DAWs: Difference between revisions

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Click on a MIDI item to pull up the built-in MIDI-editor. The Reaper menu on top should change. For example the 3rd option should change from View to Navigate. In the new menu, go to View and choose Mode: Named Notes. Then double-right-click a note on the far left of the edit window (where the black and white keys were) to rename it. Type in anything. Hit tab to go on to the next key. Then go to File and choose Customize Note Names / Save Note Names To File. That makes a little text file that you can even edit directly. In your next project you can load this file, using Customize Note Names / Load Note Names From File. There's also Customize Note Names / Merge Note Names From File, and Customize Note Names / Clear All Note Names.

You can put in any text. You can put in "5/4", "3:19", "H♯", "I♭", "D^" or "E+" among others. You might even be able to control the font with Reaper themes. To make a black key, you put in a special character. This example uses "█" (Unicode 2588 / "full block") ahead of the actual note name but you could use anything. Just copy-paste that. For other special characters, you may use Character Map on Windows, or refer to [~~http~~://www.wikihow.com/Make-Symbols-on-a-Mac this tutorial] for Mac.

You can put in any text. You can put in "5/4", "3:19", "H♯", "I♭", "D^" or "E+" among others. You might even be able to control the font with Reaper themes. To make a black key, you put in a special character. This example uses "█" (Unicode 2588 / "full block") ahead of the actual note name but you could use anything. Just copy-paste that. For other special characters, you may use Character Map on Windows, or refer to [https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Symbols-on-a-Mac this tutorial] for Mac.

This example uses underscores to make the note names on the white keys line up with the black key names. An octave was done this way in Reaper. Then the file was saved and TextEdit was used to cut and paste more octaves. The note numbers were edited to run 0-127. If your keyboard has MIDI notes 21-108 (standard 88 keys), you can delete lines 0-20 and 109-127. Then after you load it, choose View / Show/Hide Note Rows / Hide Unnamed Rows. Less to scroll through.

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You could use gray block characters to get three colors or more. Many possibilities! The text files containing the note names used for the screenshots are here: [http://www.TallKite.com/misc_files/19-tonePianoRolls.zip www.TallKite.com/misc_files/19-tonePianoRolls.zip]

See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLO8KqDXhKk

==== Background colors ====

Piano roll background can also be customized via dummy tracks: [https://youtu.be/hLO8KqDXhKk video] by [[User:Userminusone]].

===Useful Scripts===

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As per Live 11, MPE is supported, but channels get re-assigned arbitrarily.<ref>https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p=1789950</ref>

Ableton Live 12 has some features for tuning systems: [https://youtu.be/5-ZldZ5WhSM?feature=shared video]

==FL Studio (until 2003 known as FruityLoops)==

FL Studio supports the "note fine pitch" setting on each midi note in the piano roll. If you double click on a note for instance, you can set the fine-tune pitch. This works at least with the plugins provided with FL Studio inside FL Studio, for instance these were confirmed to work at least: Flex, Harmor, Sakura, Direct Wave (this is a sampler so it can get quite practical), GMS, Harmless, Kepler, Kepler Exo, and likely most other similar FL Studio plugins, except the Sampler that is confirmed to not work (at least, Direct Wave works as a sampler, so microtonal sampling can work with that). For external plugins not made by FL Studio, this method doesn't work, therefore using tuning files is the way to go at the moment (and until MIDI 2 is supported and works with microtonal pitching).

'''How to automate these pitch fine tunings in FL Studio plugins'''

If you want to modify your piano roll such that it supports microtonal sampling, the way to do it is to Patcherize with Patcher the plugins mentioned at the paragraph above, isolating each 12 midi notes with instances of a VFX Key Mapper plugin, then have each of them be followed by an instance of a VFX Level Scaler. In the VFX level scaler, you can go to the Pitch tab, and apply a pitch fine tune change for each of these isolated notes so that your piano roll maps to these. However one caveat is that the VFX Key Mapper works on only two octaves (4 and 5), therefore to get keys outside this range, you may need to use a VFX Keyboard Splitter. The following YouTube video demonstrate how this can work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLET8HARsmo

The following limitations of FL Studio and Patcher makes this hard to setup for each scale you want to use, although there are tedious workarounds:

- The VFX Key Mapper only works on two octaves. This makes it super tedious to add new scales, because one must use a workaround.

- The VFX Key Mapper doesn't natively support a microtonal fine pitch adjustement per note, which requires using the VFX Level Scaler.

- Cannot copy and paste a selection of multiple plugins in Patcher - this workaround could have been an easy way to map more octaves on the scale. It could be really helpful to copy and paste multiple VSTs at once in patcher, but this feature doesn't exist because for most use-case the work around of copying a meta instance of Patcher works.

- It would be great if the Piano Roll itself would support more microtonal scales, doing this patcher work behind the scene.

- The VFX Lever Scaler's Key offset is a floating point between 0.0 and 1.0. Therefore to map from cents to increments of this variable, if you know the "cent difference" between your microtonal note and the nearest 12-EDO note you want to use to fine-tune pitch from, you can use this formula: `''0.5 + (cent difference / 100 * 0.25 / 12)''` to find the value of the offset, that should most of the time be between 0.49 and 0.51. You can use the effect named "Tuner" to validate your pitch is detuned as you wished compared to the original 12-EDO version of the note. It would have been easier to be able to just input the cents difference that wished to be applied rather than have to do this comparative math against the closest 12-EDO note, introducing the need to check changes with the Tuner to ensure proper tuning.

'''Unsupported Instruments'''

The way that FL Studio passes these microtonal pitches to their FL Studio plugins isn't supported by the vast majority of other external VST instruments that you may add. For instance, this Patcherized fine-tune pitch method is confirmed to not work at least already with Vital, Spitfire LABS, Kontakt 7, and VeeSeeVSTRack, and wasn't confirmed to work with any other external VST yet. For external VSTs or such instruments, the method is to use tuning files if they support it inside the plugin.

It is expected that the upgrade from MIDI to MIDI 2 may make this process simpler to use in most DAWs, FL Studio would benefit from such an upgrade to better support microtonality.

'''About sysex messages'''

FL filters out sysex messages (undocumented, see below).

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Bitwig also has a microtuning midi effect plugin which can adjust incoming midi notes to any desired scale. Again, this uses Bitwig's proprietary retuning messages, so it's only compatible with the built-in synths & samplers.

To use full-keyboard microtuning of VSTs via Scala files or MTS-ESP, there is a way to customize piano roll background using dummy tracks: [https://youtu.be/wdVMQnwzxH0 video] by [[User:Sevish]].

== Helio ==

https://helio.fm/

== Beat DJ by Soniare ==

- Beat DJ is a colorful microtonal music program tailored for live improvisation and daily use as a digital audio workstation (DAW), with a focus on electronic dance music. It is like a hybrid between DJing and producing.

- It features a command-line interface that allows users to create scales using a `scale` command, supporting equal divisions of the octave (EDO), just intonation (JI), and custom scales. The tonic of the scale is always tuned to the BPM which is often preferable for dance music. These scales can be exported as .scl or .kbm files for use in other software.

- Visually it looks like livecoding software like Tidal Cycles but is much simpler. It heavily uses samples and comes with a large database of free sounds but you can also use your own. It comes with a large collection of synthesized sounds called Generators. You can also write your own C# scripts to generate sounds and visuals.

=Approaches to Microtonal Composition in a DAW=

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One workaround is to use pitch-bend to microtune a monophonic MIDI part. Polyphonic MIDI parts require multiple instances of the plugin.

==LMMS==

LMMS supports microtuning for any track using the Microtuner, but this is only in the most recent versions. For older versions, microtuning is partially supported, it can be done either by using the built-in microtuning in the ZynAddSubFX plugin or by having multiple detuned tracks.

== References ==

[[Category:~~todo:add_definition]]~~

[[Category:Software]]

~~[[Category:Practical help~~]]

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 Click on a MIDI item to pull up the built-in MIDI-editor. The Reaper menu on top should change. For example the 3rd option should change from View to Navigate. In the new menu, go to View and choose Mode: Named Notes. Then double-right-click a note on the far left of the edit window (where the black and white keys were) to rename it. Type in anything. Hit tab to go on to the next key. Then go to File and choose Customize Note Names / Save Note Names To File. That makes a little text file that you can even edit directly. In your next project you can load this file, using Customize Note Names / Load Note Names From File. There's also Customize Note Names / Merge Note Names From File, and Customize Note Names / Clear All Note Names.
-You can put in any text. You can put in "5/4", "3:19", "H♯", "I♭", "D^" or "E+" among others. You might even be able to control the font with Reaper themes. To make a black key, you put in a special character. This example uses "█" (Unicode 2588 / "full block") ahead of the actual note name but you could use anything. Just copy-paste that. For other special characters, you may use Character Map on Windows, or refer to [http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Symbols-on-a-Mac this tutorial] for Mac.
+You can put in any text. You can put in "5/4", "3:19", "H♯", "I♭", "D^" or "E+" among others. You might even be able to control the font with Reaper themes. To make a black key, you put in a special character. This example uses "█" (Unicode 2588 / "full block") ahead of the actual note name but you could use anything. Just copy-paste that. For other special characters, you may use Character Map on Windows, or refer to [https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Symbols-on-a-Mac this tutorial] for Mac.
 This example uses underscores to make the note names on the white keys line up with the black key names. An octave was done this way in Reaper. Then the file was saved and TextEdit was used to cut and paste more octaves. The note numbers were edited to run 0-127. If your keyboard has MIDI notes 21-108 (standard 88 keys), you can delete lines 0-20 and 109-127. Then after you load it, choose View / Show/Hide Note Rows / Hide Unnamed Rows. Less to scroll through.
@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 You could use gray block characters to get three colors or more. Many possibilities! The text files containing the note names used for the screenshots are here: [http://www.TallKite.com/misc_files/19-tonePianoRolls.zip www.TallKite.com/misc_files/19-tonePianoRolls.zip]
+See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLO8KqDXhKk
+==== Background colors ====
+Piano roll background can also be customized via dummy tracks: [https://youtu.be/hLO8KqDXhKk video] by [[User:Userminusone]].
 ===Useful Scripts===
@@ Line 44: / Line 50: @@
 As per Live 11, MPE is supported, but channels get re-assigned arbitrarily.<ref>https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p=1789950</ref>
+Ableton Live 12 has some features for tuning systems: [https://youtu.be/5-ZldZ5WhSM?feature=shared video]
 ==FL Studio (until 2003 known as FruityLoops)==
+FL Studio supports the "note fine pitch" setting on each midi note in the piano roll. If you double click on a note for instance, you can set the fine-tune pitch. This works at least with the plugins provided with FL Studio inside FL Studio, for instance these were confirmed to work at least: Flex, Harmor, Sakura, Direct Wave (this is a sampler so it can get quite practical), GMS, Harmless, Kepler, Kepler Exo, and likely most other similar FL Studio plugins, except the Sampler that is confirmed to not work (at least, Direct Wave works as a sampler, so microtonal sampling can work with that). For external plugins not made by FL Studio, this method doesn't work, therefore using tuning files is the way to go at the moment (and until MIDI 2 is supported and works with microtonal pitching).
+'''How to automate these pitch fine tunings in FL Studio plugins'''
+If you want to modify your piano roll such that it supports microtonal sampling, the way to do it is to Patcherize with Patcher the plugins mentioned at the paragraph above, isolating each 12 midi notes with instances of a VFX Key Mapper plugin, then have each of them be followed by an instance of a VFX Level Scaler. In the VFX level scaler, you can go to the Pitch tab, and apply a pitch fine tune change for each of these isolated notes so that your piano roll maps to these. However one caveat is that the VFX Key Mapper works on only two octaves (4 and 5), therefore to get keys outside this range, you may need to use a VFX Keyboard Splitter. The following YouTube video demonstrate how this can work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLET8HARsmo
+The following limitations of FL Studio and Patcher makes this hard to setup for each scale you want to use, although there are tedious workarounds:
+- The VFX Key Mapper only works on two octaves. This makes it super tedious to add new scales, because one must use a workaround.
+- The VFX Key Mapper doesn't natively support a microtonal fine pitch adjustement per note, which requires using the VFX Level Scaler.
+- Cannot copy and paste a selection of multiple plugins in Patcher - this workaround could have been an easy way to map more octaves on the scale. It could be really helpful to copy and paste multiple VSTs at once in patcher, but this feature doesn't exist because for most use-case the work around of copying a meta instance of Patcher works.
+- It would be great if the Piano Roll itself would support more microtonal scales, doing this patcher work behind the scene.
+- The VFX Lever Scaler's Key offset is a floating point between 0.0 and 1.0. Therefore to map from cents to increments of this variable, if you know the "cent difference" between your microtonal note and the nearest 12-EDO note you want to use to fine-tune pitch from, you can use this formula: `''0.5 + (cent difference / 100 * 0.25 / 12)''` to find the value of the offset, that should most of the time be between 0.49 and 0.51. You can use the effect named "Tuner" to validate your pitch is detuned as you wished compared to the original 12-EDO version of the note. It would have been easier to be able to just input the cents difference that wished to be applied rather than have to do this comparative math against the closest 12-EDO note, introducing the need to check changes with the Tuner to ensure proper tuning.
+'''Unsupported Instruments'''
+The way that FL Studio passes these microtonal pitches to their FL Studio plugins isn't supported by the vast majority of other external VST instruments that you may add. For instance, this Patcherized fine-tune pitch method is confirmed to not work at least already with Vital, Spitfire LABS, Kontakt 7, and VeeSeeVSTRack, and wasn't confirmed to work with any other external VST yet. For external VSTs or such instruments, the method is to use tuning files if they support it inside the plugin.
+It is expected that the upgrade from MIDI to MIDI 2 may make this process simpler to use in most DAWs, FL Studio would benefit from such an upgrade to better support microtonality.
+'''About sysex messages'''
 FL filters out sysex messages (undocumented, see below).
@@ Line 83: / Line 117: @@
 Bitwig also has a microtuning midi effect plugin which can adjust incoming midi notes to any desired scale. Again, this uses Bitwig's proprietary retuning messages, so it's only compatible with the built-in synths & samplers.
+To use full-keyboard microtuning of VSTs via Scala files or MTS-ESP, there is a way to customize piano roll background using dummy tracks: [https://youtu.be/wdVMQnwzxH0 video] by [[User:Sevish]].
+== Helio ==
+https://helio.fm/
+== Beat DJ by Soniare ==
+- Beat DJ is a colorful microtonal music program tailored for live improvisation and daily use as a digital audio workstation (DAW), with a focus on electronic dance music. It is like a hybrid between DJing and producing.
+- It features a command-line interface that allows users to create scales using a `scale` command, supporting equal divisions of the octave (EDO), just intonation (JI), and custom scales. The tonic of the scale is always tuned to the BPM which is often preferable for dance music. These scales can be exported as .scl or .kbm files for use in other software.
+- Visually it looks like livecoding software like Tidal Cycles but is much simpler. It heavily uses samples and comes with a large database of free sounds but you can also use your own. It comes with a large collection of synthesized sounds called Generators. You can also write your own C# scripts to generate sounds and visuals.
 =Approaches to Microtonal Composition in a DAW=
@@ Line 126: / Line 172: @@
 One workaround is to use pitch-bend to microtune a monophonic MIDI part. Polyphonic MIDI parts require multiple instances of the plugin.
+==LMMS==
+LMMS supports microtuning for any track using the Microtuner, but this is only in the most recent versions. For older versions, microtuning is partially supported, it can be done either by using the built-in microtuning in the ZynAddSubFX plugin or by having multiple detuned tracks.
 == References ==
 <references/>
-[[Category:todo:add_definition]]
+[[Category:Software]]
-[[Category:Practical help]]