Microtonal support & MTS

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I just noticed that U-HE has just started supporting MTS in their latest release.

which in turn let do discovering MTS-ESP via oddsound.
link

I’ve not played with it yet, but seems to be some way of standardising microtonal tuning across different plugins/software (as implementations vary) and providing ‘global tuning’ support.

the also include details for how devs can include support.

anyway, an interesting area for those interested in microtonal.

note: I don’t know if there are other products doing anything similar, as I said, just stumbled on this when looking at u-he release notes.

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First mention I saw was on

CDM covered it also

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…interesting, I came across the Aphex Twin thing (MTS-ESP) a while ago and bookmarked it to try out. So, is it kind of like a new microtonal software standard that’s now been picked up by u-he…? I’d like to get more into microtonal stuff but I’m only just starting to get to grips with Scala.

You need some kind of generalised controller to appreciate this really. I’m impressed by the work Mike Battaglia has been doing with his Lumatone.

Something like the Eigenharp/Striso/Linnstrument would be fine too.

Note the “31-EDO” in the title above. That means “31 equal divisions of the octave”, as opposed to 12 in conventional Western music.

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yeah, Ive wondered about this … but I always wondered , how its feaible without so many keys :slight_smile:

Lumatone does look fantastic!

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…yes, though, it’s not only about having a million keys. (Although it helps.) :wink:

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There are all kinds of crazy alternative tunings like the Bohlen Pierce scale. You could even rock out with that on your Organelle.

(I think that what MTS-ESP does is provide a new and more accessible way to work with all kinds of alternative tunings. But these don’t make much sense on a controller designed for conventional music like a piano keyboard; you just need something more regular and abstract.)

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With the right hardware or software can play in just intonation on a standard keyboard. Whether that’s practical depends on what kind of music you’re playing. It’s relatively easy if you’re modulating from one mode to another over time and none of the modes has more than 12 notes to the octave.

If you’re using multiple software and/or hardware instruments from various vendors that could get challenging. MTS-ESP, if all your stuff supported it, could simplify things.

If you want to have more than 12 notes available all the time, then a nonstandard controller might be essential.

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