Digital software instruments give you opportunities to explore new sounds and timbres, so why not add tuning to the list? Kore@CDM contributor and sound designer Eoin Rossney helps us navigate the potentially intimidating world of microtuning. Microtonal sound simply refers, generally, to tunings beyond the now-standard 12-Tone Equal Temperament we find on modern pianos. First off, microtuning doesn’t have to sound dissonant or “out of tune” - like other choices with synthesis, it can simply give you some new sonic abilities. Native Instruments’ synths are well-suited to the task, as many having tuning capabilities built-in. If you’re using plug-ins to assist your microtonal voyage, Kore is a natural with its plug-in hosting capabilities. But the most important thing is just to dive in somewhere and see what happens - with no physical instrument to retune, it’s something anyone can do.

We’ve got a massive set of resources here to get started. It’s a bit stream-of-consciousness, but take a browse; there’s surely something in here to get you started. We’ll follow up with some specific microtuned instrument examples. Enjoy! -PK

Introducing Microtonal Sound

Before we begin, there are one or two things you should know:

Forcing incoming midi to a scale isn’t necessarily microtuning. Ableton Live’s Scale plugin, for example, maps incoming notes to a scale, but that scale will still have only 12 intervals per octave: Microtonal scales have notes between the western 12 note-per-octave pitches.

Microtonal doesn’t necessarily mean dissonant. In fact, in classical music, some ’subtle’ or meantone tunings can sound more “in tune” than conventional tunings. Ed.: That’s because composers in previous centuries didn’t use the 12-Tone Equal Tempered tuning we generally use on pianos today - on the contrary, many of them would likely think your Steinway grand sounds out of tune. -PK Depending on how you play the scale, some harmonies can sound beautifully pure, but hit a wrong note and things get nasty.

Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it. Going through some of the available tunings out there, results can vary from making sound almost inaudible to making your instrument sound quite “alive”, with pitches changing depending on what notes are held.

Quick Tip: Instant Microtuning on PC

To get started, here’s a quick hack for trying out microtonal sound. The easiest way by far to retune your Windows synths is to grab Tobybear’s MicroTuner.  This basic VST allows you to load Scala .scl tunings by drag and drop and then imposes them on your synth. (Scala is the standard format for tuning tables.) This is more of a hack than a proper retuning, but it works.

Here’s how it’s done:
Step 1: Download/install the Tobybear Midibag plugins
Step 2: Download/extract the Scala scale library
Step 3: Place Microtuner in front of your instrument
Step 4: Drag the .scl file onto the GUI
Step 4: Olé!

Let’s continue learning about the Roux sequencer macro. Last time we looked at the Event Table module in Reaktor and how a clock signal can read values from it. Since the Event Table has no memory associated with snapshots, builders typically use a Snap Value Array to store and recall sequences with snapshots.

I’ve been using the Winamp-VST Bridge plug-in on PC to browse and preview large collections of sample source material. (Ed.: Winamp is the fantastic music player software for Windows, predating — and arguably, better than — iTunes. -PK) It’s great for testing out how things will sound when run through an effect without having to laboriously convert, slice and import files into a sample map.

Here it is running some audio, which I recorded on a Zoom H4 handheld recorder, into the granular delay we’ve been constructing here at Noisepages. If you’re like me and you have folder after folder of field recordings and vinyl samples, this is a super fast way to sift through them to find those golden moments where a combination of a sample and an effect become something new and exciting. Throw things against the wall and see what sticks, quickly and easily - primarily because of things like right clicking on a folder and choosing “enqueue/play in Winamp”, being able to skip around in a file quickly, navigate a playlist, save a playlist of favorites - all without having to worry about file formats. A “real” host is for later, once you have a goal or direction in mind. You can even browse shoutcast mp3 radio streams through your VST effects.

Sequencers are, by definition, all about controlling sets of events. Having unlocked the mysteries of time — the clock and timing data you need to keep your sequencer in sync — Peter Dines now tackles how a table can organize a sequence of events or steps. Take it away, Chef! -PK

Here’s the next puzzle piece in our series dissecting the guts of the Roux step sequencer macro - the event table. As you might guess from the name, the event table receives and sends event rather than audio data.

By default, the event table holds values between zero and one, and I know I bang on about this lot, but that’s a super convenient range because it’s so easy to scale. Ed.: It’s what’s called a “normalized” range for this reason - and easy to scale, indeed. Want 0 to 127, for instance? Just multiply by 127.) -PK We dealt with scaling the output in the last post on the Roux sequencer.

Interpol, the superstar, New York-based band (not the international anti-crime organization) have been touring the world with an intensive, live rig, powered by Kore. Our friend Jonathan Adams Leonard aka sleen, a technological superstar himself, put together their current digital setup, and sends along copious notes on the hardware and software rig. Jonathan has plenty more to share as far as how to make Kore work for live players, but first let’s have a look at the details of the rig itself.

And yes, prepare yourself for some serious hardware and software pr0n from one of the world’s best live bands. No DJ sets here.

(For our previous chat with Jonathan, see Free, Modular Power Tools for Kore 2: A Guide to the Reaktor Toolpack, covering his must-download Reaktor ensembles for use with Kore.)

I decided the best way to tackle teaching the guts of the Roux step sequencer is to blog one piece at a time, and work backwards from the business end where the values emerge.

The values that this macro produces are between 0 and 1 by default, which is a convenient range for all sorts of applications, but sometimes you need a different range of values - for example, from 0 to 127 for MIDI note pitches. I’ve included an X+ module just before the output to make it easy to scale values:

The values emerging from the event table are multiplied by one and have zero added to them, which means they pass through unmodified. Here’s a video demonstration of what happens when you multiply and add other numbers:

Multiply / Add module in Reaktor from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

If you’ve ever worked with electronics, think of the way the X+ is used here as being like those little mini trimpots on a circuit board - handy for adjustments but not something you mess with every day once you’ve got a contraption put together the way you like.

I’m putting together a setup to compose my hockey theme masterpiece (yeah right), and here’s how it’s shaping up; I’m using Reaper as my host, Kore 2 as a sub-host and Koresounds as instruments. Two things I like about Kore for this project - one, it has just about every sound I’d want ready to go, so I won’t spend too much time in the black hole of sound design. Two, my instrument setup is abstracted away from the DAW as a Kore performance so I can easily migrate it to another DAW if need be.

Why Reaper? I’ve used Cubase and other spendier DAWs in the past but I don’t have access to those at the moment, and having created a couple of mini projects in Reaper in the last little while, it looks like it has everything I need. BTW, there’s a beta available for Mac now, so don’t feel frozen out.

I want to keep all my sounds bundled together in a Kore performance so I’ve created just one instance of Kore - the multi-out plugin version that has 8 stereo channels of output. Then my plan was to create 8 separate audio tracks and route the channels to them… I noticed that the Reaper plugin wrapper has a function to do exactly that:

Bam! That was easy. It builds the routing and creates the tracks to send to - no mucking about with the routing dialogs and matrix. So now it’s a simple matter of configuring my sounds in Kore - choosing sounds and setting the MIDI in and plugin-out settings for each one:

Nice and simple - first sound takes input from MIDI channel one and goes to plugin output one, second is on channel two and goes to output two, and so on.

Now, what about MIDI channels routed to Kore? You probably noticed the “Build 16 channels of
MIDI routing to this track” entry in the Reaper plugin wrapper. Guess what? It works. Only thing left to do is set up the MIDI input sources for the MIDI tracks.

Here’s a zip file containing my preliminary Reaper setup and Kore 2 performance if anyone wants to have a look. It’s in a pretty raw stage but the routing works.

So readers, are any of you using Kore 2 in Reaper? Have you learned any interesting tricks or pitfalls doing so? Let me know… in the meantime, I have a theme to compose!

In French cooking, there’s a sauce base called a roux (pronounced “roo”) that is the foundation of bechamel and other sauces. This is a sequencer macro that is the equivalent for programming sequenced instruments in Reaktor - you can take it in any direction from here. In its most basic form it can send velocity information to trigger percussion, or modulate instrument parameters like cutoff and resonance. With a few simple changes it becomes a pitch sequencer, suitable for use in something like the Frankenloop device.

FM8 is a really brilliant tool for synthesizing electronic drum kits. And because it’s using live synthesis, you can make all kinds of variations in the sound easily in ways that don’t work with sampled kits. Our friend Gustavo Bravetti is a huge fan of FM8 and has added it to his workflow in Ableton Live.

Gustavo’s such a big FM8 fan, in fact, that he’s made up a special FM8 drum kit setup exclusively for CDM, to share with y’all. Because Gustavo works in Ableton Live, he’s set them up in that environment:

The sounds are contained on an Ableton Live dj set, also there is a demo clip for each instrument.
Instruments are copyright free, clips are only intended to preview the instruments.
Let me know your thoughts about the FM8 electronic drum kit 1

File download: (zipped Live ALS file with presets; we’ll have a Koresound soon)

bravetti_fm8drums_1_als.zip

Here’s what it sounds like:

fm8kit.mp3

And just to demonstrate how much change you can extract from synth parameters, here’s a quickie "messed-up" demo I made just by changing synth and effects options in FM8:

fm8kit_2.mp3

Be sure to check out Gustavo Bravetti himself, too. He did an interview for CDM in which he shares all his tricks for using unusual alternative controllers, gestural gloves, and gaming devices for music making. He also talks about the scene in his native Uruguay. Liz McLean Knight did the interview:

Interview: Gustavo Bravetti, Playing Music with Light and Interactive Gloves

How can you make the most of this FM8 kit? Here are some quick ideas, which I’ll follow up in the coming days:

Last time around, we had a look at creating a basic grain delay from scratch. It’s usable, but why stop there? Here are some improvements.