New tunings files available (NEW & IMPROVED!)

[Harbinger]

These tunings make use of the new flat symbol implemented in the .53 build. After these DL links are instructions if you want to dabble in changing either the note labels or the pitch values.

Except for the Bayati scale, all of these tunings use twelve-tone equal temperament (12TET), so the tuning values are not changed -- only the note names.

Natural notes that are not part of the scale will have a minus "-" in their labels, or note names.

Db scale (Changes all sharps to flats)
Cb scale (Also changes E to Fb)

C Phrygian Dominant (Changes D# to Eb, G# to Ab, and A# to Bb; C# and F# remain, but these are not part of the scale)
C Hungarian Gypsy (Changes D# to Eb, G# to Ab, and A# to Bb; C# and F# remain, but these and the Bb are not part of the scale)
C Double Harmonic (Changes C# to Db and G# to Ab; D#, F#, and A# remain even though they don't belong to the scale)

New Additions:
F# Scale(Changes F to E#)
C# Scale(Changes C to B#)
G Double Harmonic Scale(Changes G# to Ab and D# to Eb)
D Double Harmonic Scale(Changes D# to Eb and A# to Bb)
A Double Harmonic Scale(Changes A# to Bb)

Just Intonation
This is a true pitch tuning but it's complete for only a few octaves. If anyone uses it let me know if it seems correct and i will develop it completely. Use Just Intonation for classical wind instruments and vocal samples -- see the Wiki page for interesting reading in classic temperaments (well, interesting to classical composers maybe ).

D Bayati
The Bayati tuning is an Arabic maqam with a quarter tone at E (i've used the notation 'E\'). The root note, however, is D, so officially the scale is D - E\ - F - G - A - Bb - C - D.
The quarter tone may be off as i have been unable to find the correct table with the temperament data (with exact values), but it is an educated guess with a little help from Wiki.  Plus i'm unsure if the note at E is supposed to be a quarter tone flat or sharp from the E of 12TET; i get conflicting info from Wiki. For this tuning i'm assuming E\ is sharp by 50 cents.
This is still highly experimental and i've only changed the labels and tunings for 3 octaves (C4 - B6). If anyone has any comments or corrections you can let me know here, or PM me with what you have. Once i get more concrete info, i'll fix all octaves with correct values (for non-equal-temperament tunings, you have to enter EVERY NOTE NAME and calculate EVERY PITCH VALUE!).
Also keep in mind that the Bayati scale only contains 7 notes per octave, so if you enter the notes C5 thru Bb5 in this scale, you hafta enter your 12TET notes for C5 thru F# (the first 7 notes of the standard scale).


Db is self-explanatory, but the Gb tuning transforms all "B" notes to "Cb", and the Cb tuning also changes all "E"s to "Fb"s. I know it's confusing, but that's just how the key signatures work. All that's changed in these tunings are the labels, not the standard MPT chromatic tuning (temperament).

All you do is put them in your tunings folder, which i believe has to be at the same level as the MPT executable. Then follow these instructions.

How to Apply Tunings

1. Open an .mptm file,
   OR
   Create a new .mptm file (tunings do not work for other track formats),
   OR
   Convert another MPT track file to .mptm. Press the Song Properties button in the General Tab. When the dialog opens, select the MPTM format in the File Type menu. Note that some file types may alter how MPT plays the track. Note also that, as of 1.17.02.53, VSTi's may use non-standard tuning files, but only the labels have any effect -- the pitch is not altered if you use different temperaments.

2. Open the Instruments tab, and click on the popup menu where it says "Tuning".


Select the Control Tunings menu item.


The Tunings dialog box will appear.


3. Notice on the left side are 4 headings for placing the tunings -- Standard, Local, Tune-specific, and Sandbox. You can right-click on any heading to add a blank tuning, or on any listed tuning to remove it. You can click-and-drag any tuning from one of the headings to another; a context menu will appear so you can either copy or move the tuning entry.

The Standard tuning is MPT's default tuning, and only one can be listed in this heading.
The Local tunings are any tunings you have loaded previously, and are accessible from the Tunings popup in the Instrument tab. These are kept in the LocalTunings.tc file in the tunings folder.
The Tune-Specific tunings are saved with the song.
The Sandbox tunings are temporary in case you are experimenting; any tunings in this heading are lost when the dialog box is closed.

4. To load a tuning, click on the Import button. The standard Open dialog will appear and you can pick a tuning file (only one at a time). Any you load will automatically appear in the Sandbox heading. Select one of them to see the tuning data and the key labels.

Working with tunings

When using "General" tuning type, you have to rename every note and input every value for every note.

Use "Geometric" to have the values automatically scaled for every note. You can still relabel the notes but you can only do them for one octave (C5 thru B5); the naming standard you use will be applied to all octaves.

NOTE: When tuning by Geometric ratios, the "5" will be automatically entered as the last digit in the note name, so for example if you wanted to enter C.5 for that note, only enter "C." -- the 5 is added, and all other octaves are adjusted accordingly. So even though you can change the note name, you cannot change the octave designation.

To enter your tuning with Geometric ratios (that don't change for every octave), select "Geometric" tuning type. Then enter the number of notes in your octave in the Groupsize field; the "Groupsize" is the number of notes in your "octave," which doesn't have to be an octave in the traditional sense. For the classical Western temperament, there are 12, and the whole tone scale has 6 in a "Groupsize".
In the Groupratio field, enter the pitch change for every Groupsize. Usually this would be 2, meaning the pitch (in hertz) is doubled an octave higher, and halved an octave lower. Press tab (to go to the next field and apply the changes) and the tuning for each note will be adjusted in the note list.

You can easily change the labels with a little understanding of how the interface works. To select a note, click on any note or its value in the note list on the right. The note is automatically centered in the window, highlighted, and its values placed in the fields below the window.

To change the label for the currently selected note, click in the Note Name field. This is a text editing field but there are two important restrictions. First, you only have 3 spaces to work with. Second, while you can use any character your keyboard can type, the only ones that show up in the Pattern Editor (in the note column) are capitals A-Z, 0-9, and ? # \ : - and space. (With version 1.17.02.53, you can now use the small letter 'b'.) It's best to use a standard, constant format for the note labels; the default for MPT is TSO, where T is the tone (A-G), S is the symbol (such as # or b), and O is the octave (0-9).

Unfortunately you can't try the new tuning with a sample scale or by playing the note keys, nor will a playing track use the new tuning, until the dialog is closed and the tuning is applied to the song.

Although you have imported a tuning, it is not applied until you select it from the Tuning menu. This will instantly change all the note labels everywhere that instrument plays a note (the note must have the instrument & note in the same event in the Pattern Editor).

While you can't have the same instrument with different note labels (such as changing from an E-flat key signature to A in the middle of a song), you can force a workaround if you really need to. Use two copies of an instrument with their own tunings. Just use the correct instrument with the appropriate tuning when the key changes. (VSTi's must use two instances to show different note labels.)

To me, the capability to tune to certain key signatures (which are merely label changes) and temperaments (which change the pitch) is nearly perfect, except that i wish for key signatures to be held in the patterns and song as well as the instruments. (I've already entered a request for that.)

Coming Soon (as soon as i figure out how): Applying tunings that change according to octave (such as in some Eastern tunings).

JUST REMEMBER: This only works for MPT build 1.17.02.53 or later, using the .mptm (MPT-exclusive) song format.

Thanks to Relab and Jojo for all their work on MPT and making this possible! This simple addition gives MPT a slight edge over many Tracker applications. :winksmile:

Edit by Saga Musix: Fixed download links

[Rakib]

Can you please post a screenshoot on how it looks on Modplug and is there another use than just the looks or have you altered the tuning also?

[Saga Musix]

i can host the files, in fact they would be a nice addition to my OpenMPT wiki (if you don't mind).

[Harbinger]

Can you please post a screenshoot on how it looks on Modplug and is there another use than just the looks or have you altered the tuning also?

I can, but it'll take time. And no, it only changes the LABEL, not the tuning (only because i never use non-Western tunings), but it is based on the standard tuning, so you can just use it if you don't need to change the standard temperament. However, MPT now can definitely use non-standard tunings like Arabic, microtones, etc. but doing it yourself requires a little knowledge in acoustic science, as the numbers are based on decimal numbers, rather than relative scaling of known notes (such as "1/4 tone flat"). Someone else other than i knows more about that.

To Jojo: Comin' at ya!! Come back here and provide us a link when it's all done!


EDIT: One other thing. Since only the labels are changed, these tunings WILL work for VSTi's, which is almost all i use anyway. If you ever use a tuning that changes the actual pitch data, then the labels will work for VSTi's, but not the new pitch. (Someone correct me if i'm wrong on that.)

[Relabsoluness]

Can you please post a screenshoot on how it looks on Modplug and is there another use than just the looks or have you altered the tuning also?

I can, but it'll take time. And no, it only changes the LABEL, not the tuning...

I have to disagree here. For example C 6 has value 2.0179 instead of 2. When using 12TET, it would be easiest to use geometric type with groupsize 12 and groupratio 2 instead of general type.

[Saga Musix]

Harbinger: will try to get it up today, still setting up my new laptop...

[Saga Musix]

Well, maybe I'm a bit late, but the tunings are all up now:
http://sagamusix.de/openmpt/download/tunings/

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Maybe it's worthwhile doing up all of the flat scales (up to, say, seven flats) as a package that can be bundled with OpenMPT itself.

[Harbinger]

For example C 6 has value 2.0179 instead of 2. When using 12TET, it would be easiest to use geometric type with groupsize 12 and groupratio 2 instead of general type.

To be honest, i don't know how i arrived at the the actual temperaments. I remember fiddling with the various fields but the pitches were always off as you got very high or very low on the scale. I believe i just used the Standard tuning from .48 or earlier, as it had all the values for each note. And i know they work because they match perfectly with the tunings of the VSTi's.

It has been explained before in another thread the math involved, but perhaps someone can work all that out, and maybe provide tunings for minor temperaments and Arabic quarter-tone tuning.

I will also provide label tunings later (if someone else doesn't get to it first) for F# and C#, which show F as an E# and C as a B#.

[Harbinger]

Updates the first post for clearer instructions on applying the tunings. If anyone wants to translate directly to the Wiki pages, feel free. I tried but i don't know how to use html code.

If there are any mistakes or something needs to be clarified, PM me or mention it here and i'll correct it based on your recommendations. :wink:

[Harbinger]

UPDATED again to show how to apply temperaments (actual tuning data). Thanks to Relabsoluness for the help!

Also i'm in the process of compiling a number of different tunings, either for download or for inclusion in a future build (if the devs find favor). Currently i'm working on 'just' intonation (which changes temperaments and is used by many acoustic non-tunable instruments) and the 'Hungarian' scale (which only changes note names). If anyone has any sharable tunings they've already made, email them to me (the .tun file not the .tc, so folks can DL only the tunings they want) and i will make them available to all. Or you can PM me with info on how to assemble your tunings (don't bother with Wiki pages, i have them all! ).

UPDATE: OK, new tunings available and the first post edited.

[Harbinger]

See the first post for new tunings, including Just Temperament, the forerunner of 12-TET (use this tuning for that classic Renaissance or Baroque sound!).

For proper nomenclature, "scales" simply involve changes to note names, and "temperaments" involve pitch changes.

[Harbinger]

Actually found out that i can easily change keys (or rather "note namings") using the same instrument. I have many Piano Suites that change keys within the song, from a key with sharps (like B) to a key with flats (like Db). So i don't get lost or spend a lot of time mentally translating, i use the Duplicate Instrument feature to make a copy of the instruments. One has normal Standard labels, and the other uses the Db scale, as you can see here in my Instruments list:



The nifty thing about this is i don't have to create more instances of a VSTi. (Normally i have a Piano VSTi for the left hand and the other for the right.) Each instrument, even though they use different tunings (which are only note name alterations), uses the same exact instance of the respective VSTi's. So when i want to enter notes with flats i use the instrument with that "tuning".