Peter McCulloch

max-magic-microtuner-player

thanks for your experimental patch showing how to obtain a pitch-bend based microtuner with Max/MSP. It would be great to see it converted into a plugin capable of receiving MTS bulk tuning dump messages, so that you would not even need to flow through a coll file.

You could use Max Magic Microtuner as a tuning selector and then send the MTS bulk tuning dump message directly to your microtuner plugin with the touch of a button, that would be another good project for your students to develop possibly. 

Pitch bend solutions are far from being ideal, but they still represent one of the very few alternatives for using microtonal scales with hardware (and most software) synthesizers, at least until instrument manufacturers will start considering MTS a bit more seriously.

Peter,
thanks for your experimental patch showing how to obtain a pitch-bend based microtuner with Max/MSP. It would be great to see it converted into a plugin capable of receiving MTS bulk tuning dump messages, so that you would not even need to flow through a coll file.
You could use Max Magic Microtuner as a tuning selector and then send the MTS bulk tuning dump message directly to your microtuner plugin with the touch of a button, that would be another good project for your students to develop possibly. 
Pitch bend solutions are far from being ideal, but they still represent one of the very few alternatives for using microtonal scales with hardware (and most software) synthesizers, at least until instrument manufacturers will start considering MTS a bit more seriously.

>...at least until instrument manufacturers will start 

In cases like these, it's also important to point out

and to praise those hardy souls who *do* appear to take

The decision on the part of the Applied Acoustics guys

to support the Scala tuning standard in their current 

release of the Lounge Lizard earns them major props in

my book [and I hope this is built into both their Tassman

and Ultra Analog products in future releases, as well.

It's made such a difference in my life to have so well

made a software instrument as the Lounge Lizard comfortable

work with the tunings I use that I can hardly begin to

express my gratitude. I owe the boys a pint for the next

Native Instruments is a bit more mixed a bag - while

the FM7 *does* add a number of interesting features to

the hardware FM boxes I've worked with forever, I 

remain puzzled that virtually the only thing they *didn't*

get right was the microtuning support [something that,

apart from the different tuning interval standards btw

the DX7 and TX81z, Yamaha did a good job with]. BUT,

the Absynth is a pleasure to work with in this regard,

I have no illusions in terms of the marketplace that the

incentive to work outside of Equal Temperament remains

low. All I can do is to point out, praise, and endorse

those plucky firms who make my life easier.

That, and write a simple coll-based lookup table abstraction

that I substitute for mtof in my own synths, to good 

>...at least until instrument manufacturers will start 
>considering MTS a bit more seriously.

In cases like these, it's also important to point out
and to praise those hardy souls who *do* appear to take
!12tET tunings more seriously.

The decision on the part of the Applied Acoustics guys
to support the Scala tuning standard in their current 
release of the Lounge Lizard earns them major props in
my book [and I hope this is built into both their Tassman
and Ultra Analog products in future releases, as well.
It's made such a difference in my life to have so well
made a software instrument as the Lounge Lizard comfortable
work with the tunings I use that I can hardly begin to
express my gratitude. I owe the boys a pint for the next
year or so, anyway....

Native Instruments is a bit more mixed a bag - while
the FM7 *does* add a number of interesting features to
the hardware FM boxes I've worked with forever, I 
remain puzzled that virtually the only thing they *didn't*
get right was the microtuning support [something that,
apart from the different tuning interval standards btw
the DX7 and TX81z, Yamaha did a good job with]. BUT,
the Absynth is a pleasure to work with in this regard,
so the scorecard is mixed.

I have no illusions in terms of the marketplace that the
incentive to work outside of Equal Temperament remains
low. All I can do is to point out, praise, and endorse
those plucky firms who make my life easier.

That, and write a simple coll-based lookup table abstraction
that I substitute for mtof in my own synths, to good 
effect.

> Native Instruments is a bit more mixed a bag - while

> the FM7 *does* add a number of interesting features to

> the hardware FM boxes I've worked with forever, I

> remain puzzled that virtually the only thing they *didn't*

Also their latest FM8 synth does not work fine from that point of view, and I am not able to make it recognize MTS messages sent from Microtuner. I wonder why, as receiving and processing MIDI SysEx MTS bulk tuning dump messages according to the original specs authored by Carter Scholz and Robert Rich is not a complex programming effort and it can be achieved in less than five man days of development work or so.

> I have no illusions in terms of the marketplace that the

> incentive to work outside of Equal Temperament remains

Nowadays synthesizer marketplace extends to the whole Asia-Pacific region, Middle-East and Africa, places where music is not always a 12-tET-centric business. Islamic music is largely based on quarter tones, for instance.

> Native Instruments is a bit more mixed a bag - while
> the FM7 *does* add a number of interesting features to
> the hardware FM boxes I've worked with forever, I
> remain puzzled that virtually the only thing they *didn't*
> get right was the microtuning support

> I have no illusions in terms of the marketplace that the
> incentive to work outside of Equal Temperament remains
> low.

Max Magic Microtuner player