Microtuning & MTS

MTS is MIDI tuning standard, for people who want to work with Just Intonation or ‘exotic’ Middle Eastern and Asian scales.

I am one of those people and would love the option to change the tuning table of the A4 (and OT and anything else). This would likely be a global/system-level adjustment rather than a pattern-based one, and there is an existing standard for it as part of the MIDI specification:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_Tuning_Standard
http://www.midi.org/techspecs/midituning.php

Is anyone else interested in this?

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That would be a yes from me.

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absolutely!

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After retuning the A4 with software via midi, it is a real shame you can’t take that with you when using the A4 sequencer. If the implementation of tuning tables or a feature to alter the default tuning in the A4 is too big an ask…I would settle for programming steps in Hz when key tracking is turned off.

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Would be nice.

If I recall correctly, the a4 has a few different tuning settings? I think they added more in one of the recent updates?

My preference would be for SCL files as it’s what I already use and I have a bunch. http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/scl_format.html

Didn’t I see a pic showing that the a4 has a stupid amount of memory in it?

Although as a MIDI sequencer I’d really like to see it on the Octatrack. As MIDI effect/neighbor machines/saved with parts? On the other hand - CV. :slight_smile:

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count me in !

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Has there ever been any comment on this from HQ?

I think this feature is getting more and more popular, DSI starts to reimplement MTS again in the Prophet 6… I don’t think any avant-garde manufacturer could actually afford to miss out on this legacy feature. And recently AFX pushed this topic in interviews anyway, so… :wink:

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Maybe no-one ever asked HQ for microtuning!

I never thought of Elektron as “avant-garde” and, in fact, it’s the least avant-garde manufacturers (Roland, Yamaha, Korg, Kurzweil) that are the most likely to incorporate alternative tunings in their instruments. The Monomachine had just intonation intervals for the Ensemble synth machines, but it doesn’t seem like it’s Elektron’s kind of thing.

Is it correct that keytrack on the oscillators on the AF/AK is simply on/off? If so, that’s another reason to not buy an AF/AK.

Aphex Twin persuaded Sequentix to put tuning tables for CV outputs into the Cirklon sequencer. I don’t see Elektron doing that soon.

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The AF/AK have scale settings, but they are in 12-tet tuning.

True - and no key-tracking as Mod source to make your own - the filters have variable key tracking built in
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I don’t see them adding micro-tuning options, but adding key tracking as a source would be relatively simple - it’s a strange omission tbh
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not sure it equates to a reason to dismiss it tho :wink:

Microtuning/just intonation would be swell.

FYI - Pianoteq has historic tunings as well as just intonation. It’s a piano/harpsichord modeler. Its pretty good but cant remember if you can create your own tunings or not.

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This is an excellent suggestion Anigbrowl!

If it’s possible to implement then I can’t see why Elektron wouldn’t want to do so. Certainly it’s a niche interest thing but that doesn’t mean it’s worth doing.

I definitely prefer the feel of just intonation on the instruments that I have that cater for it, they just sound more natural to me.

Elektron, if you are listening, I guess you have plenty of other things to implement but if it’s possible we would really like this feature.

Count me in for microtuning on the A4. Would love to play different tuning on that synth.

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+1 on user scales/microtonality
or at least a detune for the whole voice, then one could plock microtonal shifts with one parameter rather than 2.

an idea for implementation would be:
OSC 1 coarse tune stays the way it is
OSC 2 coarse tune is relative to OSC 1’s coarse tune
OSC 1’s DET (linear detune) gets changed to a fine tune for both oscillators, OSC 2 keeps the linear detune

(also +1 on keytracking but that’s another topic)

It would be cool) they could add this to transpose mode! At least the ability to use the scale within 12 notes! And to be able to morph between 2-3 scale (with the help of Pitchband for example).

I was wondering if this is possible with the CV tracks. As you can input the volts of your choosing, would it be possible to use the amount of voltage to achieve microtonal scales? If so, what are the voltage ranges you could use to achieve this?

You could parameter-lock Value Lin values on the CV track to control the pitch of an external CV synth, but this is much less convenient than having predefined scales.

It would not be applicable to the internal synth voices of the AF/AK.

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That would be one way to go about it, but very inconvenient as you point out. But I was thinking more along the lines of finding the right range of volts for (example) quarter notes on the CV-setup page.

I’m surprised that a lot of hardware synth don’t have microtonal capability. It doesn’t seem all that avant garde when humans have been creating “microtonal” music for millennia :smile:

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I think adding user scales and micro tuning would be an amazing addition to what Elektron can offer.

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