Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Seeking advice on JI live rig

Hi,

I was directed to this list when I posed the questions I am about to ask on
another list.

Basically, my interests are currently in music synthesis and exploring Just
Intonation. I want to put together a portable synthesizer-based setup so
that I can play with friends. However, according to the Microtonal
Synthesis website, there aren't any low-cost, commercially available
hardware synths that have a scale resolution fine enough to handle JI. The
site has virtually no information on any samplers that might have the
necessary resolution.

I believe these are some of the reasons all the responses I have received
so far indicated that I'd better get a laptop - because apparently none of
the commercial products have the scale resolution and there isn't any
solution for imposing JI on a synth that does not involve the realtime use
of a computer.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Paolo

🔗Darren Burgess <DBURGESS@ACCELERATION.NET>

Paolo,

The yamaha tx81z synth module is:

1. Very inexpensive - commonly available for $60 to $140 on ebay.
2. Easily retuned with a computer (tuning is stored in memory for a gig).
Any midinote can be tuned to any pitch. Also has octave based retuning.
3. 1.65 cent resolution
4. You can load patches on it to expand the sound bank
5. There are folks on the list that can help you get started with it.
Relative quick learning curve.

I don't know why you would need higher resolution, as the best I have seen
in commonly available hardware synths is 1 cent. In realtime music, would
you really be able to hear the difference? 1.65 is the worst you can expect
from the tx81z -- some intervals would be closer or dead-on.

One major drawback of the tx81z is the FM sounds -- it does not have many
patches that I find desirable. Also it only has 8 voices, although it is
easy to stack them up to get 16 or more. You would also need a midi
controller to
run the thing. (I don't have a keyboard so I use a sequencer)

If you go the route of getting a laptop -- I use my computer keyboard to
play the tx81z. I use midikeys (www.shareware.com ) which allows me to map
any keyboard key to any midinote. I make tuning sysex dumps with a dos
program called scala, and use multimid and midithruway to allow multiple
access to midiports. I can even use this setup to step record into
cakewalk.

I wonder if laptop soundcards are up to the task?

Darren Burgess
Gainesville, FL

>
> Basically, my interests are currently in music synthesis and exploring
Just
> Intonation. I want to put together a portable synthesizer-based setup so
> that I can play with friends. However, according to the Microtonal
> Synthesis website, there aren't any low-cost, commercially available
> hardware synths that have a scale resolution fine enough to handle JI.
The
> site has virtually no information on any samplers that might have the
> necessary resolution.
>
> I believe these are some of the reasons all the responses I have received
> so far indicated that I'd better get a laptop - because apparently none of
> the commercial products have the scale resolution and there isn't any
> solution for imposing JI on a synth that does not involve the realtime
use
> of a computer.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks,
> Paolo
>
>
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🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>

Darren!
The problem with the midi standard is that one can not even have a
pythagorean taken out to 5 places without hearing beats. It makes it impossible
to tell what it is you are hearing. It takes so little for such beats to sneak
in.

Darren Burgess wrote:

> From: "Darren Burgess" <DBURGESS@ACCELERATION.NET>
>
> Paolo,
>
> The yamaha tx81z synth module is:
>
> 1. Very inexpensive - commonly available for $60 to $140 on ebay.
> 2. Easily retuned with a computer (tuning is stored in memory for a gig).
> Any midinote can be tuned to any pitch. Also has octave based retuning.
> 3. 1.65 cent resolution
> 4. You can load patches on it to expand the sound bank
> 5. There are folks on the list that can help you get started with it.
> Relative quick learning curve.
>
> I don't know why you would need higher resolution, as the best I have seen
> in commonly available hardware synths is 1 cent. In realtime music, would
> you really be able to hear the difference? 1.65 is the worst you can expect
> from the tx81z -- some intervals would be closer or dead-on.
>
> I wonder if laptop soundcards are up to the task?
>
> Darren Burgess
> Gainesville, FL
>
>

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
www.anaphoria.com

🔗Paul H. Erlich <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>

Paul!
I mean a chain, a pythagorean pentatonic.

"Paul H. Erlich" wrote:

> From: "Paul H. Erlich" <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>
>
> Kraig wrote,
>
> >The problem with the midi standard is that one can not even have a
> pythagorean taken out to 5 places without >hearing beats.
>
> What do you mean, 5 places?
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Yes, I want Free PC long distance and a Free 100-song MP3 CD!
> Click here to get a FREE headset and a FREE CD while supplies last.
> http://click.egroups.com/1/1985/0/_/239029/_/951753493/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> You do not need web access to participate. You may subscribe through
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-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
www.anaphoria.com

🔗Paul H. Erlich <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>

Paul!
One should not hear beats, but with the 768 division of the octave
beats are already noticeable. a single fifth is 28% off. if you also notice
also after this many fifths, the 3/2 is already one unit off. As i have
mentioned before, early on i did research into inversions of chords along
the lines of Helmholtz. These examinations lead me to the conclusions we
have discussed in the past.. Anyway when I tried the same experiments on a
DX7 I found beats were appearing that did not on my own instruments. My
results did not match. Those who use such instruments might, gain more by
using what it is a 768 division of the octave. For me-no go!!

"Paul H. Erlich" wrote:

> From: "Paul H. Erlich" <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>
>
> Kraig wrote,
>
> >>>The problem with the midi standard is that one can not even have a
> >>pythagorean taken out to 5 places without >hearing beats.
>
> I wrote,
>
> >>What do you mean, 5 places?
>
> Kraig wrote,
>
> > Paul!
> > I mean a chain, a pythagorean pentatonic .
>
> I'm not sure I understand what that has to do with hearing beats. Please
> explain.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Yes, I want Free PC long distance and a Free 100-song MP3 CD!
> Click here to get a FREE headset and a FREE CD while supplies last.
> http://click.egroups.com/1/1985/0/_/239029/_/951763490/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> You do not need web access to participate. You may subscribe through
> email. Send an empty email to one of these addresses:
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-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
www.anaphoria.com

🔗Paul H. Erlich <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>

🔗ALVES@ORION.AC.HMC.EDU

Kraig wrote:

>Anyway when I tried the same experiments on a
>DX7 I found beats were appearing that did not on my own instruments. My
>results did not match. Those who use such instruments might, gain more by
>using what it is a 768 division of the octave. For me-no go!!
>
I should point out that a 768 division of the octave is a characteristic of
the TX-81Z, not of the MIDI standard. The MIDI standard leaves tuning
resolution entirely up to the instrument itself (which, by the way, is
1024/octave on the DX-7). I have sometimes successfully used JI on
instruments with such resolution, but, of course, it all depends on the
musical context, and I can imagine cases (e.g. Grady, Wolf, Young) where
that resolution would not be sufficient.

If you're the adventurous sort, it is possible to use Csound with MIDI in
real time. Frequencies are represented by floating point variables in
Csound, which on most systems means that the difference between 20 hz and
the next highest representable frequency is only about 0.00021 cents. By
the way, details on how to do tunings and realtime performance with Csound
are in the now newly available book/CD-ROM _Making Music with Csound_ (in
which I have chapter on implementing tunings):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262522616/qid%3D951766311/104-845011
5-1070838.

Bill

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^
^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^
^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf@snafu.de>

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>

🔗Gerald Eskelin <stg3music@earthlink.net>

In skimming this thread, I have not seen mention of Justonic Tuning. They
make a PC (Windows, I suppose) software that tunes a keyboard to JI "on the
fly" as chords change. They sent me a copy, but being a mac user I haven't
been able to check it out. My contact with them came about when they were
intrigued by my "Lies" book and offered to carry it for sale on their web
site. Naturally, I'd like to help them as well (if it's appropriate here).

Is anyone familiar with the Justonic program? Perhaps this is old news or
perhaps it really doesn't fit this thread. I just thought I'd mention it in
case it is helpful. The URL is <http://www.justonic.com>

Jerry

🔗John Loffink <microtonal@worldnet.att.net>

> Basically, my interests are currently in music synthesis and exploring
Just
> Intonation. I want to put together a portable synthesizer-based setup so
> that I can play with friends. However, according to the Microtonal
> Synthesis website, there aren't any low-cost, commercially available
> hardware synths that have a scale resolution fine enough to handle JI.
The
> site has virtually no information on any samplers that might have the
> necessary resolution.
>
> I believe these are some of the reasons all the responses I have received
> so far indicated that I'd better get a laptop - because apparently none of
> the commercial products have the scale resolution and there isn't any
> solution for imposing JI on a synth that does not involve the realtime
use
> of a computer.

Just intonation can be done on synths with 1 cent resolution depending
somewhat on the style of music you're attempting. If you look at the
recommended listening at my site many pieces in JI were accomplished with
regular hardware synthesizers. However, if you want long sustained chords
with no perceptial beating then you're right, 1 cent would not be enough.

My site has no information on "traditional" samplers with better than 1 cent
resolution because there aren't any. Remember, to get better than 1 cent
resolution for samplers or wavetable synths not only does the hardware have
to be capable of it, you'll also need to tune each sample to better than 1
cent accuracy. Depending on the source, variation could be as great as 1
cent over the length of a single sample. Don't expect better resolution
than that for commercially available samples, you'll have to roll your own,
or find a DSP means to retune each sample consistently.

Cycling 74, CSound, Reaktor are software based synthsizers that can do the
high resolution you're asking for and provide a challenging music synthesis
environment, but one caveat is that polyphony can be limited. I was able to
run Reaktor on a Dell 300 MHz Pentium II laptop, but might have anywhere
from 1 to 10 voices of polyphony available depending on the complexity of
the instrument. Unless you already own a laptop this doesn't meet the low
cost criteria as you'll need an up to date machine in the 200-500 MHz range
to pull it off.

I'm curious what you meant by the comment "there isn't any solution for
imposing JI on a synth that does not involve the realtime use of a
computer." There are quite a few synths that can do JI. If you were
talking about better than 1 cent resolution as being a requirement, adding a
computer into the mix won't improve the resolution of the 1 cent or worse
instruments.

John Loffink
microtonal@worldnet.att.net
The Microtonal Synthesis Web Site
http://home.att.net/~microtonal

🔗pvallad1@tampabay.rr.com

>Just intonation can be done on synths with 1 cent resolution depending
>somewhat on the style of music you're attempting. If you look at the
>recommended listening at my site many pieces in JI were accomplished with
>regular hardware synthesizers. However, if you want long sustained chords
>with no perceptial beating then you're right, 1 cent would not be enough.

John,

Thank you for the clarification. I was confused because the intervals
between consecutive note degrees in your example JI scales include
fractions of a cent to as much as four decimal places of precision.

If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that depending on my
musical goals, I can reasonably approximate JI using only whole cents. For
example, the first interval in your example 12-tone JI scale is 111.7313
cents. If I used a scale which approximated yours by starting with an
interval of 112 cents, it might be close enough, depending on the desired
application.

Is this correct?

Thanks,
Paolo

🔗Paul H. Erlich <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>

I wrote,

>>So you're actually saying two separate things: the fifths beat, and the
best
>>approximation of 243/128 does not agree with 5 times the best
approximation
>>of 3/2. Correct?

Kraig Grady wrote,

>Yes! but the latter explains why the former happens!

Please tell me how the latter explains the former. In 12-tET the
approximations agree, but the fifths still beat.

>I was thing of just the pentatonic but it woiuld be true of the 243/128

Oops, my bad -- let's change that to 81/64 then, shall we?

🔗pvallad1@tampabay.rr.com

At 07:27 AM 2/28/00 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "Darren Burgess" <DBURGESS@ACCELERATION.NET>
>
Hi Darren,

>I don't know why you would need higher resolution, as the best I have seen
>in commonly available hardware synths is 1 cent. In realtime music, would
>you really be able to hear the difference? 1.65 is the worst you can expect
>from the tx81z -- some intervals would be closer or dead-on.

This was a misunderstanding on my part. I thought that to achieve JI, I
literally needed 4 decimal places of precision. I had no idea that it
might be ok, depending on the desired application, to approximate the
desired JI scale using just whole cents.

It looks like I'll have to continue educating myself using the many
examples posted to this list plus the book I just ordered (Just Intonation
Primer) before making a firm commitment to an inexpensive "starter" system
for myself.

Paolo

🔗Carl Lumma <CLUMMA@NNI.COM>

>Is anyone familiar with the Justonic program? Perhaps this is old news or
>perhaps it really doesn't fit this thread. I just thought I'd mention it in
>case it is helpful. The URL is <http://www.justonic.com>

I bought the software in 97, after I saw its ad in Keyboard magazine. I
promptly went off to Barbershop "Harmony College", and found that one of my
profs was using the software in his theory class. When I got back, I
developed some scales with the software, and tweaked some of my midi files
with root-change messages. Unfortunately, using MIDI cables and a Proteus,
most of the key changes took too long to be usable (they caused artifacts).
I managed to get a few of the slower tunes working by carefully timing the
messages, and by using a software synth.

I corresponded with Thomas Langley about the next version of the software,
which unfortunately never appeared. When the USB Roland boxes came out,
Thomas wrote me to say that the root changes were groovy on them. But by
that time, I had decided that Kyma, CSound, and the built-in features of
some synths better met my needs, and that the Justonic software was lost in
Win16 land.

Final analysis: Pitch Palette was over-priced. The chord-follower was
over-hyped, and for my purposes, useless. To its credit, it was the only
thing available at the time which would re-tune synths from a PC, and with
the exception of some expensive Kurzweil and late model Emu units, it is
still the only way to get root changes out of the box.

-Carl