source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 07:10:24 -0800 Subject: Re: TUNING digest 888 From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@CompuServe.COM> > I THINK I heard on the list a few weeks ago that the Kurzweil 2500 > couldn't be programmed into 19 TET unless each key was setup to playback a > tuned sample. I'm the one who posted that conclusion by my K2500-owner friend. That conclusion has the potential to be true provided that you're trying to map linearly across the keyboard, mismatching octave boundaries in the tuning with octave boundaries in the white/black structure of the keyboard). (An aside: Speaking for myself, I'm very impressed by people who are capable of ignoring the 7+5 white/black structure of the traditional keyboard. Although I have always found it very difficult to ignore, there can be no doubt that the majority of people exploring 19 and many other microtonal ETs on keyboard map it that way, and see nothing particularly problematic about it.) I say "has the potential to be true" because somebody down in the bowels of Kurzweil responded saying that that's not true. The K2x00 apparently has four basic capabilities useful for unusual tunings, as I understand it anyway: 1. You can tune all C-C octaves identically to just about any conceivable pitch. The limitation is that it must be on C-C (or A-A or whatever) boundaries, and the pattern must repeat in octaves. Apparently you can have quite a few of this sort of table loaded and can switch off between them with a SysEx message. So you can certainly map 19 into two, three, or more 12-toned subsets. One way that strikes me as reasonable for doing this is a tuning table with naturals and sharps, one with naturals and flats, and another with the more common nonnaturals (e.g., F# instead of Gb, and Bb instead of A#) and also containing B#/Cb and E#/Fb notes. You can also create 19 tables for each of the 19 possible key signatures. 2. You can tune the interval between adjacent keys to a consistent cent distance identical between all adjacent key pairs. The limitation is that you have only 2-cent resolution. So using this mechanism alone, 19 mapped linearly across the keyboard (instead of in 12-toned subsets) turns out way off by the time you reach the 19th key in the sequence. 3. The fellow at Kurzweil, who apparently prefers the 12-tone subset approach or perhaps doesn't do much with microtonal ETs, says that you can refine this 2-cent resolution using something I think he called a "function". I don't know the details, nor do I personally know anybody who's successfully implemented this suggestion (not to suggest for a moment that I have any reason to think that this Kurzweil fellow is misleading us, of course). 4. James McCartney, whose address I don't recall, uses a K2000 microtonally by using what I suppose might be called a "memorizing controller". Ap- parently the K2x00 has at least one controller which, when you set it to some value, it remembers that value. You can then use it kind of like a pitch-bend by applying it to pitch calculations, and it does NOT affect notes currently playing. Without a doubt, in my mind and many others', Ensoniq's pitch-table approach is FAR more intuitive and easier to work with. But certainly in many ways the K2x00 instruments are more powerful at a purely synthesizer-capability level than the ASR. Apparently their effects processor isn't as capable as the ASR's though. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 05:12 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA02384; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 05:13:48 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA02390 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id UAA13865; Tue, 12 Nov 1996 20:13:45 -0800 Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 20:13:45 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu