MIDI realtime tuning

Hi,

I would like to let Logic Pro X, Dorico or other apps send Kontakt a tuning scale. I am using this feature with VSL's Vienna Instruments Pro and Logic, and it allows me to easily make use of alternative tunings (for non-Western, or ancient music).

Kontakt is missing this feature, and this excludes many important libraries from this much needed application.

I would therefore ask this feature to be added to Kontakt.

How it would work with Logic:

1) In Logic, go to the File > Project Settings > Tuning pane.
2) Choose a scale, root and pitch.
3) Play the song. Logic will send Kontakt controls to play in the chosen scale.

Paolo

 

Maybe I could add the reason why this feature is very important for me, and will probably be in the next years for many.

Equal tuning has been working great, and still works great, for most of the music with roots in, or heavy influence from, the Western world.

At the same time, Western classical art music has evolved, and has been relying on microtuning and alternative scales for decades. The use of detuning and quarter-tone clusters has been in movies for a long time, and many specialized sample libraries, to be used in various media production contexts, are being releasing.

Interest for pre-Equal tuning music is growning, and could take advantage of several samples of old/ancient instruments. Viella, lute, viola da gamba, Renaissance flutes, Gaelic of Scandinavian folk instruments, all require alternative, ancient tunings. These are often best-sellers on Kontakt. On the opposite scale of time, New Age is asking for a lowered pitch, more - err - in tune with the world's tuning.

Non-Western cultures have been influencing Western pop and art music for years. And the number of musicians from outside the Western world is growing fast, so much that I guess there are now, for example, enough East Asian, Indian, and Arabic musicians using virtual instruments, asking for their own tuning systems.

So, support for MIDI microtuning is not just something more, some kind of exoteric feature. Tuning is at the basis of any music. And any music deserves its own tuning.

Paolo

 

This feature is not of interest to me but since no-one seems to be answering, I note that there is a microtuning script in the factory library which has selectable presets and keys that you can automate.

 

It doesn't work with all instruments though. Particularly if instrument does stuff like true legato etc., won't quite work.

 

Thank you for your answers. However, I'll try to be more precise.

As far as I understand, Kontakt instruments can be locally tuned. Tuning is saved with each instrument.

What I'm looking for is a remotely controlled, dynamic tuning. The same oud can work with a tuning in use in the Greek folk music, or in Arabic classical music. Or, I may want to tune a violin for Western classical music, US folk music, experimental quarter-tone scales.

Tuning control should be in the score, not the instrument. And should change depending on the style of music.

An real-world example: I might want to use a chamber choir for late Renaissance music. This style requires quarter-comma meantone tuning with an C "root", and repitching to A = 466Hz. It is the same choir I could use for modern hymns, but retuned for that particular piece.

What I would like is that the sequencer or notation program sends to Kontakt the correct tuning pitch (A = 466Hz) and the scale (quarter-comma meantone with C "root"). Kontakt is repitched and retuned to what the score is sending it.

The alternative may be creating a duplicate instrument for each tuning. Feasible, but really unpractical and not flexible at all.

Paolo

 

Not sure what you're after.

The script I mentioned has a choice of microtuning presets which can be "remotely" selected by MIDI. It may even be possible to customise these - I've no idea but you could have a look. You can also control the "root" key and amount, likewise. As the Evil One points out, you can't expect it to work with instruments containing samples that have intervals within them.

A=466 is quite different - overall tuning can easily be MIDI controlled in the instrument header.

(Perhaps it might help to have a peep at "automation" in the manual)

 

The idea behind this feature request is that you could set the tuning from the DAW (which supports this feature, i.e. Logic and Cubase) and it would work with any plugin supporting that, without requiring scripts being loaded, and then those scripts not working well with the instrument loaded, etc.

It's a very valid feature request.

 

Exactly. Thank you Mario for putting it in a clearer and more concise way.

Paolo

 

Interesting. As you can see I know very little about host programs - Bidule doesn't have anything like that - but I'm always interested in how things work.

So you press a button in Logic or whatever and it tells a compliant plugin what scale to use? How does it work? Presumably it uses automation of some kind? And how does it actually deal with those samples that have more than one note - legato transition samples for example?

 

It's using MIDI Tuning Standard in the background.

http://www.microtonal-synthesis.com/MIDItuning.html

 

Thanks for that. All is clear.

(So it's a matter of using SysEx, which Kontakt doesn't support, instead of scripts, which Kontakt does support, to get the same effect?)