TX81Z

I have uploaded my TX81Z and DX21 presets to the following URL:

http://x31eq.com/graham/x991203.zip

The zip file contains a MIDI file with the two SysEx messages each
consisting of a full instrument dump. Make sure you back everything up
before loading either. From what I remember, the TX81Z settings are on
channel 1, and the DX21 on channel 2.

I'm not that impressed with the built-in TX81Z presets, partly because
most of them don't even respond to key velocities, which is something FM
is naturally good at. The pianos do, but distort if you play them too
loud. I generally don't rate it for emulating acoustic instruments, but
YMMV. For creating your own sounds, and making them come alive with key
velocity, modulation and things, it puts more recent machines to shame.
You can only play 8 notes at a time, but you can multitrack it. It
doesn't have built in effects, but you can use external ones.

>Now, these two "pure" tunings seem to be some kind of approximate just
>intonation. I am not certain what limit, and have not yet done the
>calculations to determine this... If anyone out there in the "blue
>yonder"
>knows more about this feature of the TX81Z than I do, please "chime"
in...

They're listed in the manual, in cents anyway. The "pure" tunings are
5-limit JI (or nearest approximation).

>These "pure" tunings, as they should, can be set from a starting point of
>any "key," ie. C, Cb, D, etc. The "minor" variants of this look like
>pretty much the same kinds of tuning, from different starting points...

I don't thing the minors are exact transpositions. I seem to remember
there's one note different.

>Frankly, when I was working with just intonation, I set my own tuning...

Of course, you can't expect the same 12 notes to suit all situations.

>5) Pythagorean [set key]

>This tuning "adjusts" fifths so they come out pure(er) than equal. They
>don't seem to be worried much about the "Pythagorean comma"... I was
>looking around for it...

As meantone, but different fifths, I think. The wolf should be there
(between G# and Eb for C tuning IIRC). The fifths are the best you can
get: unfortunately the 768-equal tuning steps fall either side of the 3/2.

>I don't know if
>anyone here on the list can hear a 1.5 cent deviation... most people
>can't.

It can be audible in chords. As an extreme example, try a unison mistuned
by this amount.

> Each pitch can only be tuned up or down by 32 T.U. (tuning units) which
>equals, therefore, 49.92 cents or the quarter-tone. (But then the pitch
>above can be tuned DOWN, instead, so you can get whatever you want...)
>Keep in mind that any basic note can be assigned to ANY 12t-ET note
within
>the range of the entire instrument, and then altered from there -- so
>virtually the entire sound span is reachable-- limited only by the number
>of total "notes" available.

This is an artifact of the display. If you use the "cursor" you can
select each pitch in tuning steps, and ignore the nearest note. I think
you can only tune to an 8 octave range, but all 128 notes can be tuned
this way. Also, you can set the voices to be an octave or so higher or
lower than written.

>One of the limitations is that although there are possibilities for 24
>"performance" settings -- with any instruments and number of voices
>available on the TX81Z, there is only ONE choice per "performance" of a
>microtonal set. It can either be one of the presets or one of the two
>"user definable" tunings... Therefore, there can really only be one
>microtonal tuning per performance in addition to 12t-ET (sorry,
>"polymicrotonalists!") Some of the channels can be playing the
microtonal
>tuning simultaneously with others playing 12t-ET, if anyone would
>conceivably want that...

You may want to mix with 12=, say if you have a noisy percussion sound
where tuning isn't important. Or if you want to get 24= across two
channels. If you really want polymicrotonality, you can set different
scales in different octave ranges. Also, the performance settings allow
each instrument to be transposed in equal semitones, so you can have the
same scale (say Partch's 43 notes) in different octaves.

Does anybody know if this fancy new FS1R supports tuning tables, then? I
suppose it's ominous, as it isn't in John Loffink's list, but I've never
heard for certain that it isn't capable. It looks quite good otherwise.

Oh, Pat, I haven't worked out how to load those .syx files yet, although I
know I can do it!