Re: TX802

I've got my paws on a Yamaha TX802 and it has great potential as a microtonal synth (sadly, one of
the few). Are there any other users out there in tuningland and if so how do you go about tuning
it up? My manual seems to have been written by a member of a sect devoted to obscurity and
evasiveness. Are there any online resources? I'm tempted to use JI Calc but I'm also intrigued by
the scale of resolution where one octave is 1024 steps with a range of 0 - 10794. Any tips most
appreciated.

Many thanks in anticipation.

--- In tuning@y..., Alison Monteith <alison.monteith3@w...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_19854.html#19854

> I've got my paws on a Yamaha TX802 and it has great potential as a
microtonal synth (sadly, one of the few). Are there any other users
out there in tuningland and if so how do you go about tuning it up?
My manual seems to have been written by a member of a sect devoted
to obscurity and evasiveness. Are there any online resources? I'm
tempted to use JI Calc but I'm also intrigued by the scale of
resolution where one octave is 1024 steps with a range of 0 - 10794.
Any tips most appreciated.
>
> Many thanks in anticipation.

Hello Allison...

Is your manual the "standard issue" item?? If so, the following
website might not help -- but it DOES have manuals for all the
synths, including the ones not currently in production:

www.yamahasynth.com

________ ______ _____ ____
Joseph Pehrson

May be, you will find the following interesting:
http://www.concentric.net/~Clayko/tx802.htm

Regards,
Haresh.

--- In tuning@y..., Alison Monteith <alison.monteith3@w...> wrote:
> I've got my paws on a Yamaha TX802 and it has great potential as a
microtonal synth (sadly, one of
> the few). Are there any other users out there in tuningland and if
so how do you go about tuning
> it up? My manual seems to have been written by a member of a sect
devoted to obscurity and
> evasiveness. Are there any online resources? I'm tempted to use JI
Calc but I'm also intrigued by
> the scale of resolution where one octave is 1024 steps with a range
of 0 - 10794. Any tips most
> appreciated.
>
> Many thanks in anticipation.

jpehrson@rcn.com wrote:

>
>
> Hello Allison...
>
> Is your manual the "standard issue" item?? If so, the following
> website might not help -- but it DOES have manuals for all the
> synths, including the ones not currently in production:
>
> www.yamahasynth.com

Thanks Joseph

I'll have a trawl through the site. I fear that my manual is standard, probably translated
literally from the Japanese which is a wonderful language but does lose somewhat in the
translation. BTW I wish you every success with your forthcoming performances.

Best Wishes

Haresh BAKSHI wrote:

> May be, you will find the following interesting:
> http://www.concentric.net/~Clayko/tx802.htm
>
> Regards,
> Haresh.

Yes Haresh, this is most useful and a lot clearer than my manual.

Many thanks.

--- In tuning@y..., Alison Monteith <alison.monteith3@w...> wrote:
>
/tuning/topicId_19854.html#19857

> Thanks Joseph
>
BTW I wish you every success with your forthcoming performances.
>

Thanks so much, Allison. I am also giving some lectures, including
one on electronic music at the Moscow Conservatory. At first, I
thought about this with some trepidation... since my work in
electronic music is quite recent (well, I HAVE been doing SOME work
all along... but a greater emphasis now) and I don't have the
university connections to be working with lots of "gear" at the
moment. However, the fact that my electronic pieces have been
accepted for two separate public performances in the States in April
has given me some encouragement.

Hopefully, I will focus more on the idea of using electronics for
microtonality than on the specific use of "gear" which, mostly due to
lack of access, is not so much my "specialty..."

Thanks again! Hope the Yamaha site helps...

______ _____ ______ ___
Joseph Pehrson

Alison wrote:

> I've got my paws on a Yamaha TX802 and it has great potential
> as a microtonal synth

Certainly does!

I've had a TX802 for many years and I love it so much I recently bought
another. I use RAM4 cartridges filled with tuning tables. RAM4 cartridges
for the TX802 are hard to come by. A cartridge can store 63 tuning tables
so they're like GOLD if you can get one. Internally, the TX802 only has 2
user-tunings available at once. The cartridge can expand that
dramatically.

Years ago, I spent weeks calculating and setting up tunings, painstakingly
plugging in numbers with the darned front-panel. These days, I use Sound
Quest's "Midi Quest 8.0" available from http://www.squest.com. It's
expensive, but I highly recommend this software for dealing with patches
and tunings. It makes the TX802 humanly reasonable to _tune_, and also to
make new patches, store patches, etc.

To _calculate_ tunings for the TX802, I wrote some C programs that did
conversions between cents & such to get the right numbers for plugging in.
I settled years ago on "middle C" as a tuning standard and do most of my
calcs based on keeping the MIDI note 63 (I believe that's middle C?) at
261.25 Hz (approx).

I have not yet tried Scala for tuning the TX802, but it would probably
work. (It worked with the TX81Z, the 802's little brother.) I'd be happy
to give you (source code) of my C programs. They produce printouts of
tuning tables, which you can then key in, either with the front panel or
via Midi Quest.

(Note... If you use Midi Quest with a RAM4 cartridge for tuning tables,
you'll want to get a little patch. Turns out, there is an error in the
shipping version of the thing that reads a cartridge full of tunings. I
asked them about it; we exchanged some info, and they gave me a patch after
figuring out what the problem was.)

Rick

[P.S. And here's a bonus shameless plug for my own music...
http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/906/906900.html
which was produced with a pair of TX802s and a TX81Z in 15tET.]

(Hm.. I sent this once and I think it bounced or failed somewhere. Sorry
if this is a duplicate... -- Rick)

Alison wrote:

> I've got my paws on a Yamaha TX802 and it has great potential
> as a microtonal synth

Certainly does!

I've had a TX802 for many years and I love it so much I recently bought
another. I use RAM4 cartridges filled with tuning tables. RAM4 cartridges
for the TX802 are hard to come by. A cartridge can store 63 tuning tables
so they're like GOLD if you can get one. Internally, the TX802 only has 2
user-tunings available at once. The cartridge can expand that
dramatically.

Years ago, I spent weeks calculating and setting up tunings, painstakingly
plugging in numbers with the darned front-panel. These days, I use Sound
Quest's "Midi Quest 8.0" available from http://www.squest.com. It's
expensive, but I highly recommend this software for dealing with patches
and tunings. It makes the TX802 humanly reasonable to _tune_, and also to
make new patches, store patches, etc.

To _calculate_ tunings for the TX802, I wrote some C programs that did
conversions between cents & such to get the right numbers for plugging in.
I settled years ago on "middle C" as a tuning standard and do most of my
calcs based on keeping the MIDI note 63 (I believe that's middle C?) at
261.25 Hz (approx).

I have not yet tried Scala for tuning the TX802, but it would probably
work. (It worked with the TX81Z, the 802's little brother.) I'd be happy
to give you (source code) of my C programs. They produce printouts of
tuning tables, which you can then key in, either with the front panel or
via Midi Quest.

(Note... If you use Midi Quest with a RAM4 cartridge for tuning tables,
you'll want to get a little patch. Turns out, there is an error in the
shipping version of the thing that reads a cartridge full of tunings. I
asked them about it; we exchanged some info, and they gave me a patch after
figuring out what the problem was.)

Rick

[P.S. And here's a bonus shameless plug for my own music...
http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/906/906900.html
which was produced with a pair of TX802s and a TX81Z in 15tET.]

Rick McGowan wrote:

> [P.S. And here's a bonus shameless plug for my own music...
> http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/906/906900.html
> which was produced with a pair of TX802s and a TX81Z in 15tET.]

So I did. :-) I think I'd heard the first part of this once before and didn't "get it." For some
reason, it started to make sense to me this time. It's really very melodious for 15t-ET! It also
showcases a portion of the amazing range of tones available with FM synthesis, which has sadly fallen
into disfavor since the invasion of affordable (!) sample playback based "synthesizers." Perhaps the
clean and orderly partial structure typical of most FM tones makes it easier for the ear to digest
tunings that are new to it.

--
David J. Finnamore
Nashville, TN, USA
http://personal.bna.bellsouth.net/bna/d/f/dfin/index.html
--

Rick McGowan wrote:

>
> Years ago, I spent weeks calculating and setting up tunings, painstakingly
> plugging in numbers with the darned front-panel. These days, I use Sound
> Quest's "Midi Quest 8.0" available from http://www.squest.com. It's
> expensive, but I highly recommend this software for dealing with patches
> and tunings. It makes the TX802 humanly reasonable to _tune_, and also to
> make new patches, store patches, etc.

I'll have as look at this and compare it with the mixmap I just found in my Cubase VST folder.

> I have not yet tried Scala for tuning the TX802, but it would probably
> work. (It worked with the TX81Z, the 802's little brother.) I'd be happy
> to give you (source code) of my C programs. They produce printouts of
> tuning tables, which you can then key in, either with the front panel or
> via Midi Quest.

I believe Scala is a PC only programme, so, no use for me and Mac. Thanks for the offer of the C
source code. I'm not too proficient at programming if that's what's involved.

>
> (Note... If you use Midi Quest with a RAM4 cartridge for tuning tables,
> you'll want to get a little patch. Turns out, there is an error in the
> shipping version of the thing that reads a cartridge full of tunings. I
> asked them about it; we exchanged some info, and they gave me a patch after
> figuring out what the problem was.)

I could store tuning tables via a sysex dump to Cubase.

>
>
> Rick
>
> [P.S. And here's a bonus shameless plug for my own music...
> http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/906/906900.html
> which was produced with a pair of TX802s and a TX81Z in 15tET.]

Seems to counterpoint very effectively. Good ostinatos.

Best Wishes

Hello, there, Alison.

Congratulations, Alison, on your TX-802!

While other people here have been using this wonderful instrument for
far longer than I have, and with much more technical and acoustical
expertise, I would love to help out if I can on areas such as the
historical Pythagorean (PO5) and meantone (PO4) tunings; using the
"Tuning Key" and "part-tuning" features to set up "virtual split-key
instruments" inspired by the historical keyboards that Ibo Ortgies and
others have been discussing, etc.

I'd be glad to this either here or via e-mail, whichever might be
best.

As someone who sets up tunings using the front panel, I suspect that
others might refer you to Mac-friendly utilities for tuning by
computer, obviously a _much_ more efficient strategy for people with
computer-to-synthesizer connections. Of course, I'd be delighted to
share my own approach and some text files with the settings for some
tunings -- but the computer-based approach is likely your best
option.

My own approach is to use two standard 12-note manuals (four octave
each), mapped either to identically tuned "instruments" (like a usual
two-manual keyboard instrument), or mapped to instruments differing in
their tuning sets (e.g. Ab-C# meantone on one keyboard, Eb-G# on the
other) for anything from 13 to 24 notes per octave. As Ibo Ortgies
might not mind me adding, this is _not_ the same thing as a real
split-key instrument, but it does provide the same tuning sets of up
to 24 notes.

Please let me caution that the four-octave range is great for medieval
and Renaissance music, typically more than ample, but that larger
keyboards are standard for later music, so the usual norm of five
octaves or more may be a rule proved by my exception, so to speak.

By the way, some of my favorite voices are A22 ("oboe," which I
consider a kind of "crumhorn" or "regal organ"); A44 and A45
("harpsichord" timbres that neatly contrast and combine); and A56
("puff pipes" -- could this be some kind of small organ). This last
can be "Sethareanistically friendly" to tunings with more complex
intervals which one wants to give a certain "kinder and gentler"
quality -- but it's also great for something like Renaissance
meantone.

Anyway, please enjoy -- and there's lot of TX-802 expertise around
here that I've benefitted from a great deal.

Most appreciatively,

Margo

>
>
> "M. Schulter" wrote:
>
>> Hello, there, Alison.
>>
>> Congratulations, Alison, on your TX-802!
>
Thanks for the offfer of help, Margo. Once I've fiddled around a bit
with the front panel and some software I'll get round to taking up your
kind offer.

Best Wishes.