22 Dec
2009
22 Dec
'09
1:51 a.m.
Hi
I have a piano (I am not sure what to call a touch sensitive 7-octave
Casio) that has 7 tunings: Equal, Just, Werckmeister-III and so on.
I try always to fit my music to the best possible temperament.
I am also a linux user -- recently started using the excellent nted
software to write up music.
So the question: How does one specify alternative temperaments to timidity?
My OS(s): Desktop running debian-lenny, Laptop running ubuntu 8.4 (hardy)
Rustom
PS I am new to this list: If this question is inappropriate for this
list please tell me :-)
22 Dec
22 Dec
4:24 a.m.
Quoting Rustom Mody <rustompmody(a)gmail.com>om>:
I have a piano (I am not sure what to call a touch
sensitive 7-octave
Casio) that has 7 tunings: Equal, Just, Werckmeister-III and so on.
I try always to fit my music to the best possible temperament.
I am also a linux user -- recently started using the excellent nted
software to write up music.
So the question: How does one specify alternative temperaments to timidity?
Have a look at Scala: http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/
Seems like it can output tuning files in a format that timidity can
use (try timidity -Z tuningfile )
4:28 a.m.
Quoting Rustom Mody <rustompmody(a)gmail.com>om>:
I have a piano (I am not sure what to call a touch
sensitive 7-octave
Casio) that has 7 tunings: Equal, Just, Werckmeister-III and so on.
I try always to fit my music to the best possible temperament.
So the question: How does one specify alternative temperaments to timidity?
You can't.
The tunings/temperaments are features of the synth playing the sound
and MIDI only cares about which key is pressed for how long. MIDI
can't play 442Hz, it can only play an "A" and let the recieving
equipment decide which frequency should come out of the speaker.
So the only way to have Timidity playing "out of tune" is to find a
SoundFont that matches the temperament you want.
4:34 a.m.
Quoting Peder Hedlund <peder(a)musikhuset.org>rg>:
Quoting Rustom Mody <rustompmody(a)gmail.com>om>:
Hmm, from reading Mr Ekman's reply, I guess you can... :)
But still, it's a feature of the audio player (synth/sampler/whatever)
rather than the sending MIDI device.
I have a piano (I am not sure what to call a
touch sensitive 7-octave
Casio) that has 7 tunings: Equal, Just, Werckmeister-III and so on.
I try always to fit my music to the best possible temperament.
So the question: How does one specify alternative temperaments to timidity?
You can't. 
11:23 a.m.
Peder Hedlund wrote:
Quoting Peder Hedlund <peder(a)musikhuset.org>rg>:
I remember reading up on this once, and there are some later revisions
of the MIDI spec that let you specify alternative tunings for the notes
in the midi scale. But not all synths will understand the codes for these.
andy
Quoting Rustom Mody
<rustompmody(a)gmail.com>om>:
Hmm, from reading Mr Ekman's reply, I guess you can... :)
But still, it's a feature of the audio player (synth/sampler/whatever)
rather than the sending MIDI device.
I have a piano (I am not sure what to call a
touch sensitive 7-octave
Casio) that has 7 tunings: Equal, Just, Werckmeister-III and so on.
I try always to fit my music to the best possible temperament.
So the question: How does one specify alternative temperaments to timidity?
You can't.
3:46 p.m.
Andy Baxter wrote:
Peder Hedlund wrote:
Get Kmidimon. Then you can see the messages your Casio is sending.
Your Casio might send a bulk tuning dump like like how Scala works, or
it might send a per note tuning message, you might have to configure
the Casio to send these messages.
http://www.midi.org/about-midi/tuning-scale.shtml
If you want to experiment with different tunings try Scala. The Casio
might overwrite the Scala tuning, yet another reason to figure it's MIDI
messages. An alternate and tedious method to do alternate tunings in
a sequencer is to included a pitch-bend midi event with every note.
MIDI pitch-bend and alternate tunings have been part of the MIDI
specification since V1. The MIDI implementation table for your device
should tell you if it does pitch bends and alternate tunings.
-- Jeff
--
View this message in context:
http://old.nabble.com/tuning-midi-to-alternative-temperaments-tp26884305p26…
Sent from the linux-audio-user mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Quoting Peder Hedlund
<peder(a)musikhuset.org>rg>:
I remember reading up on this once, and there are some later revisions
of the MIDI spec that let you specify alternative tunings for the notes
in the midi scale. But not all synths will understand the codes for these.
Quoting Rustom Mody
<rustompmody(a)gmail.com>om>:
Hmm, from reading Mr Ekman's reply, I guess you can... :)
But still, it's a feature of the audio player (synth/sampler/whatever)
rather than the sending MIDI device.
I have a piano (I am not sure what to call a
touch sensitive 7-octave
Casio) that has 7 tunings: Equal, Just, Werckmeister-III and so on.
I try always to fit my music to the best possible temperament.
So the question: How does one specify alternative temperaments to
timidity?
You can't.
3:56 p.m.
andy baxter wrote:
Peder Hedlund wrote:
I think Aeolus does alternative tunings by essentially recalibrating its
scale internally. It doesn't change the MIDI notes, though. So would a
synth using soundfonts be able to do the same thing? I presume a
soundfont contains at least one sample for each pitch, probably recorded
at a standard pitch (modern temperament) rather than some other tuning,
so how could such a synth change its scale?
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
Quoting Peder Hedlund
<peder(a)musikhuset.org>rg>:
I remember reading up on this once, and there are some later revisions
of the MIDI spec that let you specify alternative tunings for the notes
in the midi scale. But not all synths will understand the codes for these. Quoting Rustom Mody
<rustompmody(a)gmail.com>om>:
Hmm, from reading Mr Ekman's reply, I guess you can... :)
But still, it's a feature of the audio player (synth/sampler/whatever)
rather than the sending MIDI device.
I have a piano (I am not sure what to call a
touch sensitive 7-octave
Casio) that has 7 tunings: Equal, Just, Werckmeister-III and so on.
I try always to fit my music to the best possible temperament.
So the question: How does one specify alternative temperaments to timidity?
You can't.
23 Dec
23 Dec
4:06 a.m.
Quoting david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com>om>:
I think Aeolus does alternative tunings by essentially
recalibrating its
scale internally. It doesn't change the MIDI notes, though. So would a
synth using soundfonts be able to do the same thing? I presume a
soundfont contains at least one sample for each pitch, probably recorded
at a standard pitch (modern temperament) rather than some other tuning,
so how could such a synth change its scale?
That shouldn't really be any different from pitch bending, or playing
a soundfont where a sample covers more than one MIDI note. All of
these involve playing samples at some "wrong" pitch, and would happen
through some kind of resampling.
4:23 a.m.
Raine M. Ekman wrote:
Quoting david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com>om>:
That's right. And someone earlier in this thread mentioned the idea of
sending a Pitch Bend event before each of the alternate-temperament
notes ...
And MIDI just has note numbers, I don't think it has any inherent idea
that any given note number is an octave higher or lower than another. So
a 4-note scale and a 24-note scale would be the same to MIDI.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
I think Aeolus does alternative tunings by
essentially recalibrating its
scale internally. It doesn't change the MIDI notes, though. So would a
synth using soundfonts be able to do the same thing? I presume a
soundfont contains at least one sample for each pitch, probably recorded
at a standard pitch (modern temperament) rather than some other tuning,
so how could such a synth change its scale?
That shouldn't really be any different from pitch bending, or playing
a soundfont where a sample covers more than one MIDI note. All of
these involve playing samples at some "wrong" pitch, and would happen
through some kind of resampling. 
9:20 a.m.
>>>> "Rustom" == Rustom Mody
<rustompmody(a)gmail.com> writes:
Rustom> So the question: How does one specify alternative
Rustom> temperaments to timidity?
You download the set of tuning files from scala
<http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/>.
I've forgotten exactly what I did to turn the .scl file into a .tbl
file; it might have been run the scala program and export in timidity
format or something.
Then when you have the .tbl file you want, you run:
timidity -Z file.tbl <midi file>
If someone knows of a less clumsy way to do this, or a source of lots
of .tbl files, I'd be glad to hear of it, too. I can send you my
quarter-comma meantone .tbl.
--
Laura (mailto:lconrad@laymusic.org)
(617) 661-8097 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
http://www.laymusic.org/ http://www.serpentpublications.org
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that
if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you
will be good.
Bertrand Russell
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9 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
andy baxter -
david -
Jeff Sandys -
Laura Conrad -
Peder Hedlund -
Raine M. Ekman -
Rustom Mody