[Fwd: hi from fuze]

Yo folks...here's a post from a monster NYC fusion player, who is
recently getting into fretless, and I believe 24 tone eq...if anyone can
help out, it would be very cool...thanks...Hstick

Thanks for forwarding Fuze's question. He's been mentioned here on this
list. Anyway, I'm sure we'll see tons of reponses to his question:

>I have a quick question for you - do you know of any synthesizers,
>sequencers or software that lets one compose microtonally ? Where you can
>write out lines not only in 12 tone , but in cents??

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Paul H. Erlich" <PERLICH@A...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/15075

Well, sure, Fuze. The easiest and cheapest (and one of the most
flexible) synths is no longer manufactured, but it has incurred an
almost legendary status. In fact, perhaps some could consider it by
now a "classical" microtonal instrument.

It is the Yamaha TX81Z. There are several users (including myself)
on this list. Of course, the resolution (2.5 cents) is not what some
people need here, but it can be tuned EASILY using the computer
program SCALA.

The "virtue" to the TX81Z is that ANY midi note (any note number) in
the ENTIRE range can be tuned to ANY frequency within the resolution
mentioned above. Not every synthesizer can do this.

Last week two TX81Z's were being sold for $50 each, so there is no
longer any good excuse for composers not going into microtonality
because they "can't afford any equipment..."

An Internet search will find you a used one... which is what *I* did.
I hear people talk about "ebay" having them as well...

___________ ____ __ _ _ _
Joseph Pehrson

> I have a quick question for you - do you know of any synthesizers,
> sequencers or software that lets one compose microtonally ? Where
you can
> write out lines not only in 12 tone , but in cents??

Here's the Microtonal Synthesis site, which covers both software and
hardware synthesizers and samplers:

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

When you look through the charts, keep an eye on the Full Keyboard
Scales column. Especially if you want to get into scales with more
than 12 notes/octave AND you want to easily switch scales. Otherwise
you will have to manually retune every note for each new scale you
want and for each new patch you want to use your new scale with. It
could be quite tedious. My Handsonic for example will let me
microtune my notes for a marimba patch, but I have to do them all by
hand (no tuning tables) and if I want to use the same tuning, but on
a vibes patch, I have to hand-tune everything AGAIN for the new
patch.

If a particular product lists one or more "12 note Octave Scales" but
no Full Keyboard Scales, it means that product will let you program a
custom tuning but you will be limited to scales with 12 notes (they
don't have to be equal though, some for example use this type of
feature for 12-note just intonation). The number of scales listed
under either column denote "user" scales. There may also be preset
scales (e.g. historical scales, Indonesian scales, etc.) that you
cannot program but you can use in your patches, but these are not
indicated on the charts.

Do keep in mind that the website doesn't cover everything. There's no
mention of Clavia (Nord Lead, Nord Modular, etc.) or BitHeadz (Retro
AS-1, Unity, etc.), for example.

Good luck in your search,
Paolo