Jean-Francois Charles

microtonal-use-of-synth-and-vst-instrument

>Anyway, I am wondering if that would be possible to drive a vst~ >instrument (on of the Pluggos for example) as microtonal >polyphonic generator. As far as I understand, pitch bend is sent >per channel, not per note, so impossible to synth a chord >including natural tones and microtones.

Sure. Use cycle~, rect~, saw~, etc. [nicely

antialiased, unless you want crunchy FM, in

which case you'd go with aliased stuff] inside

your poly and put together a coll lookup table.

>Anyway, I am wondering if that would be possible to drive a vst~ >instrument (on of the Pluggos for example) as microtonal >polyphonic generator. As far as I understand, pitch bend is sent >per channel, not per note, so impossible to synth a chord >including natural tones and microtones.
>Any idea, advice?

Sure. Use cycle~, rect~, saw~, etc. [nicely
antialiased, unless you want crunchy FM, in
which case you'd go with aliased stuff] inside
your poly and put together a coll lookup table.
Nothing very hard about that.


> Thanks, that was exactly the information I was looking for. per Midi

> channel pitch bend seems the most general solution. Using polyphonic

> aftertouch is OK only for one's own plugins (or I misunderstood).

There are two sides of the medal. One is how you define it within the 

pluggo, the other is how you want to deal with it within the application 

which hosts the pluggo. If you use a Midi sequencer and go for the Midi 

channel route, you have to split your tracks usually, because normally a 

track is limited to one Midi channel. If the sequencer can deal with 

polyphonic aftertouch, you can just add the microtonal information to 

each note. You could also use any other Midi message to do that. For 

example define program changes or a controller to set a certain 

detuning. Your pluggo just needs to interpret it correctly. If you 

develope your own language, you just need to implement the translator.

You can even use pitchbend information, but only validate it for the 

next notes and don't affect already playing notes. But this is not how 

pitchbend is usually intended to work. It will confuse users which 

jeanfrancois.charles wrote:
> Thanks, that was exactly the information I was looking for. per Midi
> channel pitch bend seems the most general solution. Using polyphonic
> aftertouch is OK only for one's own plugins (or I misunderstood). 

There are two sides of the medal. One is how you define it within the 
pluggo, the other is how you want to deal with it within the application 
which hosts the pluggo. If you use a Midi sequencer and go for the Midi 
channel route, you have to split your tracks usually, because normally a 
track is limited to one Midi channel. If the sequencer can deal with 
polyphonic aftertouch, you can just add the microtonal information to 
each note. You could also use any other Midi message to do that. For 
example define program changes or a controller to set a certain 
detuning. Your pluggo just needs to interpret it correctly. If you 
develope your own language, you just need to implement the translator.

You can even use pitchbend information, but only validate it for the 
next notes and don't affect already playing notes. But this is not how 
pitchbend is usually intended to work. It will confuse users which 
expect something different...

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i just multiply the note value when its inside my poly~ instance by a number like 1.5 , .97 or .666 before it goes into a mtof~ object, giving bizarre scales which i'm sure have proper names.

its easy to centre the scale on middle C say, by multiplying the value relative to middle C. i.e subtract 60, multiply by value, add 60

i just multiply the note value when its inside my poly~ instance by a number like 1.5 , .97 or .666 before it goes into a mtof~ object, giving bizarre scales which i'm sure have proper names.
 its easy to centre the scale on middle C say, by multiplying the value relative to middle C. i.e subtract 60, multiply by value, add 60


Microtonal use of synth and vst instrument