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 Forum index » Clavia Nord Modular » Nord Modular G2 Discussion
Non-equally tempered keyboard scales
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ffransis



Joined: Jun 24, 2004
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 2:20 am    Post subject: Non-equally tempered keyboard scales Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Hi

This is a first post from a new member of the forum, whose only previous experience of (hardware) modular synthesis was in high school in the late 1970s, on an EMS VCS3 synthi! These days I occasionally doodle with Csound, in order to study the physics of sound rather than create music as such.

My question is this: does the G2 allow, in a musically-intuitive way, the setting up of keyboard scales other than in equal temperament? This is a critical question for me, and the answer will determine whether or not I decide to buy a G2 Engine. A good keyboard or module that has this facility will allow the user to choose - for whatever patch is currently active - a certain key-idependent temperament (e.g., meantone, Werckmeister, Kirnberger, etc), or a "just" scale that requires also the tonic and major/minor mode to be specified. It will also allow the user to edit the tuning table via sysex, and create arbitrary scales. Can the G2 do this?

Francis
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ian-s



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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 4:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

At the moment, no feature of the G2 specifically allows for anything other than equal temperament. You can string together (a few dozen) modules and manually adjust the tuning within a specific patch, or simply scale the keyboard cv for microtuning. Nothing like what you are asking for though. Maybe a future release but no guarantees.
The G2 is an excellent synthesizer but would have to come quite low on the list for someone who considers alternate tuning very important.
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mosc
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 8:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Welcome, ffransis, to electro-music.com. Glad to have you here.

I think Ian's answer says it all, I just wanted to say hi...

welcome
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ffransis



Joined: Jun 24, 2004
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 10:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

g2ian wrote:
At the moment, no feature of the G2 specifically allows for anything other than equal temperament. You can string together (a few dozen) modules and manually adjust the tuning within a specific patch, or simply scale the keyboard cv for microtuning. Nothing like what you are asking for though. Maybe a future release but no guarantees.
The G2 is an excellent synthesizer but would have to come quite low on the list for someone who considers alternate tuning very important.


Thanks, Ian, for your reply. Has anyone experience of either of the approaches outlined above, and if so, would they please provide an example or two?

It would be nice if Clavia provided a module to set the keyboard tuning table in an efficient, cross-patch manner. With a synth capable of such finely-sculptured sound, decent harmony is important, and to my ears there's little worse than the beating present in an equally-tempered third. I'd like not only to work in just intonation, but create new scales and experiment, and having to hack each patch would be a real pain! I'd like to be able to work with the G2, as this device would also be good for processing of analogue signals, and with my interest in electro-acoustic music...
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play



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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 12:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

u could use a midi keyboard connected to a computer that's running software like Max or Reaktor that allows you to control oscillators with fractional Hertz granularity. I've created balinese scales this way.

I don't know of any available synthesizers that allow this but then again, I'm a computer guy.
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blue hell
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 1:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

For the NM Classic I once made some table driven tuning patches, all octave based and some different number of notes in the octave that could be individually tuned. It would require some work I think to port those to the G2.

By downloading the NM Classic editor from the Clavia site ( http://www.clavia.se/nordmodular/editor.htm )you could have a look at the tuning patches at http://www.iaf.nl/Users/BlueHell/html/nm/nm-patches.htm , look for TET and look for tune-xx. I'm not quite sure anymore what is what exactly ...

For a G2 example of a different tuning see http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-1973.html , this is a noodle though and not a keyboard patch.

It's not too easy to get other tuning scales.

Jan.
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ffransis



Joined: Jun 24, 2004
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 5:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

noiseusse wrote:
u could use a midi keyboard connected to a computer that's running software like Max or Reaktor that allows you to control oscillators with fractional Hertz granularity. I've created balinese scales this way.

I don't know of any available synthesizers that allow this but then again, I'm a computer guy.


So am I. Or at least, I have been up til now. As for hardware synths, at present I make do with a Proteus 1000 module, but it's somewhat restrictive, and with the pitch resolution being 1,56 cents it's not possible to design scales with highly accurate steps.

There are a number of hardware synths that allow microtonal variations in the way sought (see http://www.microtonal-synthesis.com), but most are either hugely expensive analogue models, FM classics such as the DX7, or wavetable devices like the Proteus. Many are old and no longer in production. The G2 with a temperament module could be for me the perfect synth!

I use mostly Csound for experimenting, and also MAX, with Scala to create the scales.

Francis
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seraph
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2004 5:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

ffransis wrote:
(see http://www.microtonal-synthesis.com)

on the Links page under Resources>Audio resources there are other links of interest on this matter Very Happy

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mosc
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2004 8:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I could imagine a bunch of note detectors what demultiplex a bunch of constants that could be tuned to the desired pitch, how would you get around the problem in the G2 of the 128 step resolution on the knobs?
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ffransis



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 28, 2004 6:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Blue Hell wrote:
For the NM Classic I once made some table driven tuning patches, all octave based and some different number of notes in the octave that could be individually tuned. It would require some work I think to port those to the G2.


Jan

Thanks for the URLs. I will hopefully in the next few days install the Classic editor and have a look at the patches. So far all I've done is to look at the n-TET html manual. Actually, 19-TET is of interest to me, but I'm not really able to create keyboard music with this system.

I just hope that I can find a way to set up at least 1/4 comma meantone and some just scales, and transfer the scale-related parts of the patches to different sounds. I am willing to spend some time on this, but I wish Clavia would make it easier by designing a module for the purpose. I have sent an email request to them, but (so far) no answer. In the meantime, only if I feel confident that I can do it will I go ahead and buy a G2 engine. Csound is all very well and good, but I'd much rather steer clear of doing heavy-duty DSPing on a PowerBook!

Francis
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Rob



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 1:40 pm    Post subject: Just tunings Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

It is possible to detune an oscillator by rational fraction ratios like 3:2, 4:3, 5:4, 5:3, etc, where the numerator and denominator can be of a value up to 32. Meaning that 32:31 would be the smallest possible interval and 32:1 the largest.

Using rational fraction ratios is a very natural way for creating harmonic intervals. Interesting reading on the subject is 'Lehrbuch Der Harmonik' by Hans Kayser, 1950 - Zürich, in gothic type and all.

The basic G2 patch uses two PartQuant modules (by subtracting the output value of one from the other) and is decribed with a patch example in the G2 V1.2 helpfile. The basic patch can be expanded by using two CtrlSequence modules for the numerators and denominators.
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Rob



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 1:41 pm    Post subject: Just tunings Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

It is possible to detune an oscillator by rational fraction ratios like 3:2, 4:3, 5:4, 5:3, etc, where the numerator and denominator can be of a value up to 32. Meaning that 32:31 would be the smallest possible interval and 32:1 the largest.

Using rational fraction ratios is a very natural way for creating harmonic intervals. Interesting reading on the subject is 'Lehrbuch Der Harmonik' by Hans Kayser, 1950 - Zürich, in gothic type and all.

The basic G2 patch uses two PartQuant modules (by subtracting the output value of one from the other) and is decribed with a patch example in the G2 V1.2 helpfile. The basic patch can be expanded by using two CtrlSequence modules for the numerators and denominators.
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seraph
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 1:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

how come every once in a while I see posts posted twice Question
I swear, I do not drink alcoholic beverages Shocked

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Rob



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 2:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

seraph wrote:
how come every once in a while I see posts posted twice Question
I swear, I do not drink alcoholic beverages Shocked


Beats the hell out of me... Smile
How do I delete the second 'ghost' message?
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mosc
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

There is a little X near the top right of every post, if you are the author. Just click on it and that should remove it.

Sometimes, for me, after I submit a post, there is a very long delay and I just give up waiting for the screen to refresh. I usually hit reload or something and things come back to life, but sometimes there is a duplicated posting.

In the future, we're going to move to a server with a faster network connection. Then the duplicate messages can be posted much more quickly. Wink
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Rob



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PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2004 12:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:
There is a little X near the top right of every post, if you are the author. Just click on it and that should remove it.


That's the thing, there isn't the X, there is the Edit though. The X is there in the session when I write the message, but in later sessions they seem to disappear. Or do they disappear when the message is doubled? Question

It also seems the IExplorer 'previous' and 'backwards' toolbar buttons are no good to use, as they seem to give this 'Page expired' messages that perhaps gives the trouble.
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mosc
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2004 11:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I have to look into this. I have no idea as to the problem. Don't expect a solution immediately as this is not my highest priority.
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blue hell
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:20 am    Post subject: Back on topic Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

To return to the original subject, today I saw this on the Clavia site http://www.clavia.se/News/MicroTuning.htm

didn't check it out though.

Jan.
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ffransis



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PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:58 am    Post subject: Re: Back on topic Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Blue Hell wrote:
To return to the original subject, today I saw this on the Clavia site http://www.clavia.se/News/MicroTuning.htm

didn't check it out though.

Jan.


I can't check it myself as I don't have a G2, but have taken a look at the patch in the OS X editor.

Following my initial post to this forum, I sent an email to Clavia and received a reply some days later. I won't give out the name or email address of the Clavia staffer with whom I corresponded, but will say that he was very sympathetic, and wrote of the possibility of a module being written for micro-tuning. We were of the consensus that the solution would involve tuning all the notes within an octave, and have the scale thus defined apply throughout the MIDI range. It would not be necessary to provide preset temperaments such as meantone, Werckmeister, etc. Instead, the user would be given freedom to roll their own scales (in keeping with the modular synthesis philosophy). The patch posted on the Clavia site will do the job (tusen tak til Palle Dahlstedt!), but it isn't the solution we need.
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mosc
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 3:16 pm    Post subject: Re: Back on topic Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

ffransis wrote:
The patch posted on the Clavia site will do the job (tusen tak til Palle Dahlstedt!), but it isn't the solution we need.

I have loaded this patch and it seems to work quite well. It allows you to tune up any scale you would want, and transpose it to any tonic. Doesn't use too much DSP resource either.
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