DIY microtonal instrument

Hello,

I have in mind a small project to make a keyboard instrument that will allow me to switch tunings on the fly.

I'm an Indian classical singer and teacher and I need to do this using sounds of instruments that are conventionally used in our music, which means finding good quality samples, which should not be a problem, hopefully.

I've already done this by connecting a simple MIDI controller keyboard to my mac, creating a new exs24 instrument with custom samples, and manipulating the tunings in logic, but I would rather not have a laptop on stage or in the classroom. I've decided to take this up seriously and DIY a self-contained instrument capable of playing samples, with the ability to manipulate tunings.

The design I have in mind is a simple midi controller keyboard - something as simple as the Korg microKey http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/microKEY37
connected to a DIY hardware sampler such as the samplerbox http://www.samplerbox.org/.

Where I'm stuck, is modifying the samplerbox code to accept .scl or .tun tuning files; and give me the option to switch between them. The code is in python, and while I have some experience with programming, I'm a beginner at best, but I'm willing to learn. The thing is, I'm not sure whether or not what I'm trying to accomplish is possible at all.

Does this sound like a workable idea? Or does someone have a better way to accomplish this?
I'm willing to put in the time and the energy to make this if I could get some help.

Thank you!

On 27/06/15 17:07, srijand@... [TUNING] wrote:

> The design I have in mind is a simple midi controller keyboard - something as simple as the Korg microKey http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/microKEY37
> connected to a DIY hardware sampler such as the samplerbox http://www.samplerbox.org/.
>
>
> Where I'm stuck, is modifying the samplerbox code to accept .scl or .tun tuning files; and give me the option to switch between them. The code is in python, and while I have some experience with programming, I'm a beginner at best, but I'm willing to learn. The thing is, I'm not sure whether or not what I'm trying to accomplish is possible at all.
>
>
> Does this sound like a workable idea? Or does someone have a better way to accomplish this?
> I'm willing to put in the time and the energy to make this if I could get some help.

I looked at the samplerbox code when it was mentioned in another place. I don't think it will work for this at all. It doesn't seem to have any tuning support. You could give it a set pre-tuned to the scale you're using, but that wouldn't be easy to switch tunings on.

However, Timidity should work fine on the same Raspberry Pi hardware. That's a SoundFont player with full tuning support. You can make a SoundFont with the samples you want.

Graham

On 28 June 2015 at 02:07, srijand@... [TUNING]
<TUNING@...m> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hello,
>
>
> I have in mind a small project to make a keyboard instrument that will allow me to switch tunings on the fly.
>
>
> I'm an Indian classical singer and teacher and I need to do this using sounds of instruments that are conventionally used in our music, which means finding good quality samples, which should not be a problem, hopefully.
>
>
> I've already done this by connecting a simple MIDI controller keyboard to my mac, creating a new exs24 instrument with custom samples, and manipulating the tunings in logic, but I would rather not have a laptop on stage or in the classroom. I've decided to take this up seriously and DIY a self-contained instrument capable of playing samples, with the ability to manipulate tunings.
>
>
> The design I have in mind is a simple midi controller keyboard - something as simple as the Korg microKey
>
> connected to a DIY hardware sampler such as the samplerbox.
>
>
> Where I'm stuck, is modifying the samplerbox code to accept .scl or .tun tuning files; and give me the option to switch between them. The code is in python, and while I have some experience with programming, I'm a beginner at best, but I'm willing to learn. The thing is, I'm not sure whether or not what I'm trying to accomplish is possible at all.
>
>
> Does this sound like a workable idea? Or does someone have a better way to accomplish this?
>
> I'm willing to put in the time and the energy to make this if I could get some help.
>
>
> Thank you!
>
>
>

My idea, which I’m never going to have time to implement, is a
Raspberry Pi with MIDI input and output that you can connect (both
ways) to any electronic keyboard with MIDI. It would operate as a
"Black Box", hopefully turning Local Off via MIDI, and being
controlled via special (unusual) note combinations. The user guide
could then be entirely in musician-friendly musical notation.

Vaughan