Microtuning / temperament patch : help me !

chapelier fou's icon

Hi !

As an introduction I must say I am totally unexperimented in max.
I want to do a patch for creating my own scale temperaments. My basic idea was to make a patch which automatically assigns a pitchbend value for each note of the scale.

937.._temperator_0.3.amxd
amxd
chapelier fou's icon

(OOps, when you upload a file, it posts the topic).
So I make this little messy patch, and works, kind of, although is completely monophonic. I don't know how to make it polyphonic. I don't even know if it is possible, according to the nature of pitchbend messages.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Louis.

Christopher Dobrian's icon

You might be interested in the MIDI Tuning Standard.
http://www.midi.org/techspecs/midituning.php

You can also do it with the pitchbend method you describe by:
1) ascertaining the pitchbend amount setting of the synthesizer you're using (most synths are +/- 2 semitones, but it's usually settable on the receiving device)
2) knowing the desired cents deviation of each note of your scale from equal temperament
3) calculating (i.e. writing a Max patch that calculates) the desired pitchbend amount for each note, based on your knowledge of 1 and 2 above
4) distributing your played notes among 16 different MIDI channels so that each note can have a unique pitchbend applied to it

chapelier fou's icon

Thank you Christopher.

The MIDI tuning standard is an interesting thing, although I can't use it with my vsts or ableton's operator (if I understand it well).
I'll go for the PB method. The 16 MIDI channels thing is what I was affraid of. It is unbelievable how MIDI is a limited system...