Is there a DAW that has a option for a Microtonal Piano Roll or Notation?
can you do this in Reaper?
edit. I suppose I could label them myself! and just save the file
are there any text files for reaper that are already done for alternate tuning systems and microtonal scales?
Microtonal Piano Roll or Notation?
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- KVRAF
- 5175 posts since 29 Apr, 2006
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 5175 posts since 29 Apr, 2006
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- KVRAF
- 5223 posts since 20 Jul, 2010
This is one of those things that should have been implimented years ago but wasn't. In fact, the whole tuning shebang should be handled by the MIDI protocol DAW-side and the synth should respond to whatever pitches it recieves? I hate how tuning data is part of a patch in most synths. Chances are, if you're flicking through different patches, you want them ALL to be playing the notes you want! Changing the patch should NOT alter the musical notes played! >_<
It's about time the industry got together like they did in the early 80's and decide on a new MIDI standard or even something to replace it. Can't see that happening in this day and age, though.
It's about time the industry got together like they did in the early 80's and decide on a new MIDI standard or even something to replace it. Can't see that happening in this day and age, though.
http://sendy.bandcamp.com/releases < My new album at Bandcamp! Now pay what you like!
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 5175 posts since 29 Apr, 2006
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- KVRist
- 67 posts since 13 Aug, 2012 from France
Well, currently the synth doesn't get pitches; it gets note numbers.Sendy wrote:This is one of those things that should have been implimented years ago but wasn't. In fact, the whole tuning shebang should be handled by the MIDI protocol DAW-side and the synth should respond to whatever pitches it recieves? I hate how tuning data is part of a patch in most synths. Chances are, if you're flicking through different patches, you want them ALL to be playing the notes you want! Changing the patch should NOT alter the musical notes played! >_<
That doesn't need to be abandoned. It just needs a MIDI extensio that redefines what tones those note numbers correspond to. This could be sent as a sysex. It would need agreement on what data to transmit to define a scale.
At least, that would deal with alternte scales that are still based on an octave selected from twelve tones.
MIDI can't handle fully microtonal notes - or inherently continuous scale instruments.
Nor can I. OSC hasn't exactly caught on widely, despite fixing some problems MIDI has.Sendy wrote:It's about time the industry got together like they did in the early 80's and decide on a new MIDI standard or even something to replace it. Can't see that happening in this day and age, though.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 5175 posts since 29 Apr, 2006
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 5175 posts since 29 Apr, 2006
hey guys. anything new on this stuff yet as far as you're aware of?
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- KVRer
- 1 posts since 26 Sep, 2011
AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.
Hey there!I found your post on KVR by looking in to microtonal music for DAWs (Reaper user here). Here is a plugin which you might be interested in. $99 for non-commercial license, $150 commercial.
"http://www.tallkite.com/alt-tuner.html (http://www.tallkite.com/alt-tuner.html)".
Also a YouTube clip:
"".
I've literally just learned about microtonal music about 5 minutes ago (mind officially blown). I'm just super glad that the DAW I'm already fairly familiar with.
Now on to more research!
Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more about it or collaborate.
Zak
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- KVRist
- 154 posts since 24 Aug, 2012
The linux-version of radium (http://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/) has just got support for it, but it's somewhat clumsy to use. I would be happy for suggestions how to improve the interface though.
Radium Music Editor, a tracker-like DAW: https://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/
Radium Compressor: https://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radiu ... plugin.php
Radium Compressor: https://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radiu ... plugin.php
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- KVRist
- 154 posts since 24 Aug, 2012
MIDI can handle fully microtonal notes just fine. Just send out pitch bend values at the same time and use several channels to play polyphony. CM (http://commonmusic.sourceforge.net/ does this and it works excellently.Nantonos wrote:Well, currently the synth doesn't get pitches; it gets note numbers.Sendy wrote:This is one of those things that should have been implimented years ago but wasn't. In fact, the whole tuning shebang should be handled by the MIDI protocol DAW-side and the synth should respond to whatever pitches it recieves? I hate how tuning data is part of a patch in most synths. Chances are, if you're flicking through different patches, you want them ALL to be playing the notes you want! Changing the patch should NOT alter the musical notes played! >_<
That doesn't need to be abandoned. It just needs a MIDI extensio that redefines what tones those note numbers correspond to. This could be sent as a sysex. It would need agreement on what data to transmit to define a scale.
At least, that would deal with alternte scales that are still based on an octave selected from twelve tones.
MIDI can't handle fully microtonal notes - or inherently continuous scale instruments.
Radium Music Editor, a tracker-like DAW: https://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/
Radium Compressor: https://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radiu ... plugin.php
Radium Compressor: https://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radiu ... plugin.php
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- KVRist
- 154 posts since 24 Aug, 2012
Sorry, I didn't remember that it had to be piano roll or notation. Radium is more like a tracker. I guess a lot of normal trackers has support for microtonals as well. Maybe trackers may be an option for you?kmatheussen wrote:The linux-version of radium (http://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/) has just got support for it, but it's somewhat clumsy to use. I would be happy for suggestions how to improve the interface though.
Radium Music Editor, a tracker-like DAW: https://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/
Radium Compressor: https://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radiu ... plugin.php
Radium Compressor: https://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radiu ... plugin.php
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- KVRAF
- 4589 posts since 7 Jun, 2012 from Warsaw
I wish for something like that. heard once about the concept to simulate microtuning with pitchbend control. May work as long as all your plugins can handle it - which is not wlays teh case with 3rd party synths.
Still, native support in DAW or VST standard itself would be immensely helpful. Until some serious developer introduces it, it may not be feasible to really produce microtonal music not loosing flexibility and ease of use.
Still, native support in DAW or VST standard itself would be immensely helpful. Until some serious developer introduces it, it may not be feasible to really produce microtonal music not loosing flexibility and ease of use.
Blog ------------- YouTube channel
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)
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- KVRian
- 508 posts since 9 Feb, 2012
MIDI sucks as a standard, but was the only game in town for decades and is good enough for most use-cases. OSC also sucks as a standard, and for most use-cases doesn't really offer more than MIDI.Nantonos wrote:Nor can I. OSC hasn't exactly caught on widely, despite fixing some problems MIDI has.
What we really need is "MIDI done right". Something that uses float's instead of 8-bit char's and transmits data in human-readable text, then just adds the features MIDI is missing while staying close to the way MIDI works. OSC is too generic and leaves too much up for interpretation.
That's generally how it's done, but it's still kludgy. IIRC, most microtonal keyboards want you to set your pitchbend to 1 semitone, meaning that you now cannot do pitchbend. Also, many plugins will have pitch artifacts from this method at the start of notes due to smoothers being attached to the pitchbend code, causing the beginning of notes to portamento a little.kmatheussen wrote: MIDI can handle fully microtonal notes just fine. Just send out pitch bend values at the same time and use several channels to play polyphony.
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robertinventor robertinventor https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=221591
- KVRer
- 11 posts since 13 Dec, 2009
Hi, I'm author of Tune Smithy which is a program many microtonolists used some years back. A few still use it. I've been focusing on polyrhythms with my Bounce Metronome for the last three or four years and not had the chance to update it which I hope to do so soon.
Anyway, yes are several programs that can do microtonal music via pitch bends. Depends what you want to do. For a simple example, if you just want to do e.g. 24 tone music on a single instrument you can do it fine with two channels of midi + pitch bends, bend one of them up by quarter tone.
If you want to do a full orchestral score you need different channels for the stereo pan positions, and controllers, and normally you have one instrument selected into each channel at a time too, you soon run out of channels with the midi limit of 16. Sometimes you can go over that by routing the instruments to multiple devices, e.g. play on 4 different devices etc.
But it is clumsy the pitch bend method when you get complex stuff to retune.
What you really want to do is to be able to change the tuning table on the instrument so you change which pitch individual midi notes play. So you could e.g. set it to play 1/1 from 60 and 5/4 from 64 ON THE SAME CHANNEL. Or indeed any map you like e.g. map all the note numbers of a midi channel to a single octave of e.g. 120-et or 72-et or 96-et or a couple of octaves of 53-et or whatever. Or to harmonic fragment tuning or whatever interests you all on a single channel.
Some synths can load scales and .tun tuning files etc. from file.
Here is a long thread here at KVR which goes through some of the VSTi able to do that:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/printview ... 98&start=0
Depending what you want to do, that can be relatively okay. You just need software able to create these .scl and .tun files which e.g. SCALA can do (also my Tune Smithy). Then hook up your keyboard or score to the synth and play in that tuning.
Ideally what you want to do is to be able to update the tuning in real time via midi.
There is a midi spec for dealing with this, the MTS tuning sysexes, which lets you update the tuning on synthesizer in real time via midi problem is hardly any synths support it, and some environments such as Abletone Live, and Kontakt scripts don't support sysexes.
That's a bit limited nowadays because sysexes are not as widely supported as you'd want them to be.
So a group of us at the Xenharmonic Alliance at facebook came up with an idea to update the midi spec ourselves. Because the official committee shows no sign of introducing new microtonal capabilities any time soon.
The idea is to update the tuning using keyswitches, similarly to those used to change the articulation and playing styles of instruments. Instead of low numbered keyswitches though, we would use the high key numbers 127 and 126 which are otherwise hardly ever used.
The velocities for those note numbers are used to send the tuning, with note 127 used for "instructions" such as note 127, velocity 4, to start a tuning table, and 126 used to send the data for the table. Note 127, velocity 100 then ends the table, after which you can use any midi note to play microtonal pitches (including notes 126 and 127). After it is stopped in that way, Undefined controller 119, value 119 is used to switch the velocity keyswitches retuning back on again.
These values are chosen as highly unlikely to ever lead to accidental tuning in a synth with this capability. With a "post official spec" update using keyswitches and undefined controllers, can't logically absolutely rule out accidental tuning but since, AFAWK, no software or hardware sends undefined controller 119 anyway, or at least must be very rare and you would expect it would only be done intentionally to a synth that recognizes it as meaning something - and since notes 126, 127 are almost never used also - it seems a pretty safe update highly unlikely to collide with anything else out there.
We looked at other ideas including undefined controllers and undefined RPNs, and the whole thing is beta work in progress.
But, I wrote a Kontakt script for it as a "proof of concept". If any of you have Kontakt you can add this script to almost any instrument with free script slots, some can be tricky, some have no free slots such as many pianos but most are okay. And will work for any imported .gig or .sf2 instrument etc.
This shows it in action with the Maestro Concert Grand giga file imported into Kontakt.
You can update the tuning in real time via midi. So far only the beta of Bounce Metronome supports that and I haven't yet made it available for public use, but will be in the next release of Bounce quite soon.
But I include a few midi files you can try it out with. Plus enough tunings that come with the script to have some fun with it just as a retuning script for Kontakt (range of example tunings including any n-et + can tune any note individually to any pitch in entire midi range by hand).
Then, to show what would eventually be possible via this method if software added support for things like pitch glides etc - it would permit unlimited pitch glides from anywhere to anywhere in the midi pitch range, and indeed many of those simultaneously in different directions and at varying speeds, all in the same midi channel.
I give some examples of that on the page like this, just a test:
50 note harpischord glide - - many notes gliding with different speeds and directions in a single midi channel.
Also include the original midi files for those so you can try rendering them with an instrument with this script added to it, and see for yourselves that they permit this retuning of notes all on a single instrument selected into a single midi channel in your DAW.
You can find out more about it here, and get the script: Velocity keyswitches retuning
As a beta then it may change, the script, for that matter the spec may change too, and won't guarantee backward compatibility if it does, so is just for testing right now to see what it does. The idea has only been on the go for a ew weeks so far.
Very interested in any comments on it all.
Anyway, yes are several programs that can do microtonal music via pitch bends. Depends what you want to do. For a simple example, if you just want to do e.g. 24 tone music on a single instrument you can do it fine with two channels of midi + pitch bends, bend one of them up by quarter tone.
If you want to do a full orchestral score you need different channels for the stereo pan positions, and controllers, and normally you have one instrument selected into each channel at a time too, you soon run out of channels with the midi limit of 16. Sometimes you can go over that by routing the instruments to multiple devices, e.g. play on 4 different devices etc.
But it is clumsy the pitch bend method when you get complex stuff to retune.
What you really want to do is to be able to change the tuning table on the instrument so you change which pitch individual midi notes play. So you could e.g. set it to play 1/1 from 60 and 5/4 from 64 ON THE SAME CHANNEL. Or indeed any map you like e.g. map all the note numbers of a midi channel to a single octave of e.g. 120-et or 72-et or 96-et or a couple of octaves of 53-et or whatever. Or to harmonic fragment tuning or whatever interests you all on a single channel.
Some synths can load scales and .tun tuning files etc. from file.
Here is a long thread here at KVR which goes through some of the VSTi able to do that:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/printview ... 98&start=0
Depending what you want to do, that can be relatively okay. You just need software able to create these .scl and .tun files which e.g. SCALA can do (also my Tune Smithy). Then hook up your keyboard or score to the synth and play in that tuning.
Ideally what you want to do is to be able to update the tuning in real time via midi.
There is a midi spec for dealing with this, the MTS tuning sysexes, which lets you update the tuning on synthesizer in real time via midi problem is hardly any synths support it, and some environments such as Abletone Live, and Kontakt scripts don't support sysexes.
That's a bit limited nowadays because sysexes are not as widely supported as you'd want them to be.
So a group of us at the Xenharmonic Alliance at facebook came up with an idea to update the midi spec ourselves. Because the official committee shows no sign of introducing new microtonal capabilities any time soon.
The idea is to update the tuning using keyswitches, similarly to those used to change the articulation and playing styles of instruments. Instead of low numbered keyswitches though, we would use the high key numbers 127 and 126 which are otherwise hardly ever used.
The velocities for those note numbers are used to send the tuning, with note 127 used for "instructions" such as note 127, velocity 4, to start a tuning table, and 126 used to send the data for the table. Note 127, velocity 100 then ends the table, after which you can use any midi note to play microtonal pitches (including notes 126 and 127). After it is stopped in that way, Undefined controller 119, value 119 is used to switch the velocity keyswitches retuning back on again.
These values are chosen as highly unlikely to ever lead to accidental tuning in a synth with this capability. With a "post official spec" update using keyswitches and undefined controllers, can't logically absolutely rule out accidental tuning but since, AFAWK, no software or hardware sends undefined controller 119 anyway, or at least must be very rare and you would expect it would only be done intentionally to a synth that recognizes it as meaning something - and since notes 126, 127 are almost never used also - it seems a pretty safe update highly unlikely to collide with anything else out there.
We looked at other ideas including undefined controllers and undefined RPNs, and the whole thing is beta work in progress.
But, I wrote a Kontakt script for it as a "proof of concept". If any of you have Kontakt you can add this script to almost any instrument with free script slots, some can be tricky, some have no free slots such as many pianos but most are okay. And will work for any imported .gig or .sf2 instrument etc.
This shows it in action with the Maestro Concert Grand giga file imported into Kontakt.
You can update the tuning in real time via midi. So far only the beta of Bounce Metronome supports that and I haven't yet made it available for public use, but will be in the next release of Bounce quite soon.
But I include a few midi files you can try it out with. Plus enough tunings that come with the script to have some fun with it just as a retuning script for Kontakt (range of example tunings including any n-et + can tune any note individually to any pitch in entire midi range by hand).
Then, to show what would eventually be possible via this method if software added support for things like pitch glides etc - it would permit unlimited pitch glides from anywhere to anywhere in the midi pitch range, and indeed many of those simultaneously in different directions and at varying speeds, all in the same midi channel.
I give some examples of that on the page like this, just a test:
50 note harpischord glide - - many notes gliding with different speeds and directions in a single midi channel.
Also include the original midi files for those so you can try rendering them with an instrument with this script added to it, and see for yourselves that they permit this retuning of notes all on a single instrument selected into a single midi channel in your DAW.
You can find out more about it here, and get the script: Velocity keyswitches retuning
As a beta then it may change, the script, for that matter the spec may change too, and won't guarantee backward compatibility if it does, so is just for testing right now to see what it does. The idea has only been on the go for a ew weeks so far.
Very interested in any comments on it all.
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- KVRAF
- 2357 posts since 24 Nov, 2012
OT: this might be of interest to some of you
and http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ins ... l-keyboard
the successful kickstarter project for DIY "Add continuous expressive control to any keyboard with this DIY touch sensor kit"
and http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ins ... l-keyboard
the successful kickstarter project for DIY "Add continuous expressive control to any keyboard with this DIY touch sensor kit"