3 Feb
2009
3 Feb
'09
2:42 p.m.
Laura Conrad wrote:
I'm trying to set up my USB MIDI keyboard so that
it will play through
a synthesizer with a reasonable harpsichord (or for present purposes,
lute) sound and also use tuning tables such as the ones from scala for
meantone tuning.
Running scala itself on my Ubuntu Intrepid system is problematic, and
I haven't gotten it to actually make any sounds yet. Almost
everything I try hangs without giving me a useful error message.
I can run qsynth with a .sf2 font from hammersound.com and get a
pretty good harpsichord sound, but I don't know how to alter the
tuning.
I can run zynaddsubfx with a .scl tuning table loaded, but the plucked
string sounds that come with zynaddsubfx aren't anything like as good
as the harpsichord soundfonts.
Has anyone solved anything like this problem?
TiMidity++ (mine is version 2.13.2) accepts sf2 files, and the following
command line arguments:
-Z file, --freq-table=file
Cause the table of frequencies to be read from file. This is useful to define
a tuning different from 12-equal temperament. If ``pure'' is specified,
TiMidity++ plays in trial pure intonation.
-Zpure[n(m)], --pure-intonation=[n(m)]
Play in trial pure intonation by Key Signature meta-event in the MIDI file.
You can specify the initial keysig by hand, in case the MIDI file does not
contains the meta-event. Optionally, n is the number of key signature. In
case of sharp, n is positive. In case of flat, n is negative. Valid values
of n are in the interval from -7 to 7. In case of minor mode, you should
put `m' character along with -Zpure option.
The format for the table of frequencies is a simple text file with 128
integers representing the frequency in Hz of each MIDI note number.
As an example, the attached BC program generates a table of frequencies
corresponding to the equal temperament.
Regards,
Pedro