The Xenharmonic Wiki is an online knowledge base relating to microtonal music and tuning theory. For a few years a bunch of us from the community have used the Xen Wiki to maintain a list of software plugins that you can use to make microtonal music in the DAW.

This week the list has been updated because of wonderful developments happening in the music technology world that will allow composers to more easily make microtonal music with a wide variety of synths and virtual instruments. That development is the widespread adoption of MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE). Widespread MPE support means that new tuning tools can be developed which systematically manage the tunings of various instruments at the same time. And indeed, such tools are already coming out this year, for example Oddsound MTS-ESP Suite and Infinitone DMT. A new section of the list has been added to catalogue these tools. An additional section about MPE synths in general was also added.

https://en.xen.wiki/w/List_of_Microtonal_Software_Plugins

Two new tools have just appeared that will interest people working with microtonal scales and tunings: Leimma and Apotome. These tools were launched as part of CTM Festival 2021 and were created by Khyam Allami and Counterpoint.

Leimma

Leimma is a browser-based tool for exploring, creating, hearing, and playing microtonal tuning systems.

Apotome

Apotome is a browser-based generative music environment based on octave-repeating microtonal tuning systems and their subsets (scales/modes).

Eight mostly loop-based compositions for a Yamaha DX7ii FD synthesizer that was re-tuned to a microtonal scale. Released February 5, 2021.

Marcus Satellite’s new album uses tunings based on Erv Wilson’s work.

Terra Octava is a collaboration album from the collective at STAFFcirc.

Sounds of digital fusion, chiptune, jazz and electronic music in a variety of equal tempered tunings.

Featuring Cryptovolans, Reuben Gingrich, Jaq, Chimeratio, petet, manfish, STC_1001, STC_1002, STC_1003, STC_1004, Vince Kaichan, Hunter Van Brocklin, Tancla, Emelia K., Abd al-Mahdi, Themnotyou, Sintel, 0x70457465, limeboiler, clown core, b-knox, amimifafa, ordinate and Sevish.

The microtonal tunings include 34edo, 22edo, 19edo, 16edo, 10edo and others – but also the tiny ones like 6edo, 4edo, 3edo, 2edo, 1edo, 0edo!

My track Fuschiamarine in 7edo is on there.

I’m actually blown away by what everybody was able to achieve here. They’re all deep into their musical craft – and some of them are pros at tuning already – some are trying microtones for the first time. Hope you’ll enjoy the listen!

Bandcamp
Soundcloud

1.2 Changelog

New features

• Approximate scale by harmonics of an arbitrary denominator
• Approximate scale by subharmonics of an arbitrary numerator
• Approximate scale to equal divisions

Bug fixes

• ‘Stretch/compress’ now works as it should
• ‘Tempo-sync beating’ now works as it should

Misc changes

• ‘Clear scale’ function now moved into ‘New’ menu
• ‘Mode’ renamed to ‘Subset’
• Various updates to the user guide

Other recent additions

• Scale Workshop now works with Harmor and Sytrus by Image-Line, via .fnv tuning file (thanks to Azorlogh).
• The ‘Approximate by ratios’ option walks you through each step of your scale and proposes ratios that are approximately close.
• Generate scales from an ‘Enumerate chord’ e.g. 4:5:6:7:8

Links

Launch Scale Workshop

Report issue on GitHub

Here is some new microtonal music I heard recently.

Benyamind – Namoic

Zhea Erose – Eurybia

Gunerius & Verdensveven – Blå disko a lá türk

Abstract Type – Waves of Isidis

FAST-fast – Spaceman

Giorgi Mikadze – Georgian Microjamz

Xotla – Microtonal Funk Blues Vol. 2

Planet MicroJam Institute ft Yazhi Guo – Fung Wah Express

acreil – finished Pure Data IDM patch from lecture

Stephen Weigel – Ignoring Years of Hindsight

Jacob Collier – The Christmas Song

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – K.G.

I’ve added some presets you can use to make microtonal music in Bitwig Studio. The zip includes all edo tunings up to 55edo and a selection of other microtonal scales that might inspire your next melody.

Instructions: unzip the files in your "~/Bitwig Studio/Library/Presets/" directory. Launch Bitwig. Load a preset into the Micro-Pitch device.

Download (zip)
For Bitwig Studio 3.1 and up

If you would like to own a vinyl record featuring songs from both Sevish and Brendan Byrnes, here’s your chance.

We need your help to decide what tracks to include on the record. To find out, we set up two polls. Go ahead and make your selections!

Choose your Sevish tracks

Choose your Brendan Byrnes tracks

Later we will kick off a crowdfunding campaign to manufacture the records.

All tracks will be specially mastered for vinyl.

Stay tuned as the campaign hasn’t yet started.

By choosing your fave tracks, you’re helping us take the first steps. Thank you! :)

If you are looking for a quick introduction to microtonal scales in computer music, then I invite you to watch my latest tutorial video.

Using Microtones in Electronic Music explains how to tune software synths to microtonal scales, for composition and production using a DAW-based workflow.

Microtonal music is a deep topic, and this tutorial video is just one possible starting point. If you know of alternative approaches then please do share your knowledge with others!

Contents

0:00 Intro
0:30 What software
2:00 Tuning up
2:35 5edo
4:37 Messing around with 19edo
14:40 19edo semaphore[9]
18:19 A golden ratio inspired tuning
27:00 Some chords of 22edo
32:07 How a song like Gleam looks on piano roll

Links mentioned in the video

• The big list of microtonal software synth plugins
• Scale Workshop – if your synth supports .scl files, .tun files or Kontakt scripts, this web app will get you creating tunings quickly in those formats
• Otherwise use Scala which can retune many other synthesizers including hardware synths