linuxaudio.org

On Thu, February 21, 2013 2:10 pm, Rustom Mody wrote:

quoted text
> On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 6:51 AM, Neil  wrote:

>

>> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 8:14 AM, Paul Davis

>> wrote:

>> > http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/

>> >

>> > specifically: http://www.huygens-fokker.org/docs/scalesdir.txt

>> >

>> > You will find that there are over 4000 diferent scales there.

>>

>> Very cool!

>>

>> Another good book on the subject.  Don't let the title put you off.

>> The author isn't actually all that anti-ET.

>>

>> http://www.amazon.com/Equal-Temperament-Ruined-Harmony-Should/dp/0393334...

>>

>> Neil

>

>

> I find 4000 a big put-off. Are there that many scales in use worldwide??

> If

> it were a few hundred one could at least make some headway.  My guess is

> that most of them are some kind of mathematical experiments.

>

> The problem as I see it is like this:

> Mathematically: The number of scales is worse than uncountably infinite

> (powerset of R). So for mathematical tractability one needs to work with

> genera, eg

> - Equal tempered scales (not necessarily only 12 notes)

> - Well tempered scales (all/notes usable, all subtly different aka Bach's

> WTC)

> - Meantones

> - Justs with various cut-off rules

>

> And then criteria for 'badness' http://x31eq.com/badness.pdf for comparing

> these

>

> Musician-ly: This is a pain. I just want better sound than ET. And a few

> rules of thumb to make sensible choices.

>

> Personally I can say that after I got my keyboards with a handful of

> tunings a new world has opened to me.  If only I could have done some of

> that with timidity/fluidsynth...

>

Do you mean you would like to have a keyboard app that has preset

sample/tuning for various different scales?
It's certainly possible to create your own now but I haven;t come across

an app that takes on that functionality yet.
It might be a nice addition to CMKeyboard if someone else hasn't already

started/finished.
--

Patrick Shirkey

Boost Hardware Ltd

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