ACE, Bazille, Diva, Hive public beta – updated to RC2 revision 16518

[Urs]

At the moment we’re concentrating on our payware, and then, apart from Uhbik 2, we also have this massive project called Zebra 3. I can’t yet think beyond that…

Uhbik 2, yeah ! Any news?

A lot of stuff is happening for Uhbik... but also for other things... I don't have a clear picture atm. - I just know some part of the team is grinding through it.

[Ploki]

Sorry for the Necro

Is MTS realtime pitch anywhere on the roadmap?

[Urs]

Currently only Uhbik and Zebra 3 have anything scheduled, and afaik Z3 supports MTS in realtime.

ATM I'm not certain if we can do it at all for these synths with their current voice management, hence MTS is supported only on note start. We'll certainly look into it, but atm we need to focus on future products.

(Sheesh, we have spent more than six years without a major plug-in release. Most of it went into product maintenance, and much of this was spent on these 4 synths. Can you believe it, our "newest" plug-in is Twangström, which came out in January 2019...?)

[Ploki]

Time flies when you’re having fun

And yes, absolutely! Maybe that drum machine from soundbooth 2013? wink wink

Can you believe i have projects with uhbik first alpha that I havent released yet, uhbik stopped working in the meantime and now it works again?
I also still haven’t updated skins for key control and MPE

Zebra3 having realtime MTS is great news tho.
you can do some really interesting quirky stuff with realtime MTS.

[pdxindy]

you can do some really interesting quirky stuff with realtime MTS.

What is realtime MTS?

[Ploki]

you can do some really interesting quirky stuff with realtime MTS.

What is realtime MTS?

https://oddsound.com/mtsespsuite.php
this gizmo tunes compatible synths on the fly.

You can make custom scales, interpolate between scales with macros, etc.
some synths change tuning on note-on, but some change tuning as you change tuning inside MTS realtime.
With note-on changes you can't have glide-to-scale.
With "realtime" changes you can do plenty of wierd glides, because the range of MTS is open

meaning you could do a THX like sound with just one real-time tunable synth and two scales you interpolate in MTS.
Or have superwide twelvenote chord slide into a single pitch. etc.

[tumface]

For me, I've found that real-time MTS for live retuning is most useful for music where you want to do just intonation. I've used it for doing mimicry of choirs with synthesizers.

…Actually, to be more specific, I tried to do it with MTS-ESP, but I found the u-he synths didn't support it for notes that were already sounding. I ended up using the surprisingly amazing Max for Live device 'Scale Breaker' in Ableton Live to do it using MPE, instead, and it actually worked a lot more reliably and solidly than MTS-ESP. In addition to changing the reference pitch on the fly, you can stack reference pitches, so that going I -> IV -> V for example follows a just intonation path at each interval, instead of using the 12TET version of each reference pitch. Just an awesome little gadget. Highly recommended if you use Live.

[Ploki]

Isn’t that whet basically “hermode” tuning was hoping to be?
I did often wonder why MTS-ESP doesn’t support it

[Andreya_Autumn]

Y'all may be interested in this: https://github.com/surge-synthesizer/ji-lattice-plugin

As the blurb says, it's in Alpha. But in a pretty usable state. Its intended for exactly the purpose you name, dynamically changing Just Intonation, so that you can have a fairly normal 12-note chromatic scale on your piano roll at all times but the exact tunings of notes can be changed in anticipation of wolf notes and such.

It is a MTS-ESP master. So indeed if the synth doesn't do the continuous retuning thing, this also won't do that. For a lot of the music I make that's just fine, since the notes which need retuning to avoid a wolf usually aren't sounding before the change. And if they are, it's usually alright to just release that briefly. Of course that may not work for you. But I thought I'd share in case it's of interest.

[Ploki]

Interesting, but i guess i can already do that with oddsound.

However, maybe MTS is a way to revive the good ol’ hermode
http://www.hermode.com/index_en.html

Had some fun in logic with this years ago, however its use is limited because it only works with built in instruments

[Ploki]

by the way i just discovered that Fabfilter Twin3 follows logic's built in tuning, which is something i didn't know possible

adding it to my wishlist, thanks

[tumface]

Isn’t that whet basically “hermode” tuning was hoping to be?
I did often wonder why MTS-ESP doesn’t support it

Sorta. Hermode is a compromise and works automatically, but doesn't tune quite as tightly as JI. It's pretty cool, but, I think the reason MTS-ESP doesn't support it is that it needs to be able analyze all of the notes currently being played in order to adjust the tuning. Which is usually something only the DAW can do.

Y'all may be interested in this: https://github.com/surge-synthesizer/ji-lattice-plugin

This is very cool. The usability of it seems more difficult than Scale Breaker. In Scale Breaker, you can send a note with velocity 1 to set the reference pitch. In JI Lattice, it seems like you have to pulse CC messages at the right time, which I think would be challenging to integrate in the DAWs I use. (Also, yeah, lots of synths don't adjust to realtime MTS-ESP retuning, anyway.) But it's nice to see it, regardless.

[Andreya_Autumn]

Y'all may be interested in this: https://github.com/surge-synthesizer/ji-lattice-plugin

This is very cool. The usability of it seems more difficult than Scale Breaker. In Scale Breaker, you can send a note with velocity 1 to set the reference pitch. In JI Lattice, it seems like you have to pulse CC messages at the right time, which I think would be challenging to integrate in the DAWs I use. (Also, yeah, lots of synths don't adjust to realtime MTS-ESP retuning, anyway.) But it's nice to see it, regardless.

CC messages can be used to move the mapping around on the lattice yes. The purpose of that is more for real-time playing. Map a few MIDI buttons or footswitches to shift the territory around and you can play JI music with more than 12 notes on a 12-note keyboard. But the location on the lattice is also controlled by DAW parameters, so for timeline arrangement that's way more convenient.

Indeed many synths don't support MTS-ESP. But also many do! This is the most comprehensive list we know of and it is getting pretty long (all the U-He synths are on there for example): https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/tun ... lient-list

[Andreya_Autumn]

Interesting, but i guess i can already do that with oddsound.

ODDsound MTS-ESP Master can do similar things indeed (and a thousand more), though for this one task Lattices is easier to use right out the gate.

Say, if you're working on a piece in C and you find you need an Ab in one part and G# in the next, in Lattices you only need one move to make that change, so to speak. And also a single move to change D into D-, Bb into Bb+, etc etc.

I was working on a ODDsound Master setup to do the same, but the 2-dimensional nature of the issue makes it very hard. I got it working, but it was a lot of setup, and harder to keep track of "where are we" kinda.

Anyway, since you like the Hermode thing and this one has similar goal you may find it useful. But this is a bit of a thread hijack of course. Write a DM or come to the Surge discord if you do try it out and have any questions.

[tumface]

Indeed many synths don't support MTS-ESP. But also many do! This is the most comprehensive list we know of and it is getting pretty long (all the U-He synths are on there for example):

I know. The reason we're on this topic is because u-he synths currently do not support real time retuning. You can't retune notes that are already playing or have just started playing, making the MTS-ESP JI thing not workable on u-he synths.

CC messages can be used to move the mapping around on the lattice yes. The purpose of that is more for real-time playing. Map a few MIDI buttons or footswitches to shift the territory around and you can play JI music with more than 12 notes on a 12-note keyboard. But the location on the lattice is also controlled by DAW parameters, so for timeline arrangement that's way more convenient.

The way Scale Breaker handles this is much more convenient and is a better design. They should just copy that. (In my opinion, anyway!)