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Deviating from the 12-tone equal tempered scale...
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| ClearVision |
| With MIDI, you can assign any frequency you want to keys on the piano roll... I'm curious to know if anyone here bothers to modify their notes so that they are more in line with the natural harmonic series to get a better sound out of their tunes??? |
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| ClearVision |
Ok well I wasn't expecting too many people to understand... a lot of us just come up with melodies in our head and don't give a second thought to the theory... but I'm trying to learn about adv music theory, and it seems like there are a lot of good ideas/possibilities that open up.
To clarify this specific question, the natural harmonic series is not accurately reproduced by the 12 equally spaced notes in our Western form of music... so a major third isn't really a major third... its only an approximation. For many forms of live music, a performer playing a violin will often hear the difference and adjust his/her play to emulate the natural tone. But with synthesized music, we all use the piano roll to program in our melodies, which like a piano is limited to the frequencies of our 12-tone system... BUT, with MIDI you can alter these frequencies to match the natural tones... or so it all says in my handy book... Does anyone actually bother to take advantage of this ability??? |
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| thoughtlessjex |
I've considered it. I'm not the first one, either. Way back when the well-tempered clavier was first being popularized,another keyboard was making the rounds that had two separate keys for notes like D# and Eb, as well as other problematic areas in the tuning of instruments. However, the reception for this instrument was luke warm. One performer supposed it was because it is discomforting to hear that many perfect sounds in one piece of music.
I can't give much more information on the subject, as I've sadly forgotten most of it, but needless to say, humans are now pretty much accustomed to a little bit of imperfection, to the point where a real third based on the fifth harmonic sounds out of tune to most of us. (Don't believe me? Go ahead and try it.) |
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| kitphillips |
I use these sorts of scales on the guitar, because its easy to bend to get the tones, but keyboard i quite hard, and you risk getting yourself into a real mess... So unless you want to make all your tracks conform to a certain (non 12 tone) scale, I wouldn't touch it. The other problem, is that your going to create a massive headache for any DJ trying to mix in key...
All that said, I suppose if you got one lead to go into a strange scale (and sound alright with the rest of the song) it still might work out... |
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| azndragon0613 |
| I really haven't investigated this but when you use a subtractive synthesizer and you play middle C doesn't it play the frequency at middle C? I mean how else will it sound like middle C? I know real string instruments need to be retuned every now and then because the strings loosen over time. I do it for my piano every 6th months. But synthetically speaking, how does a sound detune? Unless you are talking about a sample, then yes, but for a synthesizer. Please explain. |
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| kitphillips |
| You can set it up so that the when midi note eg C3 is held, it will trigger a certain frequency... You can change which frequency it is that gets triggered on the computer, I'm not sure about doing it with analogue. |
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| DigiNut |
Considering that most electronic sounds have a fair amount of detune to begin with, it seems like a pointless exercise to me. Most musicians generally don't even think about this sort of thing; when you've got a whole orchestra there are already so many different tunings that the minute differences you're talking about wouldn't even matter. Same goes for a typical electronic arrangement.
For solo guitar, OK, maybe you'd want to think about that - but if you're sequencing solo guitar, then part of your humanizing process should already be to alter/randomize the tuning. |
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| ClearVision |
Ok, seems like I won't have any use for this. Thought it might be an interesting question tho :toothless
Thanks for replies! |
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| kitphillips |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
For solo guitar, OK, maybe you'd want to think about that - but if you're sequencing solo guitar, then part of your humanizing process should already be to alter/randomize the tuning. |
Actually, we're talking about different things, your talking about humanisation/phattening effects, I'm talking about "exotic" scales. Yes, humanisation consists of some detuning, but not detuning by a whole quarter tone. They're two quite seperate things, although I agree with the rest of what you said. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
Some synths let you use tunings other than 12-tone equal temperament. I think Absynth allows that.
EDIT: Actually, you can even create your own custom tuning for it. |
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| mysticalninja |
| oh yeah i've wondered about that for awhile. I want a midi keyboard that uses more than the 12 tone equal termperament scale. hell yea. |
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