defacto standard

For many who use electronic instruments, there is
already a defacto tuning resolution of 768 increments per octave.
This is how the tuning tables in Yamaha, Emu, and Ensoniq
all work, which arises from the MIDI standard where
there are 64 "pitch bend levels" in each semitone.

Consequently, when I tune to (say) 10-tet, I am really tuning
to the nearest point in 768-tet.

As for notation, there are also a couple of defacto standard
notations - those used in sequencing programs. In one paradigm,
pitch bends (i.e, deviations from 12-tet) are shown as lines
of various lengths with little x's at the head. In another,
these lines are attatched to the note in a piano role notation.
I've been told that other uses color to indicate deviation.

--- In tuning@y..., SETHARES@E... wrote:
>
> For many who use electronic instruments, there is
> already a defacto tuning resolution of 768 increments per octave.
> This is how the tuning tables in Yamaha, Emu, and Ensoniq
> all work, which arises from the MIDI standard where
> there are 64 "pitch bend levels" in each semitone.

Careful! If you have an Ensoniq VFX or VFX-SD, the true tuning
resolution is only 512 increments per octave! This was uncovered
after a lot of experimentation and finally verified by Steve Curtin,
then of the Ensoniq company.

Thanks Bill,

Very good point. What about devising some strategies that might better
tailor these types of one-size-fits-all standards to specific types of
tunings.

So maybe instead of using the maximally even subset of the tuning
resolution for equal tunings, how about using something like P/N*X
(where P is the periodicity, N is the equal division, and X is the
tuning resolution divided by N and rounded to the nearest integer)?

And perhaps some likeminded strategies that would scale a given set of
rational approximations by temperaments that have a higher consistency
than the tuning resolution (the best fit of a better fit so to speak)
could also yield more tuning specific results?

I'm not really sure exactly how either of these things would actually
work out; they just jumped to mind so I figured I'd roll them on
out...

Any ideas?

--Dan Stearns

--- In tuning@y..., "Paul Erlich" <paul@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., SETHARES@E... wrote:
> >
> > For many who use electronic instruments, there is
> > already a defacto tuning resolution of 768 increments per octave.
> > This is how the tuning tables in Yamaha, Emu, and Ensoniq
> > all work, which arises from the MIDI standard where
> > there are 64 "pitch bend levels" in each semitone.
>
> Careful! If you have an Ensoniq VFX or VFX-SD, the true tuning
> resolution is only 512 increments per octave! This was uncovered
> after a lot of experimentation and finally verified by Steve Curtin,
> then of the Ensoniq company.

And Roland's 64 "pitch bend levels" are cents. A standard which is
sometimes 768 and sometimes 1200 isn't a standard at all.

On 5/31/01 10:35 PM, "Dave Keenan" <D.KEENAN@UQ.NET.AU> wrote:

> And Roland's 64 "pitch bend levels" are cents. A standard which is
> sometimes 768 and sometimes 1200 isn't a standard at all.

It's also 1024 on some modules.
But the documentation *still* calls it "cents" offset!

Since 1024 = 665 + 359, 1024 has an extremely accurate fifth.
But I doubt that factored into the binary-based standard.

The QuickTime Musical Instruments resolution is actually 3072 though.
Found that out the hard way... looking at the specs.
It looks like it'll respond to the 14-bit resolution (49152-tET)
but like a lot of pitch bend processing, ignores a few bits.