source file: m1447.txt Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:51:32 -0500 Subject: Re: Microtunable wishlist From: "jloffink" > From: mr88cet@texas.net (Gary Morrison) > John (Loffink), that might be a useful column to add to your web page. > A fair number of synthesizers are not multitimbral, and I suspect that > people would like to know that. I've recently added a synth help page with links that (sometimes) have this information. I'd like to keep the information on my charts to a manageable level. > From: Drew Skyfyre > Hokay , reality check. > > Hate to be a wet blanket, but how many commercial synth co.s do you > think are actually ever going to implement realistic microtuning > capabilities ? All this wish list stuff brings out the kid in me ,but > I've seen > synth models com and go, and "the more things change,the more they stay > the same". > >From the responses I've gotten from co.s (except Ensoniq!)after enquiring > about microtuning, > I'd say fat chance. It isn't up there on their list of "shiny new > features that will > dazzle music store visitors and seperate them from their money." I've watched synth models come and go since 1979. Back then, I couldn't buy anything except a Buchla or Serge Modular or Korg PS series that could do just intonation. Actually, I couldn't buy them because I couldn't afford their multiple thousands of $ price ranges. By 1989 there were a handful of models to choose from. Today there are dozens of current models supporting tuning tables, including several portable keyboards (the kind with builtin speakers) from Yamaha, normally the bastion of lowest common denominator consumerism. So progress has definitely been made. Nobody expects the wishlist to be implemented overnight, but manufacturers certainly can't do it unless they hear our input. The microtuning wish list should also be useful for software synthesizers, a market that is still in its formative stages and much more adaptable than commercial synths. Microtonalism will be raised on the priority list when there's more commonly available music out there to be heard like Robert Rich. That's not up to the companies, that's up to us. The more instruments that have microtuning features, no matter how primitive they may be, the greater chance we have of this happening. > From: > > There is a paper in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 24 > No. 6 published in November 1952 by J. Donald Harris entitled: "Pitch > Discrimination". The paper you cited is one of the reasons why we don't get better than 1 cent resolution from our synthesizers. Is there a citeable reference that gives pitch discrimination in terms of harmonic context? I know list members have done these experiments, but have the results ever been published anywhere that carries the weight of a JASA paper? John Loffink jloffink@pdq.net