Other Tempraments

[Deleted]

Hi,

Does anyone know a way of directly embedding midi bulk tuning dump (or better scale/octave tuning) messages in Sibelius?

What I'm trying to achieve in the first instance is to re-tune to a non-equal temperament (specifically the Bradley Lehman one but if it works it could be re-purposed for others).

I found this: www.midi.org/techspecs/midituning.php but the Sibelius 6 manual isn't very helpful in putting this into practice, it says: "consult the manufacturer of your midi device" but the midi device in question is the Sibelius Player.

In case you're not familiar with Bradley Lehman (I assume many of you are), this is a very interesting and controversial article:
www.larips.com

[Ed Sharpe]

Feb 23, 2013 13:39:33 GMT @billhails said:

Hi,

Does anyone know a way of directly embedding midi bulk tuning dump (or better scale/octave tuning) messages in Sibelius?

...

Are you familiar with Scala?

www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/

"Scala is a powerful software tool for experimentation with musical tunings, such as just intonation scales, equal and historical temperaments, microtonal and macrotonal scales, and non-Western scales."


As for embedding midi tuning (pitchbend) into a Sibelius file, you would need to use a plug-in; you could use the quarter-tone plug-in as a starting point for build a custom plug-in.

However the easier route is to use a playback device (synthesizer/sampler) that supports Scala files.

The Garritan Aria player (samples) supports Scala, so to get Pythagorean tuning for my piece "Jesus Wept" all I did was open the Scala player in Sibelius (which was my playback device) and selected Pythagorean and was done with it.

[Ed Sharpe]

PS: Just as an aside the Aria player ships with a half dozen Scala tuning files, and at the www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/ site there is, if I remember correctly, some 700 Scala tuning files for free download.

[Deleted]

Thanks, I did have a brief look at Scala earlier today, but initially dismissed it as overkill for what I am trying to achieve. I may have to take a closer look.

P.S. I got a bit further, but it's not looking too hopeful. Juggling the midi spec and Sib's direct midi input syntax, I came up with a midi string that should work, but Sibelius player seems to ignore it. I also read somewhere that Sibelius never published the midi capabilities spec for the Sibelius Player.