[tuning]shopping for synths

I am looking around for a software or hardware synth or sampler. I've checked
out Csound and the Gigastudio so far. I'm looking for the best possible sampler
in terms of quality first of all. The Gigastudio looks like the best sampler
over all. I just don't know if it has microtonal features. The Csound sounds
like a dream machine. I wonder how the samples are.

Which brings me to my question; what are the best microtonal samplers and
synths (hardware or software) around?

Also, I'm planning to automate whichever software synth I buy with a macro
program. I'm using Macro Express 2000 for now. Are there any better ones?

Thanks.

http://home.earthlink.net/~troubledoor

symmetric keyboard:
http://x31eq.com/instrum.htm

>Which brings me to my question; what are the best microtonal samplers and
>synths (hardware or software) around?

On the software side, CSound is of course incredibly powerful
but rather difficult for some people to use. The price is very nice.
I use it for some experiments that won't fit nicely onto a standard
MIDI keyboard.

For everything else I use Reaktor, which is certainly
retunable in various ways. It can be used as either a synth or a
sampler. It is basically a software model of a modular synth which
happens to have modules for sampling and granular synthesis
techniques. See http://www.native-instruments.de for some more
detail. While you cannot see the modules, when you go to the User
area and look at the library you will see that several microntonal
modules have been created. As for sound, you can see my song
"Arimoune" at http://www.mp3.com/inorganicname. That's the last song
I did and uses Reaktor for everything but the drums. Many like the
noises, if not the song itself. :) None of the music there uses
alternate tunings yet. Give me about two months and I hope to have
the results of songs currently in progress there, in various tunings,
primarily 7- and 11-limit JI.

--
wm

as far as software synthesis and sampling goes, i gotta put in the good
word for my favorite -- max + msp. this program is much like csound,
except with a graphical interface (much more intuitive for me), and
realtime-oriented (and not free...). csound has a bazillion opcodes,
and the kitchen sink, but i think max is a better and more sophisticated
programming language. max is more or less an object oriented language,
while csound seems barely a language at all!

and like csound, max is very nuts and bolts --
meaning, you can do just about anything you want, but it might take some work.
msp is the expansion that does digital audio (as opposed to midi).
microtonal work is no problem -- msp does not have any particular tuning
built-in, except a couple of objects that can convert midi note-numbers
to frequency in hertz. you can do anything you want, microtonally, so long
as you are willing to build the system yourself.

max/msp has all the sound synthesis and sampling "primitives" needed
to implement just about any technique i've heard of. it has, more or
less, everything csound has. i've been using both, and my ideas
translate pretty easily from one to the other. since max works in
realtime, i use csound when i want to do something beyond the capabilities
of my computer. but i try not to do that because max has (for me) a much
faster "turnaround" time for getting a project up and running. and i
find testing and debugging much easier in max. currently, max is only
available for macintosh, but they've been working on the pc port, and
claim it will be out "before the end of the year".
("they" are www.cycling74.com)

i haven't used gigasampler, but unless i'm mistaken, it's in a very
different class of programs. max and csound are programming languages
for sound, while gigasampler is "just" a sampler -- no programming.
as far as software samplers goes, it looks pretty good. one could
write a program in max that does the same thing -- plays samples from
file instead of RAM -- but you'd have to code it yourself. so it
depends on what your priorities and interests are. hmm, i'm looking
at the gigasampler page now, and i don't see anything about microtonal
tuning..

lately i've been building a modular "workspace" in max in which i can
call up instances of other programs i've made (modules) that do synthesis,
sampling, processing, mixing, etc. just this afternoon, i've been working
on a sample "scrambler". you load a soundfile, enter some parameters,
and press the *scramble* button. the sample is cut into a number of
slices. pairs of slices might end up swapped in position, some end up
reversed, muted, skipping, etc -- all in realtime. the idea is to use this
on drumloops.. or anything rhythmic and repeating. this kind of sample
manipulation is pretty straightforward, once you learn the language.
playback of samples in non-standard tunings is straightforward.

on my list of things to do is something microtonal-oriented. i'm saving
that until *after* i have enough sound generating modules. i'd like to
write a little program that can load tuning information from Scala files.
once the files are loaded, the user could select tunings from a menu
and play them via a midi keyboard, or a midi-file, or (my main goal),
max programs that generate streams of note events algorithmically.
such an algorithmic note-generator could be made intelligent enough to
understand the features of the particular tuning being used. another
obvious possibility is switching between tunings on-the-fly, or perhaps
"morphing" from one tuning to another. all of this will take some time
and work, but i don't foresee any major problems.

anyway, for microtonal work (and any other kind of computer music for
that matter), there's nothing i like more. that's my plug. :)

pfly

--
P a u l F l y
http://www.neuron.net/~pfly

> Which brings me to my question; what are the best microtonal
samplers and
> synths (hardware or software) around?

Check out the Microtonal Synthesis page:

http://home.att.net/~microtonal/

The Bitheadz products (Unity and Retro AS-1) are not listed there
(yet, I guess) but they are microtunable with 1 cent resolution.

I also recall from an older post that was reposted here that Rolands
and Kawais have zero microtonal support, Yamaha and Korg are on the
fence (some of their products are microtunable, others are not),
Kurzweil only allows equal temperament tunings, and Emu and Waldorf
have a good track record in producing microtunable synths.

OTOH, my Roland Handsonic (electronic hand percussion controller with
built-in sound engine) apparently has microtuning capabilities, but I
need to research it - I just bought it a few days ago. Also, some of
the newer Edirol Sound Canvases claim to have JI and other microtonal
scales.

Paolo

Paul,

Thanks for that review of Max - I've been really curious about this
myself (it was in reviewed in Keyboard recently). Unfortunately, I'm
in the PC world. I must wait I suppose.

I just want to say to you that your art work is absoulutely AMAZING!!!
This is some of the most beautiful image work I have seen done in
Illustrator. Do you use "KPT Vector Effects"? I use this program too,
but I must bow to you - the Master!!!

Keep up the good work.

Jacky Ligon

--- In tuning@egroups.com, Paul Fly <pfly@n...> wrote:
> as far as software synthesis and sampling goes, i gotta put in the
good
> word for my favorite -- max + msp.

I use Reaktor,VMCI,Csound,Vaz Modular etc... for soft synths
Let us not forget PD for us pc heads still waiting for Ziccarelli to release
MAXpc
and i also use Jmax etc for Linux
but for real synths
we have found here at SEJIS it is better to make your own
We have "justified" an old ARP OMNI 2 and an Old Cat Synth
the Arp Omni is tuned to Lamonte Young's WTP frequencies while the
Cat is in 17 limit JI
cheers to all

Pat Pagano, Director
South East Just Intonation Society
http://www.geocities.com/experimental_audio_initiative/
http://www.virtulink.com/immp/video/
----- Original Message -----
From: William S. Annis <wsannis@execpc.com>
To: <tuning@egroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2000 4:15 PM
Subject: Re: [tuning]shopping for synths

>
> >Which brings me to my question; what are the best microtonal samplers
and
> >synths (hardware or software) around?
>
> On the software side, CSound is of course incredibly powerful
> but rather difficult for some people to use. The price is very nice.
> I use it for some experiments that won't fit nicely onto a standard
> MIDI keyboard.
>
> For everything else I use Reaktor, which is certainly
> retunable in various ways. It can be used as either a synth or a
> sampler. It is basically a software model of a modular synth which
> happens to have modules for sampling and granular synthesis
> techniques. See http://www.native-instruments.de for some more
> detail. While you cannot see the modules, when you go to the User
> area and look at the library you will see that several microntonal
> modules have been created. As for sound, you can see my song
> "Arimoune" at http://www.mp3.com/inorganicname. That's the last song
> I did and uses Reaktor for everything but the drums. Many like the
> noises, if not the song itself. :) None of the music there uses
> alternate tunings yet. Give me about two months and I hope to have
> the results of songs currently in progress there, in various tunings,
> primarily 7- and 11-limit JI.
>
> --
> wm
>
>
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>

>Which brings me to my question; what are the best microtonal samplers and
>synths (hardware or software) around?

Waldorf makes great machines, excellent tone and intelligent user interface.
Most of them support alternate tunings (all except the Pulse AFAIK). I
personally love the MicroWave series.

as to someone else's post regarding MAX/MSP.... buy it. buy it now. It is
simply incredible. (but DO NOT buy it if you are one of these people who
does not read manuals)
And there is a version of MAX that runs on PC's! It is called jMAX, run's on
Linux Intel boxes and is available from http://www.ircam.fr/index1.html
(I have no experience with this particular flavour of MAX.....)

>Also, I'm planning to automate whichever software synth I buy with a macro
>program. I'm using Macro Express 2000 for now. Are there any better ones?

Eh? sorry, you lost me. Do you mean a macro program as in scripts of system
commands and key presses?

Why don't you use a sequencer?

up down strange charm truth beauty

down down down
(-1/3 -1/3 -1/3)

http://www.cervix.net/

I've started to use Sfront ( http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro/sa/ )
It's an implementation for the SA (Structured Audio) part of the now
emerging MPEG4 standard. It's probably best described as a next generation
CSound. The performance is probably less optimized than CSound, because it's
a new development, but as the standard catches on, soundcard support is to
be expected. I used it for my last two pieces 'Odd Piano' and 'Variations on
a theme by Anton Webern', to be found through my website. For these pieces I
extended the sample possibilities in Sfront. These extensions are now part
of the distribution.

Kees
http://www.kees.cc

> OTOH, my Roland Handsonic (electronic hand percussion controller
with
> built-in sound engine) apparently has microtuning capabilities, but
I
> need to research it - I just bought it a few days ago.

I can't seem to tune any sound on this thing in a step smaller than
50 cents, no matter how careful I am with twisting the pitch
parameter knob. I guess this limits the usefulness of the more
melodic sounds of the Handsonic, such as the gamelan samples, for
microtonal music. Other sounds such as the tabla, talking drum, etc.
may still be useable.

Paolo

You said:

but for real synths
>we have found here at SEJIS it is better to make your own
>We have "justified" an old ARP OMNI 2 and an Old Cat Synth
>the Arp Omni is tuned to Lamonte Young's WTP frequencies while the
>Cat is in 17 limit JI
>cheers to all
>
How can you justly-tune an analog synth?
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