Levendis.
The TelenatorI just finished a big spring cleaning of my computer and everything to do with audio in particular. I’m afraid things had become a bit of a mess. I only came to recording digitally all by myself a little more than a year ago, so naturally I’ve made lots of changes — additions, deletions, files and more files, always working on better ways to store projects, and on and on.
I got my system down to only 32-bit Podium and Reaper, Audacity 2.0 for quick capture of streaming audio or minor editing, Cantabile 1.0 (the long-discontinued record-able version of the current free named Cantabile Lite) for quick auditioning of plugins, some line of music, or super quick clip production and — something I’m most proud of all around — I’m down to a mere 86 plugins! I truly thought I would never be able to break that 100 mark.
GuaranathSpring cleaning is always so refreshing Makes me think of this quote:
Perfection is not achieved when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
— Antoine de St. Exupery
I am still in that early phase of trying a bunch of new plugins, how does this sound, how does that sound. I will have to look through the old forum posts for these plugin suggestions you mentioned. Anyways, enjoy your freshly-cleaned audio environs!
The TelenatorThat quote is on the mark: “. . . nothing left to take away.” That’s exactly what I saw, looking at my VSTPlugins file on Sunday afternoon.
Guaranath[Cut]… [Paste]…
Thank you again for your as always helpful suggestions Telenator. I am actually using Windows 7 on a 64-bit machine. I am only an apple customer insofar as I have and use an iPad. I have always been an ‘acoustic’ musician (Hindustani Classical singing for 8 years, Gamelan orchestras, Tuvan throat singing, guitar, cello, etc…). So getting into using my computer to make music has been a leap – skipping over analog straight to digital, you might say. As a result, I have no Midi keyboards, controllers, etc that others have likely amassed over their involvement with music. Thus I have been using my iPad as a Midi controller (and I use a couple of the Ios synth apps that sound good to me). I guess we all find a way to compose and create with what we have at hand, if we are determined to make music. And thank god an hallelujah for Podium free… been a great introduction for moving me along into the digital arena…
Again, thank you for your helpful suggestions!
Off-base VST question for you or anyone: One of my interests is microtonal music (especially just intonation based). I have found a couple of VST instruments that are useable for microtonal music, most notably Xenoharmonic synth and ZynAddSubFX, but I am curious if anyone knows of any good microtonal capable soundfont players. I tried Intercontinental, but it has some very annoying aspects (makes you rename your soundfont file sharki.sf2 as that is the only sf2 file it will load, and some other stuff). And actually, would love to hear about it if anyone knows of any other microtonal capable VSTs.
The TelenatorMicrotonal AND a soundfont player? Nnot a lot of integrated pitch control on plugins. The few that are, are set it, leave it, not an active performance function. I’m guessing it’s partly because so many musicians can hardly keep their act in perfect tune in first place! He he!
My current online project, passing me thru here tonight, is collecting virtual keyboards that will run and record MIDI tracks in Podium. It does not have one yet. I think I found the right ones to test now. Reaper has a keyboard. Otherwise, I have to borrow a keyboard controller. Borrowing no fun.
The TelenatorOn second thought . . . seems to me I saw something that somehow incorporates non-European scales that are selectable or can be set by user. Had some of the more well-known microtonal ones. It caught my attention that day; will have to try to recall where that was . . .
PulseNever heard of a microtonal soundfont player per se, but my go-to sampler is Vember Audio’s splendid Shortcircuit. There you can fine-tune your sounds by cents. Not the best thing to do, but one can surely delve in between the classical frequencies.
Here’s a list that can help you:
http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/referhtml/cents-hz.html
But if microtonal scales is what you are after, then:
Starting with the monster-synths:
– ZynAddSubFX – the thing just sounds spectacular, for the expense of the UI though.
http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/doc_2.html
Go to 2) Scale Settings and read the possibilities. It imports .SCL and .kbm Scala files.
– BR808 – Import of scala files
http://audio.rosseauxnet.de/software/plugins/br808/
And the usual suspects:
– Synth 1
Click on Opt and from there adjust the master tune. The default is not surprisingly A4=440
– And of course Oatmeal
There you can adjust your Master Tuning, your Octave settings, Cutoff reference frequency and on top of that fine-tune each note individually, and achieve pretty weird and esoteric tunings if you know what you are doing.
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—>EDIT – a few useful resources:
More than 4000 scala format scales:
http://www.huygens-fokker.org/microtonality/scales.html
Make your own scales and export to scala format:
http://www.h-pi.com/CSEsoftware.html
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Hope that was useful
All the Best
GuaranathAwesome thanks for the great suggestions all!
I had come across the Scala resources and that repository of tunings is just amazing… 4000 scales! And the Scala editor is very useful, really has an amazing depth of tools for scale exploration.
BR808 looks like a beast! My jaw dropped when I saw the huge list of features then noticed there were three more tabs with more features, yet more features, etc… Not sure what I will do with 8 of everything (8 LFOs!), but I am looking forward to finding out!
I have been playing with a microtonal synth called Xenoharmonic. It is a frequency modulation/ring modulation synth that uses algorithms to match the FM/RM to the tuning. I have only recently wrapped my head around the science of FM and RM, so understanding exactly what is going on a bit of a challenge – but I do know that Xenoharmonic sounds amazing! And it loads Midi tuning files which I can make in the Scala editor.
Definitely trying to avoid tuning each intervals, but if it comes to it and I am stuck on a soundfont I will try Shortcircuit or give in and use Safwan Matni’s Intercontinental despite its workflow annoyances.
Another cool tool I stumbled across for the interval calculation aspect is:
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-centsratio.htm
….which has a bunch of frequency/cents/interval convertors.
I also found a tool called Microtuner which you put as a Midi controller on your instrument and allows you to load up Scala files. Searching through the forums I found an old post about Wusik and other VST-Host VSTs. So I tried it. Unfortunately, Microtuner did not work; but I learned how to chain an arpeggiator! On that same site I also came acrross something called Quickeys which allows you to use your computer keyboard as a controller. I only tried it briefly on two VSTs, it worked well in one VST, not so good in another… However, only strangely limited set of keys were available for use – but enough to span an chromatic octave and a bit, and it was fast & responsive. If you didn’t find something that works Telenator you might check that one out at:
http://www.tobybear.de/p_midibag.html
Anyways, thank you both for the suggestions. Greatly appreciate it!
Levendis