New 19tet, 24tet Mac software

Hi-
Pierre-Emmanuel Levesque sent me a URL where one can download
Microtonal Toolkit for implementing 19 and 24tet on the Mac. As I don't
have a Mac I am unable to comment on the software at this time, but here
is the URL, which I have also included in the Microtonal Software section
of my page:

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/7880/

John Starrett
http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret

I just checked it out.

From the doc :

" This paper presents an easy way to play at least two microtonal systems
(19-tone and 24-tone equidistant temperaments) almost immediately and with
little investment. It is based on the velocity sensitivity of modern
electronic keyboards. The idea is to change the pitch of a key by the way
you hit it: if played soft, you get pitch 1; if played hard, you get pitch
2. This system is basically intended to explore the 19-tone and the 24-tone
temperaments. It works best on simple contrapuntal music and on simple
chords."

The actual software is implemented using Opcode's Max. And, I deduce uses
pitch bends to achieve the microtuning. It works. I'm no keyboard player,
but it's easy to use & feels quite natural. It has options for 12/19/24 tone
tuning, range, threshold, & Proteus sysex tuning.

It is however $25 shareware. Much too much for something this tiny.

I'm sure some of you have known about this technique, & have used it, but
it's news to me. Never even thought of it. Ingenious. It's an outstanding
way to use tunings with more than 12 tones on 12-tone MIDI instruments like
keyboards & MIDI guitars. With Max it should be easy enough to roll your own
version of this to use your synth's tuning tables, rather than pitch bends.

Ofcourse, keeping track of what you're doing in a sequencer's piano roll/
notation display is another story...

- Drew

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