPS, EPS-16+,
ASR-10 8
Ensoniq ESQ1, ESQ-M,
SQ-80 8 (only within
12 notes per octave)
This means that the TX802 can support up to
8 different full-keyboard tunings at once;
likewise the VFX & TS-10 can support up to
12 different full-keyboard tunings at once, etc.
The ESQ-1, ESQ-M and SQ-80 are special cases.
These synths don't have tuning tables; you retune
by using the MOD operators in each voice to
modulate notes/octave. It works, but it's
a godawful kludge.
One addendum to the above table: observant
readers will have noticed that the info for
Ensoniq samplers is not quite accurate. Since
a tuning is stored with the layer to which a
sample is assigned, and since Ensoniq samplers
can use up to 8 different layers within each
channel, there is a theoretical maximum of
64 different tuning tables possible on an
Ensoniq EPS, EPS-16+, or ASR-10. In practice
memory runs out long before the 64-layer
limit is reached, however.
-------------------------------------
Third (and last):
Here's a very quick overview:

ONLY 1 COMPANY MAKES A FULL-KEYBOARD
RETUNABLE SAMPLER: ENSONIQ
If you want to compose or perform using
a sampler in non-12, you have ONLY 3 CHOICES:
The ASR-10, a used EPS-16+ or a used EPS. NO
OTHER SAMPLER ON THE PLANET HAS A
TUNING TABLE!

>>>>>> IMPORTANT! IMPORTANT! <<<<<<<
The only synths recommended for
those who want to compose or perform
in non-12 are:

Yamaha DX7 w/E!, DX7II, TX802, TG-77,
TX81Z, FB-01, SY-77, SY-99, VL-1, VL-1M
Ensoniq VFX, VFX-SQ, TS-10
Waldorf MicroWave, Wave
E-MU Proteus I, Proteus II, Proteus III,
Morpheus, Classic Keys, Proteus FX,
Ultraproteus

Time and time again, I've seen people
buy a synth *not* on this list. Time and time
again, they get interested in microtonality...
and discover their synth is *locked into 12*,
or locked into only 12 notes out 19, or 12
notes out of 31, or 12 harmonic series pitches,
or 12 notes out of Harry Partch's 43...
The frustration and rage and hair-pulling
frenzy this produces cannot be adequately
described. It's unbelievably maddening to
discover that your shiny new $3000 synth
*CANNOT* produce the pitches you want to
hear.
So those interested in composition or performance
in non-12 would do well to choose wisely (as
the knight in "Indiana Jones and the Quest for
the Holy Grail" put it) and pick one of the
synths on the RECOMMENDED list. Otherwise,
dollars to doughnuts, you are going to let
yourself in for a whole *world* of frustration.

IMPORTANT: IF YOU LIKE A PARTICULAR SYNTH
BUT ARE BUGGED THAT THE MANUFACTURER
DOESN'T OFFER RETUNABILITY, WRITE A LETTER
TO THE MANUFACTURER. ENOUGH LETTERS AND
THEY WILL GET THE MESSAGE!
--mclaren

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Broadcasting of Royaumont Concert

🔗Franck Jedrzejewski <franck@...>

🔗Gary Morrison <71670.2576@...>