[PD] tunetof - an mtof for alternative tunings

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,
Chuckk Hubbard hat gesagt: // Chuckk Hubbard wrote:

> On 4/11/06, Frank Barknecht <fbar at footils.org> wrote:
> > I used note numbers because basically [tunetof] is just dealing with
> > scales, that have steps. Using note numbers makes it very easy to
> > apply scale-oriented algorithms. And the analogy with mtof will make
> > it easy for users without much experience in dealing with alternate
> > tunings - like myself - to experiment using their mtof-knowledge and
> > even the same patches.
> 
> Gotcha.  I was still thinking in terms of decimal note numbers, like
> 60.5, which wouldn't make sense with this. 

And it's not supported by [tunetof] anyway: Only integers are
accepted, because internally the lookup of the corresponding frequency
is carried out with [tabread]. I was thinking of maybe using
[tabread4] here at first, but I thought it didn't make sense to assume
that tabread4's interpolation would be correct to "slide" from one
note to another. So interpolation of intermediate frequencies is up to
the user.

> Lots of Western-centric musicians boast that the microtonality of more
> primitive traditions could only have worked in single-line melody, and
> that Western music, with its more sophisticated tonalities, made these
> tunings obsolete.  I believe that, with computers, the harmonic
> possibilities opened up by other tunings could dwarf those of 12-tET. 
> But obviously not with keyboards.

Though I'm not a keyboard player (I prefer woodwinds), I admit I've
never put much thought into tunings myself, I just used what was
available and that was [mtof]. Some things lately have changed my
mind. Among these things of course were the discussions here, the
other was that I finally finished F. Richard Moore's seminal book
"Elements of Computer Music" which in its last chapter (or rather the
appendix) deals with tunings in much detail. 

Maybe others who just use what is available will now find tunetof easy
enough to replace mtof with it. ;)

It also is useful to use with equal tempered traditinal tuning of
course. One nice possibility is to use it as an appregiator. If the
scale used internally is for example a maj7 chord with just 4 notes,
then [random 4] will play only the notes from this chord in random
order. Sending a "scale" with a different chord or changing the root
note will then change the chord or transpose it. This is very handy
sometimes and allows very compact patches. (Note to self: Make some
example patches for this.)

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                 _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__