wsuchinsky

Hi all. I'm sure this is an often posted topic but I'm looking for a way to create midi messages that precisely reflect specific microtonal values. I thought the solution would involve using note messages and pitch-bend messages in tandem? Anyway, I came across this much older post which I believe purports to accomplish this task (with help from Magic Microtuner), but having opened the patches posted I can't seem to ascertain how to use them. Perhaps someone can help me with these or with a different solution? Below is the older post with the patches. Thanks in advance.

Here's a little hack I put together for using Max Magic Microtuner for 

one of my students. Export your tuning file to a coll file in cents 

from MMM. It's not the definitive end-all be-all patch for this sort 

of thing, but it will allow you to play up to fifteen notes each having 

completely different tuning bases on any standard MIDI keyboard that 

receives on 16 channels and understands pitchbend messages. (no need 

for custom tuning specs) Right now it's designed to receive from one 

keyboard and send to another, but with local off, etc. you could 

probably do it with one keyboard. (it doesn't output on channel 10, so 

you could use that for input) A more clever implementation would 

probably compare the fractional parts of the tunings and find any 

similarities in terms of magnitude of fractional parts and be able to 

Here's a little hack I put together for using Max Magic Microtuner for 
one of my students. Export your tuning file to a coll file in cents 
from MMM. It's not the definitive end-all be-all patch for this sort 
of thing, but it will allow you to play up to fifteen notes each having 
completely different tuning bases on any standard MIDI keyboard that 
receives on 16 channels and understands pitchbend messages. (no need 
for custom tuning specs) Right now it's designed to receive from one 
keyboard and send to another, but with local off, etc. you could 
probably do it with one keyboard. (it doesn't output on channel 10, so 
you could use that for input) A more clever implementation would 
probably compare the fractional parts of the tunings and find any 
similarities in terms of magnitude of fractional parts and be able to 
send more than one note per channel.

microtonal-midi-old-saw-im-sure

Nice, but I have a question. How useful is it to go MIDI-out? I think at a certain point, especially for microtonality, MIDI becomes a little obsolete. All of the workarounds that are necessary to make microtonal MIDI possible (such as one note per channel and cents-accurate tuning) are solved fairly easily if you just build your synths inside Max, or ChucK, or RTCmix, or any of the other languages that Max objects recognize. Also, I've found that almost every MIDI vst has so much built-in vibrato that the pure microtonal intervals (it seemed, based on your wording, that you were using rational tuning) are lost.

Anyway, I really am curious to know what external synths you're using this with. I ended up building a tuner that just reads 12-tone ratios from a coll with dynamic re-tuning of the 12-tone modes, which has actually helped my composition process as I can separate (in my head) the 7-based modes from the 5-based, for example. The idea is to make an [mtof] that can be re-tuned dynamically, and I found that 12t Just scales are enough, as it lets me improvise on my keyboard with octave transposition. Best yet, it doesn't take any external objects.

etc., and each of those files loads a different tuning coll.

Nice, but I have a question.  How useful is it to go MIDI-out?  I think at a certain point, especially for microtonality, MIDI becomes a little obsolete.  All of the workarounds that are necessary to make microtonal MIDI possible (such as one note per channel and cents-accurate tuning) are solved fairly easily if you just build your synths inside Max, or ChucK, or RTCmix, or any of the other languages that Max objects recognize.  Also, I've found that almost every MIDI vst has so much built-in vibrato that the pure microtonal intervals (it seemed, based on your wording, that you were using rational tuning) are lost.

Anyway, I really am curious to know what external synths you're using this with.  I ended up building a tuner that just reads 12-tone ratios from a coll with dynamic re-tuning of the 12-tone modes, which has actually helped my composition process as I can separate (in my head) the 7-based modes from the 5-based, for example.  The idea is to make an [mtof] that can be re-tuned dynamically, and I found that 12t Just scales are enough, as it lets me improvise on my keyboard with octave transposition.  Best yet, it doesn't take any external objects.

0, 5limit_just;
1, 7limit_otone;
2, 7limit_utone; (with a wide major 2nd)

ACSmith wrote on Fri, 06 March 2009 11:19

The idea is to make an [mtof] that can be re-tuned dynamically, and I found that 12t Just scales are enough, as it lets me improvise on my keyboard with octave transposition. Best yet, it doesn't take any external objects.

That's interesting, by the way using a specific external like the microtuner object (

http://homepage.mac.com/cerullo/.Public/mtx_file_specs.htm

) can make life easier. This for several reasons including the fact that microtonal synthesizers should be endowed with pitch modulation sources that consider scale steps rather than 12-tET steps, so that performance-wise they can "feel" more natural when you play them. And of course achieving these features in Max/MSP is far easier with a dedicated external. You'll find an example of what I mean at that URL as far as pitch bend modulation is concerned (i.e. the "clever bend" example, but the same would go for the LFO width etc.)

ACSmith wrote on Fri, 06 March 2009 11:19The idea is to make an [mtof] that can be re-tuned dynamically, and I found that 12t Just scales are enough, as it lets me improvise on my keyboard with octave transposition.  Best yet, it doesn't take any external objects.

That's interesting, by the way using a specific external like the microtuner object (http://homepage.mac.com/cerullo/.Public/mtx_file_specs.htm) can make life easier. This for several reasons including the fact that microtonal synthesizers should be endowed with pitch modulation sources that consider scale steps rather than 12-tET steps, so that performance-wise they can "feel" more natural when you play them. And of course achieving these features in Max/MSP is far easier with a dedicated external. You'll find an example of what I mean at that URL as far as pitch bend modulation is concerned (i.e. the "clever bend" example, but the same would go for the LFO width etc.)

Deranger Two wrote on Sun, 15 March 2009 01:25

This for several reasons including the fact that microtonal synthesizers should be endowed with pitch modulation sources that consider scale steps rather than 12-tET steps, so that performance-wise they can "feel" more natural when you play them.

Hm, I had checked MTX out maybe six months ago, but just didn't have the Max experience to use it well, then decided to build my own more recently. One issue for me was that I just liked having everything in int ratio format instead of float frequencies. I actually understand that link now, though, so I'll give it a shot soon.

And wsuchinsky, I completely misunderstood your question. I didn't see that you were quoting, so sorry. The microtuner object won't do that (at least with the functionality I know of), because it gives a keymap of specific frequencies or of cents-numbers. With the pitch bend thing you would have to parse a coll and scale that exponentially through the 12-bit (8192?) scale. I used to have the whole thing worked out using Finale (music notation software), pitch bend, and NI Kontakt 2 to get microtonal accidentals to play back (as long as I left out double-stops). If you still want that, it would be a cool project to make microtonality easy to use across all (most) vst instruments. Are you looking for equal-tempered microtonality or Just Intonation?

Hm, I had checked MTX out maybe six months ago, but just didn't have the Max experience to use it well, then decided to build my own more recently.  One issue for me was that I just liked having everything in int ratio format instead of float frequencies.  I actually understand that link now, though, so I'll give it a shot soon.

And wsuchinsky, I completely misunderstood your question.  I didn't see that you were quoting, so sorry.  The microtuner object won't do that (at least with the functionality I know of), because it gives a keymap of specific frequencies or of cents-numbers.  With the pitch bend thing you would have to parse a coll and scale that exponentially through the 12-bit (8192?) scale.  I used to have the whole thing worked out using Finale (music notation software), pitch bend, and NI Kontakt 2 to get microtonal accidentals to play back (as long as I left out double-stops).  If you still want that, it would be a cool project to make microtonality easy to use across all (most) vst instruments.  Are you looking for equal-tempered microtonality or Just Intonation?


microtonal midi-- old saw I'm sure