source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 12:52:34 -0700 Subject: Re: TUNING digest 872 From: john_loffink@ycrdi.com tuning@eartha.mills.edu,Internet writes: Topic No. 10 Dear Denis, I was glad to hear that the Kurzweil 2000 is totally retunable. I would like to ask you another few questions about the tuning: 1) Can you tune the samples? 2) What the tuning precission? 3) How many midi chanels has it got? and do you know if they can be tuned to different tunings or the tuning applies to all the chanels at the time? **********************For Everybody: Dear Tuners Does any of you know a keyboard that has 16 or 32 midi chanels that can be retuned independently, wether with the internal sounds or with your own samples ??? Tony Salinas 1) Samples can be tuned by keymaps so that each key has its own unlimited microtonal scale with any number of notes per octave. This is more tedious than the global intonation tables because you have to create a keymap for each tuning and instrument. You can store up to 999 keymaps and instruments in a K2000/K2500. You can also retune any instrument using the intonation table. These tables are limited to 12 note per octave scales. Note however that the tonic itself can be retuned, making just key modulations possible by selecting a new scale. Instruments will not glitch or turn off when a new intonation table is selected. The intonation table is effective globally to all instruments and MIDI channels. Currently, only new notes will be affected by an intonation table change, not sustaining notes. You could not use keymap tunings and intonation table tunings realistically at the same time. You can store up to 255 intonation tables in a K2000/K2500. 2) The tuning precision is currently limited by software to 1 cent. It is closer to 1/20th of a cent in the hardware in most situations. Transposing a sample downwards 4-5 octaves or more reduces the tuning accuracy. 3) The K2000/K2500 have 16 MIDI channels. Intonation tables apply to all the channels at the same time. Keymap tunings apply only to individual instruments. 4) The Ensoniq EPS/EPS-16+/ASR-10 and Kurzweil K2000/K2500 are the only full-fledged samplers that allow user friendly retuning. Using an E-mu sampler, for instance, requires creating a sample range for each key and retuning each sample for the individual notes. Very tedious. The EPS/EPS-16+/ASR-10 have no internal sounds, unless you count the Flash ROM option for the EPS-16 + (up to 1Mbyte). The Ensoniqs have 16 MIDI channels but since you can load only 8 instruments at a time you are realistically limited to 8 channels. The Ensoniqs have an unlimited tuning range per instrument, not limited to 12 note octaves or to the system or MIDI channel. There are 8 pitch tables available per instrument, however, the sysex codes to access them never worked so you're limited to 4 different pitch tables per instrument by using the patch select buttons. There may be a few obsolete (Yamaha, Peavey, etc.) and current (General Music?) synthesizers with microtonal capabilities and small RAM options, probably 2 Mbyte or less. Back issues of Keyboard Annual Synth/Sampler reports are good for this type of information (sorry, I can't access them at the moment). John Loffink Senior Hardware Engineer Young Chang Research & Development Institute (Kurzweil Music Systems) Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 23:44 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA32042; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 23:46:10 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA30497 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id OAA15514; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 14:46:06 -0700 Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 14:46:06 -0700 Message-Id: <199610251744_MC1-B40-FE27@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu