Thanks again for looking in to this. It's actually oddly reassuring to know that it's not just me, and that I am not crazy or missing something simpleFathomSynth wrote: ↑Sun Apr 19, 2020 4:39 pm You're right, it's broken, I just tried it myself.
I will fix this Monday and try to get a release out as soon as possible.
After loading a tuning file the notes go dead and won't play.
I'm not sure what other synths are doing with the bass frequency setting in tuning files, but the concept of a root key is very important in tuning, especially for math temperament. If you create a tuning file which specifies ratios for twelve tones and the root key is C then when you play in the key of C it will sound great. The distance between C and G will be a perfect fifth which is a ratio of 3/2. However when you play in the key of A it will sound horrible because the distance between A and E will not be a perfect fifth. However if you change the root key to A then all the perfect ratios will be assigned to the keys starting with A and it will sound right when you play in the key of A.
When I was testing it was working properly just as I would expect when I loaded the tuning file and changed the root key. The problem was that unrelated to the tuning file the notes when silent. Something about loading the tuning file broke it.
I realize some people use tuning files to simply assign absolute frequencies to all the notes but this would not enable you to change the root key so in my opinion it would be useless. The important thing is the ability to create new ratios and use those ratios starting with different bass notes which serve as the root key, and to be able to change the root key depending on the song you want to do, without having to change your entire tuning file, which would take ages.
At least that is how I understand it.
If other synths do not offer this option then they would seem to be in my opinion missing a critical feature. However, I don't use tuning myself, so maybe there is something basic about it that I am not understanding.
That being said, it appears now to be broken, so I will have to fix it and get you a new release.
Take your time; it's certainly not an emergency. I will be looking forward to the fix!I believe I'm starting to understand some of your thinking on this topic, and your vision is cool and would certainly allow for deep exploration in the use of abstract mathematics and ratios. The only thing I will object with is that this implementation adds an extra step or two to "standard" micro tuning, and makes very basic tasks (slightly) more challenging. In my opinion, it would be nice to have an additional option to allow this "standard" behavior when one is trying to do more conventional things like tuning their project to a different concert pitch (a=432 or 446 or whatever) with a slightly altered temperament (think just intonation, SoF, Pythagorean). The ability to play with complex math is fun and certainly valuable, but I believe there is also equal merit in being able to just load up your "default" tuning patch and play whatever you want without having to click around multiple synth panels and explorer panels and input text in to boxes, etc. Tuning to exact frequencies also has its uses, but in most cases functional tuning and exact tuning should produce identical results.
As I said, I've never even used the "basefrequency" parameter before, and I am not familiar with the internal architecture of many synths. However, it seems to me that the tuning files themselves can define the "root key" concept based on the synth's inherent behavior, even in "simple" implementations via functional/relative tuning. That's the whole point of defining the functional tuning, right? To be able to play in any key? The most you should need to define is something more like "concert pitch".
Serum, for instance, has a box that defines "A =" with 440 being the default. If you define exact values or a "base frequency" in the tuning file, you don't need to bother with the box. Just load your file and move along. However, if your file is using a simple functional tuning and you want the result, in any key, to be proportional to A = 442, you would want to tell the synth that. Madrona synths work similar to serum, the caveat being that the oscillator's output frequencies are "manually" tuned after loading the file. U-he synths explicitly adhere to the .tun files.
Creating tuning files can be a pain no matter what, but I believe that most of us using these features have already put in the leg work there. There are huge libraries of both musical and heady maths scales openly available all over the internet. So from my viewpoint, it's nice to have the option to just load your file and go without digging back in to the nitty gritty of how the whole system works.
Just some thoughts and feedback.. I really appreciate all of the quick responses and all of your work
Looking forward to the tuning fix and all of the other amazing updates in the pipeline. Please let me know if I can provide any more information.
