A new web app called Scale Workshop allows you to design and play your own microtonal scales. You can also tune various other synthesizers with it. It has just reached version 1.0 and is now recommended for use by the wider musician community.
Scale Workshop has these aims in mind:
Scale creation. Use the tools to generate and modify tunings automatically, or manually input your own.
Import Scala and AnaMark tunings. Yes it works with that amazing 4000+ scale library that’s floating around the internet.
Export the most popular tuning formats easily. Converting .scl files and .tun files is fast. It also exports tuning files for Kontakt, Max/MSP and PureData.
No installation required. Scale Workshop runs in your web browser on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and Linux.
Free and open-source. The software costs nothing and it is MIT licensed. Volunteers have already contributed new features and bug fixes on our GitHub repository. Feature requests and bug reports are welcome from anybody.
What else does Scale Workshop do?
Scale Workshop puts a polyphonic synth right inside your browser. You can audition and perform your scales by playing with a connected MIDI controller, QWERTY keyboard, or by using the touch-screen overlay.
Convert scl files and convert tun files to various tuning formats. Export formats include Scala .scl/.kbm, AnaMark TUN, Native Instruments Kontakt tuning script, Max/MSP coll text format and Pure Data text format.
Share your scales with other people by copy-and-pasting the URL in your address bar while working on your scale. The recipient will instantly see your scale information and can play it using their keyboard. This is invaluable for communicating your tuning ideas with others, or allowing your musical collaborators to export your tuning in whatever format they prefer. Try it out.
Display frequencies, cents and decimal values for your tuning across all 128 MIDI notes.
List of supported synths
Note that this list is incomplete.
Via AnaMark TUN (.tun)
Big Tick Angelina
Big Tick Rhino
Camel Audio Alchemy 1.x
Humanoid Sound Systems Enzyme
LinPlug Alpha
LinPlug CRX4
LinPlug MorphoX
LinPlug Octopus
LinPlug Organ 3
LinPlug SaxLab
LinPlug Spectral
Mark Henning AnaMark
PolyGAS
Spectrasonics Omnisphere
TAL BassLine-101
TAL Sampler
TAL U-NO-LX
u-he ACE
u-he Bazille
u-he Diva
u-he Hive
u-he Zebra
VAZ Modular
VAZ Plus
Virtual CZ
Xfer Serum
Via Scala .scl/.kbm
amsynth
Applied Acoustics Chromaphone 2
Applied Acoustics Lounge Lizard EP-4
Applied Acoustics String Studio VS-2
Applied Acoustics Ultra Analog VA-2
Cakewalk Dimension Pro
Cakewalk Rapture Pro
Cakewalk Z3TA+2
Garritan Personal Orchestra 4
Imageline Harmor
kv331audio Synthmaster and Synthmaster One
Key Tuner JSFX Script
Madrona Labs Aalto
Madrona Labs Kaivo
Madrona Labs Virta
Modartt Pianoteq
padthv1
Plogue Alter/Ego
Plogue Chipsounds
Plogue Sforzando
PolyGAS
Reveal Sound Spire
samplv1
synthv1
UVI Falcon
ZynAddSubFX
Zyn-Fusion
Others
Max/MSP (via text file you can load into the coll object)
PureData (via text file you can load into the text object)
Native Instruments Kontakt (via text file you can load into the Kontakt script editor)
A personal note
This has been a labour of love for almost 2 years – I hope that many people will find it useful! If you want to share any work you’ve created with Scale Workshop then I’d love to hear about it.
Now that Scale Workshop is in a stable state, I am going to focus my attention back on composing new music and hosting the Now&Xen microtonal podcast.
Fantastic! I have a question for you Sevish: can you personally distinguish adjacent notes around A440 on the 313EDO? If not, how many do you have to skip to hear a difference?
I realize that this scale fits the ratios points very well, yet I’m also wondering if it could be the equivalent of retina display. Established view is that there are around 3,500 inner hair cells in a newborn human cochlea. Dividing by 10 octaves, we get 350 hair cells per octave.
313 is close enough to 350 to make me wonder whether the human hearing system evolved that way for the reasons of being able to detect certain “natural” sounds, such as those generated by movement of animal bodies through savanna and forest, especially well.
I personally can’t distinguish the adjacent notes, but then again, I am quite a bit older than you, and not a musician. So, would like to hear from a younger, talented microtonal composer. Thanks!
Differences of just a couple cents can only be noticed under lab conditions, i.e. using pure tones in a non-musical context. In a musical context, you can be as much as 20 or 30 cents out of tune and still be heard as the correct note!
Hi Ralph, your question got me wondering, so I tried dropping a scala file directly onto the Alter Ego AU in Logic, and it works flawlessly! I had never thought even to try! I should note I could only get it to work in Poly mode, with Bones. But yes, it does work.
Finally I got a MIDI keyboard and was able to expperiment with 19edo! (And 13edt, but this one is still too xen for me, even when using square wave timbre as is intended) Sweet sweet intervals! Tomorrow: 22edo.
Thank you very much, this is a great thing for easily exploring scales before starting to put anything in a DAW. Key coloring is nice too: a neat cue for the eyes when one uses an usual 12edo keyboard to play. I need to test this thing on a phone too, I still hadn’t touched that sensor keyboard…
I’m so hopeful I’ll make something at least a bit microtonal and cotinue with music which I earlier set on pause for many years. (With no good reason but that VSTs need to be reorganized after reinstalling the OS.) And this app stoked the fire.
Thank you for making this! Scala was troublesome to install on modern systems and this brilliant web-app loads in a breeze. Bravo.
I’m glad that Scale Workshop is working well for you. Happy tuning!
Wow! This is really excellent. Thank you!
Fantastic! I have a question for you Sevish: can you personally distinguish adjacent notes around A440 on the 313EDO? If not, how many do you have to skip to hear a difference?
I realize that this scale fits the ratios points very well, yet I’m also wondering if it could be the equivalent of retina display. Established view is that there are around 3,500 inner hair cells in a newborn human cochlea. Dividing by 10 octaves, we get 350 hair cells per octave.
313 is close enough to 350 to make me wonder whether the human hearing system evolved that way for the reasons of being able to detect certain “natural” sounds, such as those generated by movement of animal bodies through savanna and forest, especially well.
I personally can’t distinguish the adjacent notes, but then again, I am quite a bit older than you, and not a musician. So, would like to hear from a younger, talented microtonal composer. Thanks!
Hi Sergei!
Differences of just a couple cents can only be noticed under lab conditions, i.e. using pure tones in a non-musical context. In a musical context, you can be as much as 20 or 30 cents out of tune and still be heard as the correct note!
Really like your web-app. Job well done!
I downloaded and played wirh Plogue Alter Ego but didn’t see where to import a scala file. Am I missing something?
I don’t use Alter Ego so can’t really support you here. You can check the Plogue Alter Ego user manual here:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/palterego/AlterEgo_guide.pdf
If it turns out it’s not possible then I’ll remove it from the above list. The list of supported plugins is pulled from the original list on the Xenharmonic wiki:
https://en.xen.wiki/w/List_of_Microtonal_Software_Plugins
Hi Ralph, your question got me wondering, so I tried dropping a scala file directly onto the Alter Ego AU in Logic, and it works flawlessly! I had never thought even to try! I should note I could only get it to work in Poly mode, with Bones. But yes, it does work.
Finally I got a MIDI keyboard and was able to expperiment with 19edo! (And 13edt, but this one is still too xen for me, even when using square wave timbre as is intended) Sweet sweet intervals! Tomorrow: 22edo.
Thank you very much, this is a great thing for easily exploring scales before starting to put anything in a DAW. Key coloring is nice too: a neat cue for the eyes when one uses an usual 12edo keyboard to play. I need to test this thing on a phone too, I still hadn’t touched that sensor keyboard…
I’m so hopeful I’ll make something at least a bit microtonal and cotinue with music which I earlier set on pause for many years. (With no good reason but that VSTs need to be reorganized after reinstalling the OS.) And this app stoked the fire.