Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!srcsip!nic.MR.NET!thor.acc.stolaf.edu!brownd
From: brownd@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (David H. Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect/Well Tempered
Summary: Some Yamaha Synths do!
Message-ID: <10662@thor.acc.stolaf.edu>
Date: 18 Jan 90 21:47:55 GMT
References: <136000003@peg> <1758@rex.cs.tulane.edu> <7267@chaph.usc.edu> <434@iconsys.UUCP>
Reply-To: brownd@thor.stolaf.edu ()
Organization: St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
Lines: 32

In article <434@iconsys.UUCP> tom@iconsys.UUCP (Tom Kimpton) writes:
>                       ...    and I was wondering if any electronic
>music instruments have options to play "perfect" scales. 

>Tom Kimpton                    UUCP: {uunet,caeco,nrc-ut}!iconsys!tom
>Software Engineer	       INTERNET: tom@iconsys.uu.net
>Icon International, Inc.       BITNET: icon%byuadam.bitnet (multi-user acct)
>Orem, Utah 84058               PHONE: (801) 225-6888

	Gee, one of my favorite questions!  Yes many electronic instruments
have the ability to play in tunings other than equal-temperment.  My own
favorite it the Yamaha DX7-II which allows the pitch of every key to be
defined independently, with a resolution of just over 1 cent (1024 steps to
the octave, to be (im)precise).  I would expect that the new Yamaha SY77 (no,
nobody seems to know what the name means) to keep this feature.  BTW, every
key means every one of the 128 midi note numbers!  You can do microtonal
tunings to with any number of steps per octave (well, up to 128)!

	I've noticed that the Kurzweil ??1000 series does allow a few
different tunings, but they keep the octaves pure and also force you to keep
the same old twelve-steps-to-the-octave bit going.  It is easier to program,
though (especially if you _like_ having a moderately normal keyboard :-) ),
and the tuning is specified as offsets in cents from Equal-Temperment.

	I'm sure there are others, but those are the two we have in the
studio here (Yamaha DX7-II FD and Kurzweil K1000).

St. Olaf College has very little to     | M M | M M M | M M | M M M | M M |   
do with the things I talk about!        | M M | M M M | M M | M M M | M M |   
                                        | M M | M M M | M M | M M M | M M |  
Dave Brown: brownd@thor.acc.stolaf.edu  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  
"I _like_ programming the DX-7!"        |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|