LinPlug Octopus - Manual (Page 53)

Appendix A: Using TUN files in the Octopus
By Jacky Ligon
About Microtuning
Microtuning, or 'microtonality' are methods for tuning musical instruments,
whereby musicians may explore and compose with ethnic, historical and
contemporary intonation systems. Microtuning musical instruments enables
musicians to use unique scales which may have pitches lying between the
notes of our familiar Western 12 tone equal tempered scale. These unique
pitches and methods of microtuning musical instruments to sounds found in
the 'cracks' of the 12 Tone Equal Temperament, are one of the things that
gives the music of such places as Bali, India, Africa, Thailand, Turkey and
the Middle East a special intonational flavor, but is also something that is of
immeasurable value to the contemporary acoustic and electronic composer,
who may require a more broad palette of musical pitches for their music.
The quest for creating beautiful and musically useful microtuning systems
has been an unending process of discovery and debate amongst musical
theorists, mathematicians, physicists and musicians going back to early
history. Quite often the reasons for microtuning musical instruments may
involve improving the consonant intervals of a tuning-system for sweeter
sounding harmonies, as well as offering a wider variety of choices for
melody. Microtuning an instrument can sometimes mean there may be less,
or more than 12 tones in an octave, or even that the octave itself may be
stretched or compressed. Microtuning is a vast musical frontier, rich with
historical lore, music and an infinity of exciting musical possibilities for the
adventurous sonic explorer.
Creating TUN microtuning files with SCALA
Scala is a freeware utility developed by Manuel Op de Coul in the
Netherlands, which can be used for the creation and analysis of historical,
ethnic and contemporary microtunings. A powerful capability of Scala is that
it enables the user to create the proprietary tuning data required for
microtuning a wide range of hardware and software synthesizers and
samplers.
Manual 51