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Here’s an improvisation from a few years back, warts and all. It’s a microtonal piano piece.
Seems like there are tonnes of Max OS X users who want to get into microtonal music but don’t know how to jump in. Although I’m a Windows-using peasant, I wanted to gather up some ideas to start you off. Let’s dip in…
Logic Pro supports microtonal scales, and can even load Scala files! This can retune all of its built-in instruments and synthesisers (it doesn’t apply to any AUs or VSTs you’re running).
This online help file from Apple shows you how to find the tuning settings in Logic Pro X.
The big drawback—and I mean huge—it only supports 12-note scales, those scales must repeat at the octave, and each note can only deviate from 12-tet from plus or minus 100 cents (1 semitone).
These limitations restrict you to certain kinds of microtonal scales, and while there’s certainly room to explore within these limits, you’ll miss out on whole genres of microtonal scales that will blow your mind. You’ll miss the unimaginable cloud-like non-octave scales like Bohlen-Pierce and Wendy Carlos’ scales. Stretched-octave scales like Indonesian Slendro and Pelog also can’t be tuned faithfully. And large scales such as the 20-note eikosany, Harry Partch style just intonation, or large equal temperaments, are straight out unavailable.
Nevertheless, Logic makes it easy to microtune its high-quality instruments, even if it is crippled, so if you already own Logic then you should definitely check it out.
If you’re using a DAW that supports AU or VST plugins (such as Logic, Ableton Live, and some others) then you can make microtonal music by using certain plugins that support full microtuning. They can usually import a tuning file and that sets everything up for you.
It should come as no surprise that there are less *free* options for microtonal composition on a Mac than there are on Windows or Linux. But you can start with alphacanal Automat and Plogue Sforzando
If you’re willing to spend a little, then have a look through the big list of microtonal software plugins on the Xenharmonic Wiki.
Some people report success running Xen-Arts’ Windows-only VSTs using the free emulator WINE and a free VST host. If you’re of the technical mind to set up WINE, there’s a world of free VST synths for Windows awaiting you!
If you want to design your own tunings and export them for use in other instruments then there’s the Custom Scale Editor (CSE) software from Hπ Instruments. It allows you to tune every MIDI note to whatever pitch you want, exports tunings in a variety of popular formats and can retune the output of sequencers and notation programs. Thanks to Juhani Nuorvala for reminding me to mention it!
I heard that the now discontinued Lil’ Miss Scale Oven was the way to go. Really, I’ve heard wonderful things and wish I could have a little play with it myself.
It’s also possible to install Scala on OS X for free. I’ve never been through this process, but I’ve heard that it’s one of the most challenging things you can attempt to do.
Follow the instructions on the Scala website, and go slowly and carefully. You will be confused. You will have to install other things to get it to work. You will want to cry. But it IS possible…
Max/MSP, Pure Data and CSound are audio programming languages that can let you make sounds from the ground up. If you’re the tinkering type then try these!
Microtonal equal temperaments on a Max/MSP synth using expr
How to play microtonal scales on a Max/MSP synth
If you have any other methods of making microtonal music in OS X then get in touch so I can update this post!
I like to think that the machines were here on Earth since the beginning, and they were just waiting for the right time to show themselves to humans. They were making music in 12,000 BC and it sounded just like this new xenharmonic release over on the Dubbhism netlabel!
Strictly Binkie is all about self-generating modular dubbs (how many b’s are appropriate here)?!
You know how we roll… Free will is for losers, intelligent robots are taking over our planet. Hollywood and Silly Con Valley have been warning us for years, but Dubbhism is not sleeping on this. We bring you the next step in dubb: the Dubbularity. Big fat fully automated, self-generating, self-programming dubbs for the Kurzweil Generation.
Mixed by Binkieman, a dutch dub artist who’s custom built modular robosynth spits out weird algorithms, encrypted electronic messages, nasty basses and reverb-soaked rimshots. Bang the Binkie drum!!
Release page: http://www.dubbhism.com/2015/09/out-now-binkieman-strictly-binkie.html
Download: http://www.dubbhism.net/netlabel/dubbhism-netlabel-022-binkieman-strictly-binkie.rar
Just hit play and then keep reading.
ILEVENS describe themselves as a psych-pop band.
So what, you say? Well compared to other acts who are working within this style, you might (if you’re like me) notice something you just can’t put your finger on with the sound. Something sounds almost brighter, deeper, richer… What is that?
Take a closer look at the guitar. There are way too many frets on that damn thing. What’s going on?
Well ILEVENS are playing in a new intonational system that abandons traditional musical values. In other words, this music is microtonal. They’re using a system with 22 steps in an octave.
Shit, somebody has finally done it! Somebody has finally made microtonal music that’s not all theory and MIDI trumpet sounds!
ILEVENS’ frontman Brendan Byrnes isn’t just the handsome face of the band but also a bit of a mastermind for bringing this group and this sound into existence.
You see, it’s now very clear that having depths of knowledge about microtonality (read: the future of music) isn’t enough to get people interested in this style. You need to have the ability to write clearly, play with enthusiasm, and have fun. ILEVENS do this to such a high degree that it becomes “music” first and foremost and “a whole new paradigm of musical intonation” second. That’s the way things should be. That’s how we can show the world what microtonal music can do.
Brendan also made the rather mesmerising Micropangaea album a couple years ago, so if you’re getting into ILEVENS then this is recommended listening too.
I will be live-streaming another music making session this weekend! Tune in here:
http://www.twitch.tv/sevishmusic/
Sunday 2:30am UTC (Saturday 10:30pm EST)
This time I will be attempting to start a new track, so you’ll get to see my creative process from the beginning. We’ll kick off with scale creation and I’ll be creating a new musical tuning specifically for this piece. Make sure you sign up for a free Twitch.tv account so that you can get involved in the live chat.
It will be my second time doing a live stream. First time had a few technical problems, but next time things will be smoother. Bits of the first session have been archived on the above link in case you want to catch up.
Last weekend I put on a live stream about making microtonal music in Ableton Live. While there were a few technical issues, I did manage to get my head into a spacey improvisation in the Bohlen-Pierce scale. The improvisation was played with my AXiS-49 by C-Thru Music (a company which unfortunately went out of business recently).
The Bohlen-Pierce scale provides an exciting alternative to the Western 12-tone equal temperament. Instead of using major (4:5:6) and minor (10:12:15) triads as the basis of its harmony, it uses 3:5:7 and 5:7:9 “triads”. The ratios refer to the frequencies of the notes which form its harmony. To my ear, BP is spaced out, sparse and atmospheric. It sounds alien but it makes sense in its own weird way.
Actually the chords that are in the background of my improvisation don’t use the 3:5:7 or 5:7:9 chords, but to my ear they still capture that unmistakable BP sound. Definitely a great xenharmonic scale to go back to now and again.
If you want to hear more, you’ll find a plethora of Bohlen-Pierce recordings on YouTube.
For more reading, check out the Bohlen-Pierce site!
And just for good measure, here’s another Bohlen-Pierce track that I wrote way back in 2010.
Just for fun I’ll will be live streaming my next music making session. Tune in here:
http://www.twitch.tv/sevishmusic/
Sunday 2:30am UTC
There will be live chat so we can discuss approaches to microtonal composition, sound design, audio engineering etc. Just follow the link to start watching. You’ll need to sign up for a free Twitch.tv account to get on the chat, and I hope you’ll do that so I can have some company while making noises.
I’ll be working on some new stuff, and maybe also creating some synth sound designs to be used later. I’m happy to load up the songs from Rhythm and Xen if you want to see how they were made. Never tried anything like this before so let’s do something new!
I’ve been gradually releasing all the tracks from ‘Rhythm and Xen’ on Soundcloud and YouTube since May. Now you can finally stream the whole album for free on either service! So pick one and listen to the whole thing uninterrupted as much as you like. :)
If you wish to support my work, please consider buying Rhythm and Xen from Bandcamp. I’ve been blown away by all the support so far, and happy that people are enjoying these sounds. I can’t wait to get back to writing some new stuff again.
UPDATE February 2017: You can now stream this Rhythm and Xen on Spotify. While you’re there, please follow my Sevish artist page on Spotify!
Over time I’ve noticed that I get asked this question more and more:
How do I start writing microtonal music?
This always comes from musicians who have enjoyed listening to microtonal music, and are comfortable composing in their own twelveness, but haven’t found the courage or motivation to start experimenting for themselves.
My answer is always the same.
First you gotta get set up with the right tools for the job. In a few hours or less you can set up some free microtonal synths.
The real thing to do, is get ANY microtonal scale up on your instrument, and then play. It’s fine to choose the scale at random. Keep playing until you find something you like about it. Start building up layers over this. This helps you to find how parts of the scale connect with other parts.
After you become a little comfortable with the scale, just try out a different scale and you may find something even better than before. Then over some days or weeks try another and another. Just experiment.
Your composition skills (or lack thereof) shouldn’t hold you back during this time. This is because when you write microtonally you’ll have to discard a lot of the ‘rules’ you already know. Old habits become unable to reinforce themselves. That’s kinda the point of going to all this effort.
Nobody can guide you through microtonal music the same way that they guide you through playing an instrument or learning music theory. There is no established method, instead you get a bazillion competing schools of thought about how to organise and play from the infinite number of scales that are possible. A well-trodden path simply doesn’t exist for you – you make your own path or you don’t enter this forest at all. But if you do make it inside, you’ll find the sweetest fruits. So it’s totally up to you to start trying.
After going through many creative cycles you get to learn about what scales work for you. If you’re the studious type you may be able to read tuning theory concepts and slowly start to grasps small aspects of it.
For me, it was a lot of listening, and a lot of loading randomly-selected scales into my synth to see what I liked and didn’t. A whole lot of failed experiments, and a few that worked. Reading about microtonal tuning theory is overrated, but it can be a starting point for finding interesting scales. If you have nothing more than a good ear, perhaps it’s you who will excel the most in this unknown territory.
And that’s how to start writing microtonal music. It didn’t take anything more than getting your toes wet with a few randomly-selected microtonal scales.
The mtof object can take a MIDI note number and output the frequency of that note in standard 12-tone equal temperament tuning (aka 12-EDO). But what if you want to get away from this musical dogma? How about we start to explore say 13-EDO, 7-EDO, 24-EDO, or 41-EDO with Max/MSP?
Equal temperament on Wikipedia
Equal temperament on the Xenharmonic Wiki
Some years ago I wrote an expression that could quickly be dropped into any Max/MSP synth and then play microtonal equal temperaments. It’s a more generalised version of mtof and I want to share that with you today. It’s an mtof-killer!
First let’s take a quick look inside the mtof object and see how it works. Really, mtof just performs one simple expression.
The mtof object on the left always gives the exact same result as the expr on the right. Got it?
Here is my mtof-killer expression in all its beasthood:
Nasty, right?
Copy and paste this code into Max/MSP and continue along with this tutorial.
----------begin_max5_patcher---------- 882.3ocyXE0aaBCD94To9evh0GZlxRwfwD1aapaR8gsIsWampHfSp6.Cy3zl 1p0e6yXGRnYg.AkRSdvN9riuu6ymu6bd53i5YLNYNIy.7Qvkfd8dRJomRVtj dEB5YD6OOHxOSsPCF49jw2ZLXwbBxbgRtfSedozjYhHhP7PJQu4FYzoL+HCv uJVwjDlf4Gql23SbpbxhongJgRs7AK7RorYwTlbSUnvtPZpuH3FJa50bRfPq KanyPyA.aSq7NDNu0xbn4JcK2JM.U6ErLjxnOpfDT9iUh+6wGk2K6FzXJZpO kUOWL.XPYhRTRY6FsY61pA1sMJuCpGYgp1vKsYb4Igfvulv7GGovY6sdxig9 AOuwSSq1aUiTmiHmh1pLp1i6IQIxsp5iM479h7Ssw9ro6tmLby1Nrda2xEl2 4XVmm71OP26t4RkOlvqlvx8t+e5RZ6zXIOuNjpmBg0QgRzUr0PK2sPrXOUrA 3H6WShckbdruRynCTmSuc22zAiGZK+3hd04wCTRyc2IMDxbHV9wBujzrcOvH semEQCav05Wl6JkSxHLguflvJYvJOBScZIU.bG6xFZI1zo0oFbvUt+cR9tfj 3XRNmrdEQ+jLgvIr.B3aWb9EfumHHua4phnLRPxLl3EHaBe5XEZFtkXifOmD EtIOR6Z7HyQ1syxDzIz.0IUc9qXWOUbRzn7N8.6sTQw92arAj6W4j+LS9sGd U4Vq8M253fVE.8.jf+x4+vX+PcsnxGjq6tGnrCImN5B8nQsnnQKUfPnKZnir T42.WppdgHYdJGb5ISrAmARStGbpt05pqFHKv8rSlX0W90Snn98Aueqq.1u5 zSaMOdkLMthXmnFTdNTUdts2avKMS8YjUEmLdZPRTBe8TuEMdlPO7FS9Bwsv OyT+NS88RDVwEPSul+zL85TWbV++fPou7IVy3yRlwCJNoKdnLnjFCIxPvrkA fub0COKupanggD1K79CoY4kBDVSs.MFX4NTM.XvNGX6.iA2JvhogoIxp.yJh 6nB3X6piVKeLPwnR5ZeaK3FYKntmjgMBX3NGXvFALkyqcmBLuFiKqNEWtMFW vNEWNMFWls3VLbQNsRiZ1s3Ewz8SSuivyVfFsUHybcqN4DdfdLkoGqSyXvI2 QK9I5+fWCetLsiPlyYFWmEe9HrgbFkBkM+yHSxvn -----------end_max5_patcher-----------
The ‘EDO’ value sets what equal tempered tuning you want. So a setting of 5 gives you 5-EDO, a setting of 34 gives you 34-EDO.
‘Reference Frequency’ is the standard pitch for the scale. Usually in Western music A = 440 Hz. You can also use 432 Hz if you believe in crystal healing and reptilian world leaders.
‘Reference MIDI Note#’ is the MIDI note to be tuned to the reference frequency (above). This could be MIDI note 69 if you want to tune to middle A, or MIDI note 60 if you want to tune to middle C.
For starters, try 5 for the EDO value, 440 Hz for the reference frequency and 69 for the reference MIDI note number. Have a play on the keyboard. It’s a cool sounding pentatonic scale, right?
If you played with my example patch and got it working, then you don’t need to read this section. Just start using it in your projects and have fun exploring equal temperaments.
But if you absolutely must know how this magic is done, then keep reading! (Warning: I will assume that you already understand how to make expressions with the expr object).
Let’s look back at the original mtof expression, try to understand it, and then try to generalise it.
Output frequency = 8.175797 * pow(1.0594633,$f1)
Note that pow(a,b) is just the expr object’s way of saying a^b.
8.175797 is the frequency (in Hz) for MIDI note 0.
$f1 is the MIDI note number being played.
1.0594633 is the size of the smallest step size in 12-EDO. It is the value of a semitone.
Therefore an mtof object has this general structure:
Output frequency = Frequency of MIDI note 0 * pow(step size,MIDI note number)
Let’s start by swapping the step size of 1.0594633 with the step size from any n-EDO we want. But how do we calculate the step size? For n-EDO, it’s calculated like this:
step size of n-EDO = pow(2,1.0/n)
So let’s bring that into our in-progress generalised mtof:
Output frequency = Frequency of MIDI note 0 * pow( pow(2,1.0/n),MIDI note number )
That’s great, but unless you want MIDI note 0 to always be equal to 8.175797 Hz, how will we go about tuning our scale up to some standard pitch? Well first we need to know what our standard pitch is (aka reference frequency) and we also need to know what MIDI note number to assign that reference frequency to. Once we know these, we work backwards to find the frequency at MIDI note 0.
If our reference MIDI note number is higher than 0, then the frequency at MIDI note 0 will always be lower than the frequency at the reference MIDI note number. In fact:
Frequency at MIDI note 0 = reference frequency / pow(step size,reference MIDI note number)
We can re-use the step size calculation from before and insert it into the above calculation for MIDI note 0 frequency:
Frequency at MIDI note 0 = reference frequency / pow( pow(2,1.0/n),reference MIDI note number )
Above, we’ve just found a way to calculate the frequency at MIDI note 0 for any reference frequency assigned to any MIDI note number for any EDO of size n. That’s the entire left side of the mtof-killer worked out. So let’s bring alllll of this together:
Output frequency = Frequency of MIDI note 0 * pow(step size,MIDI note number)
= (reference frequency / pow( pow(2,1.0/n),reference MIDI note number )) * pow( pow(2,1.0/n),MIDI note number )And finally we replace these English-language variables with integers and floats in expr format, such that:
$i1 = MIDI note number from the keyboard
$f2 = n-EDO
$f3 = reference frequency
$f4 = reference MIDI number
($f3 / pow ( pow (2,1.0/$f2),$i4)) * pow ( pow (2,1.0/$f2),$i1)
Well done if you kept up! I hope that explains how this expression alone can allow you to play microtonal equal tempered tunings in your Max/MSP projects.
UPDATE: Homebrewed methods like my one above are often inefficient. A commenter Toby noted:
This does the same thing in a simpler way:
expr $f3 * pow(2,($f1-$f4)/$f2)
If you need more power than this, for example you wish to create scales with arbitrary and variable step sizes, or you wish to play just intonation scales, then you should read How to play microtonal scales on a Max/MSP synth.
My recent album Rhythm and Xen uses many microtonal tunings. Give it a spin and see how all of this theory can be used to make accessible music with new moods.
Thanks for listening.