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Microtonality in realtime MIDI

2024-09-06
2024-09-21
  • Bernard Bel

    Bernard Bel - 2024-09-06

    Dear colleagues,

    I have completed the implementation of tools for using microtonal scales
    in realtime MIDI and MIDI files on BP3, now completely independent of
    Csound.

    First of all, scale models can be imported and exported from/to SCALA
    and KBM files. In this way, tuning schemes designed on the Bol Processor
    can be used by other music software tools.

    However, this is 'static' use, as a single tuning must be applied to an
    entire musical work, which is acceptable in classical/baroque music
    genres. In addition, BP3 offers 'dynamic' microtonal adjustments to
    notes sent via MIDI. Several scales can be used on the same piece, and
    even assigned to different voices (within polymetric structures).

    A comprehensive but detailed presentation of the new features can be
    found on this page:
    https://bolprocessor.org/check-midi-microtonality/

    You will admit that, since the project is not focused on a limited
    number of musical genres, scales can be designed with numbers of degrees
    and notes other than 12. "Exotic" cases are illustrated by examples on
    the Microtonality page.

    A promising feature is the microtonal adjustment of input events:
    https://bolprocessor.org/check-midi-microtonality/#tuning-input-notes

    Since several instances of BP3 can be running at the same time, you can
    set up a number of "tuners" interacting with people and MIDI devices,
    each using its own tonal system.

    All the best,
    Bernard

     
    • Bernard Bel

      Bernard Bel - 2024-09-21

      Dear colleagues,

      As announced in the previous message, I have implemented a "capture"
      command that records incoming MIDI events to text files. Details can be
      found on this page:

      https://bolprocessor.org/capture-midi-input/

      Making sense of musical events produced by a human performer or another
      machine is an enormously challenging and promising task. The first step
      will be to translate captured sequences into polymetric expressions
      using acceptable approximations. Then we will try to construct grammars
      that produce musical material similar to the captured one.

      All the best,
      Bernard

       

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