Some 7-limit pumps

I've put up a few examples here:

http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Comma+pump+examples

Before adding more, I'd like feedback.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> I've put up a few examples here:
>
> http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Comma+pump+examples
>
> Before adding more, I'd like feedback.
>

It's nice to have the ratios spelled out, and the examples are clear. And, the bright sustained harmonic sound is a good idea, no fudging around. It might be better to repeat the example a couple of times, in order to hear the comma being tempered out, or the shift as it returns.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "lobawad" <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
> >
> > I've put up a few examples here:
> >
> > http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Comma+pump+examples
> >
> > Before adding more, I'd like feedback.
> >
>
> It's nice to have the ratios spelled out, and the examples are clear. And, the bright sustained harmonic sound is a good idea, no fudging around. It might be better to repeat the example a couple of times, in order to hear the comma being tempered out, or the shift as it returns.

I repeat it twice, once in a longer pump version, then in a brief otonal version. But I've found these suckers are kind of hypnotic if you put them on auto-repeat and simply hear them over and over until you can snap out of the trance and push the stop button.

Thanks for the feedback!

They all sound really cool. I can't wrap my head around what's going
on, though. I see there's lots of JI intervals written under each
pump, but I can't make out what they represent. Maybe a simplified
listing that has just the root movements and chord qualities would be
useful as well. Something like 1/1(4:5:6) -> up 4/3(4:5:6) -> down
6/5(10:12:15) -> up 4/3(4:5:6) -> down 3/2 (4:5:6) could represent
I-IV-ii-V-I, for instance.

-Mike

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 10:58 AM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "lobawad" <lobawad@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
> > >
> > > I've put up a few examples here:
> > >
> > > http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Comma+pump+examples
> > >
> > > Before adding more, I'd like feedback.
> > >
> >
> > It's nice to have the ratios spelled out, and the examples are clear. And, the bright sustained harmonic sound is a good idea, no fudging around. It might be better to repeat the example a couple of times, in order to hear the comma being tempered out, or the shift as it returns.
>
> I repeat it twice, once in a longer pump version, then in a brief otonal version. But I've found these suckers are kind of hypnotic if you put them on auto-repeat and simply hear them over and over until you can snap out of the trance and push the stop button.
>
> Thanks for the feedback!

Is there any particular reason for the different instruments, or was it
simply the choice of the composer? If so, a note to that effect might clear
up any questions.

I haven't listened yet, only looked at the numbers, but it's a great idea.

For what it's worth, the chord notation seems inferior for this
purpose than the JI ratios, because the chord notation would use
different numbers to mean the same thing. E.g., "4:5:6 --> 6:7:9" is
less instantly meaningful to me than "1/1 5/4 3/2 --> 1/1 7/6 3/2",
where I can see that the third changed but the fifth remained.

Regards,
Jake

On 5/10/11, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> They all sound really cool. I can't wrap my head around what's going
> on, though. I see there's lots of JI intervals written under each
> pump, but I can't make out what they represent. Maybe a simplified
> listing that has just the root movements and chord qualities would be
> useful as well. Something like 1/1(4:5:6) -> up 4/3(4:5:6) -> down
> 6/5(10:12:15) -> up 4/3(4:5:6) -> down 3/2 (4:5:6) could represent
> I-IV-ii-V-I, for instance.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 10:58 AM, genewardsmith
> <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>>
>> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "lobawad" <lobawad@...> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > I've put up a few examples here:
>> > >
>> > > http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Comma+pump+examples
>> > >
>> > > Before adding more, I'd like feedback.
>> > >
>> >
>> > It's nice to have the ratios spelled out, and the examples are clear.
>> > And, the bright sustained harmonic sound is a good idea, no fudging
>> > around. It might be better to repeat the example a couple of times, in
>> > order to hear the comma being tempered out, or the shift as it returns.
>>
>> I repeat it twice, once in a longer pump version, then in a brief otonal
>> version. But I've found these suckers are kind of hypnotic if you put them
>> on auto-repeat and simply hear them over and over until you can snap out
>> of the trance and push the stop button.
>>
>> Thanks for the feedback!
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> You can configure your subscription by sending an empty email to one
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>
>
>
>

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 11:41 AM, Jake Freivald <jdfreivald@...> wrote:
>
> I haven't listened yet, only looked at the numbers, but it's a great idea.
>
> For what it's worth, the chord notation seems inferior for this
> purpose than the JI ratios, because the chord notation would use
> different numbers to mean the same thing. E.g., "4:5:6 --> 6:7:9" is
> less instantly meaningful to me than "1/1 5/4 3/2 --> 1/1 7/6 3/2",
> where I can see that the third changed but the fifth remained.

What does 405/392-243/196-81/56-81/49 ->
243/245-243/196-729/490-243/140 tell you? These are two consecutive
lines under the 245/243 temperament.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Nielsen <nielsed@...> wrote:
>
> Is there any particular reason for the different instruments, or was it
> simply the choice of the composer? If so, a note to that effect might clear
> up any questions.

I'm using this as a means of getting into microcsound. That might mean writing some new instruments pretty soon, as it doesn't have enough.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> What does 405/392-243/196-81/56-81/49 ->
> 243/245-243/196-729/490-243/140 tell you? These are two consecutive
> lines under the 245/243 temperament.

It tells me the comma pump has finished pumping, as
(243/245) * (1-5/4-3/2-7/4) = 243/245-243/196-729/490-243/140.

> What does 405/392-243/196-81/56-81/49 ->
> 243/245-243/196-729/490-243/140 tell you? These are two consecutive
> lines under the 245/243 temperament.

Without greater context than this email, it tells me that 243/196 is
the tone that's held consistent between the two steps in the chord
progression. Since a comma pump is what happens when you hold some
tones consistent between chord changes, the way I look at a pump is by
first identifying what's the same between two consecutive chords. In
this case, that's the 243/196.

Also, I can see where the 1/1 has moved to a 243/245 or 245/243. It
has to be the first note in the chord, and it has to be the comma or
its reciprocal.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
> I'm using this as a means of getting into microcsound. That might
> mean writing some new instruments pretty soon, as it doesn't have
> enough.

Nice! -Carl

Hi, Gene, is microcsound at akjmusic.com, or did you obtain from another
source?

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Nielsen <nielsed@...> wrote:
>
> Hi, Gene, is microcsound at akjmusic.com, or did you obtain from another
> source?

I obtained it by having AKJ email me a copy. It would be grand if someone else wanted to work with it; with enough effort, we might have a real Csound for Dummies system, but it's not that yet.

I'm pretty attached to my own code, certainly not because it is the best out
there, but because it does what I want in the way I expect - and I'd like to
build up an elegant library for microtonal sequencing, testing, etc. CSound,
of course, supports much more, and it'd definitely be nice to interoperate
with that as well. Personally I'm especially interested in the file formats
needed for exporting and importing sequences, instrumentations, etc. Being
able to manipulate things in a Rationale-like GUI would be nice too. If
anyone is interested, it would be wonderful if some inspired soul wanted to
take this work of file format conversion off my hands. If so, I'd be happy
to provide examples of my own formats.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Nielsen <nielsed@...> wrote:
>
> I'm pretty attached to my own code, certainly not because it is the best out
> there, but because it does what I want in the way I expect - and I'd like to
> build up an elegant library for microtonal sequencing, testing, etc.

I would like a library, elegant or not, with actual uniform standards. If everyone and his dog does things differently, Csound will always be geeky. Aaron seems to have a nice start, but the Windows version is buggy and there are not enough instruments.

It would be nice if you and AKJ could come to some sort of union of minds on this. I suggest emailing him; cc me if you like.

>
> I would like a library, elegant or not, with actual uniform standards. If
> everyone and his dog does things differently, Csound will always be geeky.
> Aaron seems to have a nice start, but the Windows version is buggy and there
> are not enough instruments.
>
> It would be nice if you and AKJ could come to some sort of union of minds
> on this. I suggest emailing him; cc me if you like.
>

Okay, my trepidation here is that I won't have enough time to really get
into this as far as coding goes. I will definitely need to spend a little
time using the packages out there, since I have only played a little with
the QuteCSound examples.

As with most fields, there seems to be quite a bit of code out there written
in different languages and with various theoretic and
program-design/interface aims. It would be good to get a specification from
someone more familiar with the musical side of things - such as yourself or
someone from this list - for the "ideal" music thoretician's (and possibly
composer's) utility - what sort of interface it would have, what it would
support, etc. With Scala, muCSound, LMSO, Rationale, etc already so
developed, it might be nice to find out if memory/processor resources, file
formats, licenses, etc, would allow for an interoperable suite distribution
of some of these tools. Anyway, I just figure that even if we only lay a few
stones of the pyramid, answering some of these questions at least ensures
building in the right direction.

I am not very familiar with the available programs, but I agree that hiding
rarely used feature sets where possible makes things much easier to fit
together. I don't know about adding code from you, Graham, Paul, and other
list members: (1) What sort of license is given? (2) How many of these
features are important? (3) Who else might support this effort if code needs
to be converted, etc?

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Nielsen <nielsed@...> wrote:

> Okay, my trepidation here is that I won't have enough time to really get
> into this as far as coding goes.

I'm confused by your response. I thought you had some Csound instruments worked out? I'm not sure what you have, or are proposing you might do with it.

In my own audio code, I just use pretty standard algorithms (with some
twists) in C++ that I wrote in the past (played using an old version of the
FMOD library), such as
Karplus-Strong-based strings
Simple band-pass formant speech synthesizer
Typical oscillators and mixtures of them
Noise-function-based sounds
Clips of audio files

Don't know anything about CSound.. yet, anyway. So far I haven't personally
had much reason to need it, but that is likely due only to my own ignorance.
MicroCSound appears be a good way to get into CSound.

As for what I plan on doing with my own code: I'd ideally like to open up
some of the files so that others could add functionality where I am lacking
in knowledge. I thought it might be good as a very "hackable" bit of C++
code for microtonalists with some programming interest. I could also add a
C-based script similar to Scala, but this would not be intended to be any
sort of competition with Scala, just a supplement for additional algorithms.
Like you say, though, standardization is desirable on the whole, so this
project might just considered an option for others who might wish to benefit
from my time and headaches.

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 12:20 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > What does 405/392-243/196-81/56-81/49 ->
> > 243/245-243/196-729/490-243/140 tell you? These are two consecutive
> > lines under the 245/243 temperament.
>
> It tells me the comma pump has finished pumping, as
> (243/245) * (1-5/4-3/2-7/4) = 243/245-243/196-729/490-243/140.

Right, and I had no idea that this was the case, because I haven't
memorized my times tables up to 245. For me to figure that out would
have required fiddling with a calculator and trying a bunch of stuff
until I figured out it was 243/245 * 4:5:6:7 by dumb luck. That's why
I'd suggest changing it to a compound format like (243/245) *
(1-5/4-3/2-7/4), which is more intuitive, still gives all the
information, and is closer to how most people already think of chords
(it's a generalized version of being like "I major," "flat VII minor,"
etc).

-Mike

Gene, saying the supplied orchestra doesn't have enough instruments is
pretty misleading, considering that a few of them are open-ended (e.g. the
FM instrument, and the soundfont player), taking user parameters to
determine a timbre.

AKJ

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 11:13 AM, genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...
> wrote:

>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Nielsen <nielsed@...> wrote:
> >
> > Is there any particular reason for the different instruments, or was it
> > simply the choice of the composer? If so, a note to that effect might
> clear
> > up any questions.
>
> I'm using this as a means of getting into microcsound. That might mean
> writing some new instruments pretty soon, as it doesn't have enough.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> You can configure your subscription by sending an empty email to one
> of these addresses (from the address at which you receive the list):
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>
>
>

--
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.untwelve.org

Daniel,

This is appealing to me that you are doing this.

I often wonder about such efforts though....after a while, you realize that
a pre-existing standard package like Csound has everything plus the kitchen
sink...isn't this sometimes re-inventing the wheel? However, if you are
doing it to learn DSP coding, or perhaps make something leaner and meaner
than Csound for a particular niche, that's another story.

Best,
AKJ

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 5:42 PM, Daniel Nielsen <nielsed@...> wrote:

>
>
> In my own audio code, I just use pretty standard algorithms (with some
> twists) in C++ that I wrote in the past (played using an old version of the
> FMOD library), such as
> Karplus-Strong-based strings
> Simple band-pass formant speech synthesizer
> Typical oscillators and mixtures of them
> Noise-function-based sounds
> Clips of audio files
>
> Don't know anything about CSound.. yet, anyway. So far I haven't personally
> had much reason to need it, but that is likely due only to my own ignorance.
> MicroCSound appears be a good way to get into CSound.
>
> As for what I plan on doing with my own code: I'd ideally like to open up
> some of the files so that others could add functionality where I am lacking
> in knowledge. I thought it might be good as a very "hackable" bit of C++
> code for microtonalists with some programming interest. I could also add a
> C-based script similar to Scala, but this would not be intended to be any
> sort of competition with Scala, just a supplement for additional algorithms.
> Like you say, though, standardization is desirable on the whole, so this
> project might just considered an option for others who might wish to benefit
> from my time and headaches.
>
>
>
>

--
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.untwelve.org

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> Gene, saying the supplied orchestra doesn't have enough instruments is
> pretty misleading, considering that a few of them are open-ended (e.g. the
> FM instrument, and the soundfont player), taking user parameters to
> determine a timbre.

I'm not counting soundfonts, and the FM instrument is one of those which don't seem to work in the Windows version.

Gene,

It (the FM instrument) works here, and since Csound is cross-platform, it
should work on your system. I need to know if it's something you are doing
because you don't know your way around your own system, or if it's something
in the microcsound code itself.

It would be very helpful, again, if you want improvements made in the
software, to see/hear results of what you are trying to do, like error
messages piped to a text file, etc.

"It didn't work" doesn't help me help you---much too general a sentence. You
always seem to want a general system to your specification that works....I
can get you there; I have it on my system, but I need useful information
from you to get you there on yours.

AKJ

On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 2:08 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...>wrote:

>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@...> wrote:
> >
> > Gene, saying the supplied orchestra doesn't have enough instruments is
> > pretty misleading, considering that a few of them are open-ended (e.g.
> the
> > FM instrument, and the soundfont player), taking user parameters to
> > determine a timbre.
>
> I'm not counting soundfonts, and the FM instrument is one of those which
> don't seem to work in the Windows version.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> You can configure your subscription by sending an empty email to one
> of these addresses (from the address at which you receive the list):
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> tuning-help@yahoogroups.com - receive general help information.
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

--
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.untwelve.org

>
> ....after a while, you realize that a pre-existing standard package like
> Csound has everything plus the kitchen sink...isn't this sometimes
> re-inventing the wheel? However, if you are doing it to learn DSP coding, or
> perhaps make something leaner and meaner than Csound for a particular niche,
> that's another story.
>
> Best,
> AKJ
>

I generally agree; you pretty much point out the possible reasons one might
want to use something different:
The overall purpose might not be to have a kitchen-sink audio programming
library, and, indeed, when I began writing decent audio code many years ago,
I was creating routines that would be easy to use, a sort of version of the
BASIC PLAY command that could handle different tracks, timbres,
quarter-tones (what? who would need more pitch control than that?! lol),
repeated segments, etc. as well as ambient effects like birds, rain, etc.
These were just part of a more general library and were meant to run on
simple mobile devices as background for other programs, so performance was a
priority; I followed the notion that everything should use as little memory
as possible (the procedural approach), and all code was written within
32-bit integers (so also suitable for converting to hardware description
language).

Lately, though, I've found I just need to be able to do certain things in
order to understand what's going on on this list, and to be able to test
certain notions by generating data. Sure there are many tools and scripting
languages out there that can be used for this sort of thing (Matlab,
Pari/GP, Excel, etc.), but many don't allow you to hear the results or
specially format output data, etc. I find it's best for my purposes to write
C++ code, and I figure that there might be others onlist who find these
things handy, too. Somehow I brought this up during a discussion of
microcsound - possibly a mistake on my part - but perhaps it could become a
suitable extension of sorts. In any case, I'd like to learn more about using
muCSound. Do you think I get a copy?