source file: m1391.txt
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 12:30:46 +0000

Subject: Re: TUNING digest 1390

From: david first <d1st@earthlink.net>

Dear List:

I have been receiving mail from this list for a couple of months now and felt
it was time I leaped into the fray...

As someone who has been de-tuning digital synthesizers - Casios (CZ's&VZ's),
Yamahas (DX7II & TG77), and Kurzweil (K2000) - for twelve years, I am
constantly surprised by what is considered acceptable pitch resolution for
just tunings. Its been my experience that even the simplest of pitch arrays
can be frustratingly arbitrary on any of the above named instruments. Of
course, this would clearly be the case on the Casios and Yamahas which all had
resolutions larger than one cent, but what finally opened my eyes was my
initial experience with the k2000 which has a fine tuning resolution of one
cent. The Kurzweil had less pure intervals available than the others! Upon
reflection I realized that due to the larger than one cent tuning res. of the
Casios (CZ - 1.667 ct res./VZ - 1.5625 ct res.) & the Yamahas (1.171875 ct
res.), at least once in a while one could stumble upon a relationship that
came somewhat close to a purely tuned inverval. On the other hand, the K2000,
with its 1200 parts per octave was in essence a type of "equal temperament"
with no possiblity of even accidentally coming close to the decimals needed
for seriously just tunings. 

Since this experience  (in 1992) I had the realization that the only way to
achieve pure ratio derived tunings on a digital synth was to make my own
samples at the desired frequencies and import them into my K2000. Perhaps some
acceptable fudging can be done with the above instruments if one is composing
percussive/pianistic types of music, but make no mistake - one is still only
approximating just intonation when using ANY commercial hardware synth's
tuning table.

David First


> >> >(K2500):  nTET and nCET scales can be
> >> >created at the program level by adjusting a few parameters
> >>    Perhaps you can provide some insight for Bill Meadows here:
> >Achieving nTET and nCET scales of any degree on K2000/K2500s is explained
> >in detail at my web site:
> t