source file: m1385.txt
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 03:53:50 -0500 (CDT)

Subject: RE: delurking (synthesizer tuning capabilities)

From: mr88cet@texas.net (Gary Morrison)

>My opinion is based upon using Ensoniq samplers since 1989.  If you want to
>do a moderate amount of modulation in just intonation, 4 switchable scales
>are not enough.

   That's true.  But then again Ensoniq instruments respond to SysEx codes
too, noting the caveat you mentioned.  And the MR series, and apparently
the ASR-X, comply with the MIDI tuning standard which, as I understand it,
has well-defined provisions for dynamic intonation.

   Now that is of course assuming that you're restricting yourself to
matching octave boundaries on the keyboard with octave boundaries in the
tuning.  I'll be hornswaggled if I can tell how on Earth people do this,
but the apparent truth of the matter is that the most common way to map
more than 12 steps per octave to a keyboard is mapping them linearly,
successive steps in the tuning to successive keys on the keyboard.

   But anyway, if you're willing to admit that possibility, you can, for
example map a dynamic JI scheme to 19-toned subsets rather than 12-toned
subsets, you might be able to get by with 8 tables even with fairly exotic
harmony.





>Even if you use only fixed scales, if you want more than 8
>different ones then you must store those scales as separate files and then
>copy them individually to each and every sample instrument that you use.

   Yes, that's unfortunate.  In many ways, I personally would prefer a
single global intonation.  I normally save different copies of the
otherwise same instrument separately, which is indeed annoying.

   Still, with individual pitch tables for individual instruments I can
simulate a global intonation table, but with a global intonation I can't
simulate individual instrument pitch tables.  So at least the solution is
general.





>The most flexible microtonal architecture I've seen in a commercial
>synthesizer is the Yamaha TX802.  You can define up to 64 keyboard scales on
>a cartridge, and then assign each part to any of the scales.

   That sounds interesting.  Are those "keyboard scales" completely
arbitrary though?  Can any MIDI note number be tuned to any arbitrary pitch
irrelevant of what you tune any of the other MIDI notes to (within the
range and resolution of the sound-generator that is)?

   If so, then I'd say you're right that they've got Ensoniq beat, and I
think I have some product investigation to do!  If not, then I'd have to
see what are the restrictions.  If for example, all Cs (for example) must
be exact octaves apart, or if the step size between all pairs of adjacent
keys has to be the same or of limited resolution, I'm not terribly
interested.  (Those are, as I understand it anyway, the limitations that
the K2500 puts on you.  Although they apparently have something or other to
at least partly get around that;  I think it's called a "function".)

   Oh, is the TX802 still a current-produced product?