u-he

Tom Drinkwater · Post by **Tom Drinkwater** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 6:53 pm

I'd like to hear from people who are using u-he plugins with microtuning.

I'm focusing on Diva, but I see that ACE also has the microtuning option. Presumably Zebra does too (I haven't bought Zebra yet)

Anyway I'm just getting into using microtunings, and the use of.tun files is great.

I'll add more info as I learn things, and I hope others can add their experiences, bugs, or feature requests for microtuning here.

I have 2 things I'd like - not sure the best way to go about them.

1. When you load a non equal-temperament .tun file, say a just intonation tuned for C major - it is key specific. If you want to use it in another key you need to make a separate .tun file with mapping for every midi note number to make it tuned for the other key. It would be really cool if Diva could allow you to transpose a .tun file. So for example a .tun file that specifies midi notes 1 2 and 3 as 110, 197 and 312 could be transposed so that notes 2, 3 and 4 became 210, 297, and 412.

Such a transposition would be by midi note number, which would often but not always be equal to a semitone. Note that this has nothing whatever to do with Diva's existing transpose function which transposes incoming midi notes before they are processed.

Is there a better way to achieve this without adding features to Diva? Or should I just accept this is a niche interest and create 12 .tun files for every temperament I might want to use.....

2. retuning individual notes in real time? does Diva respond to real time retune sysex messages? It would be great to be able to retune individual notes in a chord either by a message sent from a controller per note, or by such a message created by a dynamic retuning program.

this relates to the next thread I am about to startt which is per note modulation/parameter control. (like polyphonic aftertouch) I will save the more general discussion for the other thread though.

bmrzycki · Post by **bmrzycki** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 7:04 pm

Zebra has the same microtuning options ACE and Diva do. In fact some of Howard's factory presets use alternative tunings. He has a few stringed instruments for example. You can download the demo and try out the patches (and save some of your own too).

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:06 pm

Tom Drinkwater wrote:2. retuning individual notes in real time? does Diva respond to real time retune sysex messages? It would be great to be able to retune individual notes in a chord either by a message sent from a controller per note, or by such a message created by a dynamic retuning program.

Yes, you can do some very nifty realtime retuning tricks using the Mod Mappers... think about it!

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:14 pm

Could you not just transpose the pitch of the whole synth at the oscillator level to shift a non-equal temperament to a different key? I like to use microtuning but the fact that there's no universal standard between all VSTis makes it very inconvenient... so usually I end up doing something with the mod matrix or "mad moppers"

I still say it's about time the VST standard was re-written. Microtuning should be handled in the MIDI sequence, NOT in the synth it's self. Attatching tunings to patches works for emulation of ethnic instruments, but the chances are, if you're writing a part in 14-tone or whatever, you're going to want to be browsing all your patches in that tonality - not loading it up and switching each one over, messing with menu files and searching for different types of tuning file >_<.

Imagine if your scale was set up in the piano roll and synths just responded to any pitch thrown at them! I'm not sure if that'd be possible, but it would be revolutionary to people like me.

Tom Drinkwater · Post by **Tom Drinkwater** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:27 pm

Sendy wrote:Could you not just transpose the pitch of the whole synth at the oscillator level to shift a non-equal temperament to a different key?

well yes, but at the expense of an A on the keyboard no longer being an A, and if you shift it far you might start to notice that other frequency dependent parameters like filter don't shift with it.

It would be great if DAW's started making the piano roll customizable for alternate tunings, but I'm not holding my breath. For tunings that still have 12 notes it is OK though. Or even a subset of 12 notes. In those cases retuning the regular notes is a workable paradigm, and that can be done in the synth. It is tunings with more than 12 notes per octave where it really starts getting messy.

Tom Drinkwater · Post by **Tom Drinkwater** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:44 pm

Howard wrote:
Tom Drinkwater wrote:2. retuning individual notes in real time? does Diva respond to real time retune sysex messages? It would be great to be able to retune individual notes in a chord either by a message sent from a controller per note, or by such a message created by a dynamic retuning program.
Yes, you can do some very nifty realtime retuning tricks using the Mod Mappers... think about it!

Well this did occur to me, but all those parameters are per voice, and any voice could be any note...

it is of little use for microtuning to always flatten voice 4 using the voice map modulator since the same note repeated might come back in any voice.

It is not apparent to me how to instruct Diva to "play all C#s 10 cents flatter until further notice" nor "sharpen the highest note currently being played by 5 cents" nor "play the next note 6 cents flat", nor "play note number 67 8 cents sharp"

although the first and last of those can be done by loading a new .tun file, I doubt that that is practical for repeated retunings during performance/playback.

or have I missed something? (likely!)

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 7:05 am

I don't think you missed anything except that *Diva* has no Mod Mapper (for some reason I thought we were talking about Zebra). Altering e.g every C# in Zebra or ACE without using microtuning tables is easy. In Diva you need to use Microtuning.

Tom Drinkwater · Post by **Tom Drinkwater** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 1:02 pm

right I was a bit confused about what you meant by the mod mapper. I haven't used it in ACE yet I had forgotten about it as I've spent all my synth time on diva so far.

I will look into using the mod mapper.

the midi spec does specify a "single note tuning change" message.

http://www.midi.org/techspecs/midituning.php

looks cumbersome, but maybe u-he could support this? or does it already?

I haven't tested, as I'd have to find a way of generating those messages and i'm not up to speed on max etc.

Tom Drinkwater · Post by **Tom Drinkwater** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 4:04 pm

I had a play with the mapping generator in ACE, it is brilliant for setting up temperaments on the fly and retuning them by ear by dragging each of 12 notes up and down while playing.

However I can't see any way to retune a note via a midi message. I can retune all C#s in the mapping generator but if I want to set up a midi CC to retune all C#s dynamically I can't see how to do that.

can the amount of mapping generator effect be modulated with a midi CC? It doesn't seem to work. I'm presuming "mapping source" doesn't do anything in key mode?

searching the ACE manual for "mapping source" gives no results.

Even if the whole maps effect could be linked to a CC, that would modulate all notes simultaneously (albeit by different amounts), but I want to modulate a selected subset of notes (like all C#s) with a separate midi message for each set of notes.

If you could midi learn each map position independently then it would work...

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 6:45 pm

Tom Drinkwater wrote:
However I can't see any way to retune a note via a midi message.

No can do... You could set up a number of identical presets with different tunings and use program change. Obviously that would not work if you wanted to have sustaining notes

In Live I could set up an instrument rack with a few layered instances with those presets and use chain select via modwheel or other controller knob to switch between them on the fly...

Zebra has 4 modmappers... so you could switch from one to another on the fly to change tunings

Tom Drinkwater · Post by **Tom Drinkwater** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 7:07 pm

I think that would all be getting a bit arcane.

Maybe just asking u-he to implement single note tuning change and polyphonic aftertouch message reception as per the midi spec would be the best solution.

Unless this has already been done? I have no easy way of checking right now.

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:59 pm

Tom Drinkwater wrote:I think that would all be getting a bit arcane.

Maybe just asking u-he to implement single note tuning change and polyphonic aftertouch message reception as per the midi spec would be the best solution.

Unless this has already been done? I have no easy way of checking right now.

No offense, but of course it is easier to ask someone else to do the work...

I do think u-he synths already supports polyAT...

Tom Drinkwater · Post by **Tom Drinkwater** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 9:26 pm

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=336189

this would indicate that selecting aftertouch as a mod parameter and mapping it to pitch might achieve the desired result.

now I just need to find a way to send poly AT messages to test.

though I imagine poly AT is positive only, and a pitch message is bipolar.

Tom Drinkwater · Post by **Tom Drinkwater** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 10:00 pm

confirmed Diva responds to poly AT when a modulation source is set to pressure (I had assumed this was only channel pressure, but in fact it is both/either).

I mapped velocity to poly AT in midipipe.

great for per note expressive control.

I can't find a way to send a poly AT message with a negative value to allow flattening a note though. Is such a message even possible? what would Diva do if it received one? I'll try to do it but if anyone knows the answer please share.

so poly AT can make notes sharper or flatter (with negative pitch modulation) but not both at once. So while that's great news for some other purposes I have it hasn't quite allowed me to have pitch control per note the way a violinist does. More like a guitar, where you can bend up but not down.

orebronerd · Post by **orebronerd** » Wed Jan 02, 2013 11:32 am

I posted a suggestion about a year ago, about some kind of presets for micro tunings, like FM8 has for example. There you can choose a scale, for example just intonation, and then choose a root note. This works very well, and it's easy to change key if you have to do that. (Quite common when you work with singers). This doesn't mean you have to dismiss with the .tun system, but it is a bit cumbersome, and it's not always easy to decipher what different .tun files represent. I think of this as a complement to the .tun system.

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KVR Audio

U-he plugins and microtuning