It’s interesting how attempting to keep the intervals “just” leads to dissonance eventually. I’ve learned a lot about alternative approaches to tuning during my sojourn with Audulus. Who knew there were so many scales? As lovely as a perfect fifth sounds, I think I’ll stick to well-tempered for the most part. Still, it’s wonderful to have the tools to explore the alternatives without investing a fortune.
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My crazy hunch is that only phenomena that have (no idea what the proper term is) certain properties like those of automata, properties that make their shape incomplete, only systems that have this spiral-like subsistence allow for a peculiar kind of novel expression. Along with this aspect comes another which is present as an idea of incompleteness. Various parts vanish into the dark while other parts are in focus. But this allows for a non-symmetrical landscape in between any two points. Analog has it. It may be an ingredient in life, which is why Conway’s work is useful for making predictions about complex weather patterns by constructing models.
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A little side note re. the tuning resources I mentioned finding in the Wilsonic and AudioKit Synth One apps. From the latest Synth One update:
- You can now use Synth One to send micro-tunings to AudioKit Digital D1. Press the new “TuneUp” button on the “Tune” panel. Now, you can use your favorite Synth One tunings in Digital D1. It’s blowing our minds!!!
- This “TuneUp” tuning sharing can be thought of kind of like Ableton Link, but, for Tunings instead of Tempo. This technology is open-source. If you are an app developer and would like to share tunings with Synth One or Wilsonic to your app, please get in touch hello@audiokitpro.com and we’ll help you get it integrated.
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Many people don’t realize that MIDI also has a way to implement tunings other than well-tempered. It’s not widely supported but the standard (MTS) exists:
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There is a pretty happening thread over on the lines forum about microtonality. Thought I would link to it in case anyone browsing this years in the future needed to go further down a rabbit hole.
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https://discourse.audulus.com/t/relative-just-intonator/2138?u=robertsyrett
This is definitely a valuable tool for exploring Just intonation, TY @PianoManDan
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as if no time had passed at all.
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The latest update to the Hydrasynth software has support for uploading and downloading microtonal scales (.mts files) I haven’t tried it but probably should. It can store 32 microtonal scales and has a bunch already preloaded including some Just scales.
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I’m curious, can you play the hydrasynth with cv and gate?
The minilogue xd has just intonation as a menu setting, but they are kind of vague about which system they are using.
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Hi Robert CV and gate are outputs only. You have two CV mod inputs but no gate, and Pitch CV, Gate, clock and two CV mod outputs. The Hydrasynth has several Just scales bundled and you can download your own if you like.
Steve
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Here’s an interview between Richard D. James (Aphex Twin) and Tatsuya Takahashi (a design engineer for Korg), in which they have an interesting discussion with regard to this exact subject, different ways to implement, and the results of said explorations.
It’s an interesting read, and it has given me some new uncharted territory to explore! @robertsyrett I stumbled upon it while looking for info about my Minilogue XD and whether or not the .mts standard files would be something I could somehow upload to the MXD. I was not able to find anything about the file format, but they give a pretty decent explanation in the manual on page 50 about how to program scales from a template, with more information about pre-made scales which can be edited to make your own on page 36.
I have read the manual 3x over in the past, but this is the first time I noticed the info about micro-tuning. It’s interesting how I manage to overlook things I’m not looking for atm, until later, when I actually need the info and don’t know where to look lol. I hope this is helpful to you also! 
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Since having gotten the wonderful Sensel Morph I’ve been jumping back into experimenting with tuning systems. The Audio Damage Continua is a very nice synth with support for TUN files, which can be generated online at the Sacle Workshop mentioned in the just intonation video above: Scale Workshop
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Marcus Hobbs has a nice post on the AudioKit blog about the Wilsonic and SynthOne apps that I mentioned a while back in this thread (with some good videos on how the tuning stuff works): Share Scales between Apps with AudioKit TuneUp – It's like Ableton Link, for Tuning | AudioKit Pro
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Harry Partch’s 43-tone scale in Marcus Hobbs’ Wilsonic → AudioKit SynthOne, with the SenselMorph
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I’ve been getting more into Partch again. Thanks for this tidbit!
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Thanks for posting that – I hadn’t seen it.
Here’s another little video post I did on using my SenselMorph overlay with the AudiDamage Continua synth: Note · Rudiger Meyer
And some colours added to my Partch SenselMorph overlay:
Helps with navigating all those ratios!
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Here’s also an interesting video I came across concerning balance in the construction of scales (or rhythms for that matter).
See also: Dynamic Tonality
