source file: mills3.txt Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 06:11:02 +0200 Subject: Truth in Tuning From: Mckyyy@aol.com Since there seems to be some renewed interest in FasTrak, it might be appropriate to discuss some of the thinking that went into it's design. Most of this has been said here before, but that was a long time ago. Those who are interested could read my posts in the archives. I was struck in 1964 by the idea that it was possible to use electronic methods to produce nearly absolutely exact tuning, and I have devoted about 12-15 man years of fairly intense effort trying to bring that idea into the cultural mainstream. FasTrak was only one of a long series of projects designed to realize that goal. The road has been long and painful, consisting of prototypes, patents, business disasters, poverty, family hardships, financial backers, negotiations with corporations, and lots of hard work. I had lots of fun, and don't regret any of it, but my gross receipts for all that effort remain less than $100.00. It is true that when I have to work at something besides music, I can make a comfortable living using skills that I developed largely for this quest--although I do have another interest or two that are nearly as intense. Perhaps things are easier now, but my experience makes me a little wary of putting large amounts of energy into such projects when I am facing a retirement that will probably be a lot less opulent than I could have enjoyed by focusing more on larger paychecks and less on changing the world. With FasTrak, what you see is what you hear. It is designed to expose the hardware primitives you are dealing with, and let you make the basic decisions. It only uses FM synthesis because FM synthesis is the only commercially available tuning technology that publishes its tuning specs. I have currently been working on some DSP based technology that could be considerably better than FM synthesis, but my time is extremely limited by the fact that I have a day job, [Software QA Engineer], and by the fact that I have a non- music project going that could potentially bring in very large amounts of cash. If I can't guarantee the tuning of my music software, then I won't write it, therefore I will either have to build my own hardware, or some manufacturer will have to decide to release his tuning "secrets" to me. I think that electronic music manufacturer's are seriously shooting themselves in the foot by refusing to publish tuning specs. Using acoustical instruments, musicians can microtune in real time. Most electronic musical instruments don't provide that capability. 12ET has been a rule that was honored largely in the breach, but electronic musical instruments, virtually all of which have absolute tuning accuracy [who knows to what model?], have changed all that, and their market share will never grow to what it could be until their tuning deficiencies are overcome. FasTrak is designed to be a useful tool to someone who is willing to put in the time to learn. Any feature that would slow down its functioning but make it initially easier to use has been omitted. In addition, using FasTrak requires fluency in DOS, dealing with directories, command line redirection, and such, and a basic understanding of elementary number theory is extremely helpful. But once you have mastered FasTrak, I don't think there is any environment that can equal it for producing quality JI compositions quickly. Marion SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: mr88cet@texas.net Subject: Re: Sysex vs. Pitch Bend PostedDate: 23-09-97 11:00:42 SendTo: CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH ReplyTo: tuning@eartha.mills.edu $UpdatedBy: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH,CN=Manuel op de Coul/OU=AT/O=EZH RouteServers: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=notesrv1/OU=Server/O=EZH RouteTimes: 23-09-97 11:00:29-23-09-97 11:00:30,23-09-97 10:59:36-23-09-97 10:59:37 DeliveredDate: 23-09-97 10:59:37 Categories: $Revisions: Received: from ns.ezh.nl by notesrv2.ezh.nl (Lotus SMTP MTA v1.1 (385.6 5-6-1997)) with SMTP id C125651B.0031782A; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 11:00:20 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA05437; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 11:00:42 +0200 Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 11:00:42 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05438 Received: (qmail 16192 invoked from network); 23 Sep 1997 09:00:29 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 23 Sep 1997 09:00:29 -0000 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu