User:Eufalesio/12edo detemperament sequences

The chain of fifths is a very important framework historically. It's been in Western music THE way to think about everything all the way from plainchant to Renaissance meantone temperaments to the modern day – where the 12-pitch-class circle of fifths is taught; 12edo remains a massively over-represented tuning. It has a bit of a bad reputation in the xen circles, but the more I researched, the more I realized it is a paragon, and that its position nowadays is very much well earned.

12edo is an undisputed paragon of tonality among music theory of old and young. In the world of xenharmonic music, it is thus extremely desirable, if not necessary, to have a temperament supported by 12edo so that a simple workflow and notation are used. At least, RTT speaking. I will be neglecting Ringer scales and JI well temperaments as I don't care about them.

The easiest way to detemper 12edo is to observe (untemper) one or many more of its nullified commas, though observing a number of similar sized commas and tempering out their difference also works. This produces a rank-2 temperament. A rank-2 temperament can be "retempered" into a finer edo by adding another comma that 12edo doesn't temper out. All that I've explained here can be done with any rank temperament; rank-2s can be detempered into rank-3s, retempered into much finer edos.

The temperaments I'll be showing always have an whole or split octave period, and a whole or split fifth generator, and in any case, notation-wise from a D, the perfect fifth or fourth shall be NEVER spelt with an accidental, that is to say... it is a nominal.

Many of the temperaments/frameworks here will also be having monikers:

• Ultimate: A detemperament of a medium precision detemper that is the simplest best. Most often a rank-3, includes temperaments. It represents a practical end, for which going further is very hard to implement or impossible, and hardly justifiable.
• Rug-sweeper: A detemperament of the Refined which observes a comma, slightly improving error but failing to massively improve upon it. They are good only for finished works to pump the tuning further to just.
• Absolute: Idem, of the Ultimate. Most often rank-4 or rank-5. The point at which error gets in the ballpark of thousands of a cent. It represents a sane end, for which going further is absolutely fucking insane.

To merit a true step in the detemperament sequence a detemperament should be at least 10x better, and observing the most useful commas whilst tempering the difference between them to reduce complexity to a minimum. It's not a rigurous definition, but I know what I'm doing.

7-limit

Let us take a look at some 7-limit temperaments through the patent valuation (direct approximation primes 2 through 7); which can be analyzed as tempering out 81/80, 64/63, 225/224; and by extension a long list of commas such as the pythagorean comma, 126/125, 2048/2025, 36/35, 5120/5103, 32805/32768... etc.

12

In 12 p.val, 5/4 is a major third, 7/4 is a minor seventh, subsequent temperaments will make modifications to those mappings.

• Observing 64/63 gives septimal meantone.
• Observing 81/80 gives pajara.
• Observing and tempering together 64/63 and 81/80 gives garibaldi, 12 Refined.
• Observing 225/224 and tempering together 64/63 and 81/80 whilst tempering out 126/125 gives septimal diaschismic.
• Observing 64/63 and 81/80 whilst tempering out 531441/524288 gives compton.

These are rank-2 temperaments, which then can be retempered into finer edos by tempering out another comma not on the list;

• With septimal meantone:
  • Adding 126/125 or 1029/1024 or 1728/1715 gives 31edo.
  • Adding 15625/15552 or 3125/3072 or 49/48 gives 19edo.
  • Adding 16807/16384 gives 50edo.
• With pajara:
  • Adding 250/243 or 875/864 gives 22edo.
  • Adding 4375/4374 gives 34edo, through the 34d val.
  • Adding 686/675 gives 56edo.
• With garibaldi:
  • Adding 3125/3072 or 245/243 or 2401/2400 gives 41edo.
  • Adding 15625/15552 or 4375/4374 gives 53edo.
  • Adding the wizma or stearnsma gives 94edo.
• With septimal diaschismic:
  • Adding 245/243 or 4375/4374 gives 46edo.
  • Adding 1728/1715 gives 58edo.

• With compton:
  • Adding 15625/15552 or 4375/4374 or 2401/2400 gives 72edo.

Any of these rank-2s can be detempered into a rank-3 temperament which only tempers out one comma. The ones I deem most notable are:

• Marvel {225/224}, compton Rug-sweeper
• Aberschismic {5120/5103}, garibaldi Rug-sweeper
• Orthoschismic {32805/32768}, 7-limit Ultimate
• Septischismic {33554432/33480783}

12d

Taking the next best approximation of 7/4, a major sixth, however stupid that might sound... another family of temperaments can be derived. 12d can be analyzed as tempering out 81/80, 2048/2025, 875/864. This is a bad exotemperament because it implies 21/20, 28/27 are tempered out; but so are 32805/32768, 4375/4374.

• Observing 2048/2025 gives flattone.
• Observing 81/80 gives srutal.
• Observing and tempering 2048/2025 and 81/80 together whilst tempering out 4375/4374 gives pontiac.

With flattone:

• Adding 50/49 gives 26edo.
• Adding 3125/3087 gives 45edo.

With srutal:

• Adding 126/125 or 245/243 gives 46edo.
• Adding 1728/1715 or 4000/3969 gives 80edo.

With pontiac:

• Adding 225/224 or 5120/5103 or 15625/15552 gives 53edo.
• Adding 1029/1024 or 3136/3125 gives 118edo.
• Adding 2401/2400 or wizma gives 171edo.
• Adding 16875/16807 gives 224edo.

Through this val, I deem the following rank-3 temperaments notable:

• Ragismic {4375/4374}, 7-limit 12d Ultimate
• Orthoschismic {32805/32768}, Pontiac Rug-sweeper

13-limit

Finding 13-limit 12edo detemperaments is harder, because 12edo notably does a horrible job of approximating primes 11 and 13, which means we have another vals to consider; which is to say, we don't take the direct approximation of some primes, but the next best. Here are 3 vals that I found to be worth of mention.

Summary of the 12edo paths I took my time to analyze.

12e

Maps 11/8 to a fourth, 13/8 to a minor sixth. It is not the best val temperament wise, but since the corrections of p11 and p13 are in opposite directions to 5/4 and 7/4; but for this, the garibaldi extension cassandra is arguably the best pick, which is just a relabeling of the 3-limit, and can be easily detempered further into septischismic, 12e Ultimate! See here for more info!

The path through cassandra into septischismic is the easiest, as it keeps the chain of fifths, and a pythseptimal comma (gary) with a hyper accurate zala, but adds an independent generator for 5 and 13, a "minicomma" that works as aberschisma ~ major minthma. Thus, the mappings of 5 and 13 can be thought as the same as cassandra, but altered by +1 / -1 minicomma. It can be detempered further into rank-4 olympic and finally, the goddamn-fucking-insanely Absolute Batshit AKA Insanismic for the prudes.

It can instead be detempered into hecate, which either cassandra or compton through the shit extension 12e & 72 can do. But I do not recommend going into hecate. It's decent, but it decouples the generic comma of cassandra from the chain of fifths and thus the garischisma is observed, and can't be detempered further into hyper-accurate temperaments.

12f

Maps 11/8 to a tritone, 13/8 to a major sixth. It is the best val temperament wise. All the corrections of primes 5 to 13 are in the same direction. There are two good paths to consider, through tridecimal compton and through diaschismic. Through tridecimal compton, the path ends at helios, yet another marvel temperament, which either way is very similar to compton still... so just use 72edo.

Through diaschismic, things get brighter. I don't really like diaschismic, but it can be detempered into, 46 & 58 & 270, 12f Ultimate, which is more accurate than 12e Ultimate, altering primes 5-13 by -2, -3, -5, -6 half-valinorsmas. It can be detempered into the ultra-accurate Kalimera by subtracting an ibnsinma to primes 7,11,13, and ends at rank-5 chalmersic, both arguably Absolute.

12de

Maps 7/4 to a major sixth, 11/8 to a fourth, 13/8 to a minor sixth. It is an exotemperament; but... if you can stomach the weirdly mapped 7/4, you can go places. The diaschisma is also tempered out but you go through srutal, and this can be dempered into the best 13-limit temperament: donar, 12de Ultimate. It is much more accurate than 12e Ultimate and 12f Ultimate. It alters primes 5-13 by -2, +8, +6, +5 half-valinorsmas. Donar then can be detempered into Kalimera or {4375/4374, 4225/4224}, both to chalmersic.

Through the pontiac route you get Quadrapont, pontiac with 4th octaves, You either way can detemper into donar, or whatever the hell 12de & 53 & 171 is. That thing can only detemper into {4375/4374, 4225/4224} by observing the schisma, and then to chalmersic.

19-limit

Extending the paths into the 19-limit is tricky for some val sequences. Here is a brief summary of my finds:

12e

Cassandra and septischismic are both easy 19-limit temperaments. By tempering out 1225/1224 and 1216/1215, the temps can be strongly extended to include the two new primes. Septischismic is notable as the 12e Ultimate, arguably the best yazalathana, altering the minor third of cassandra by +1 minicomma with great accuracy and negligible extra error.

17 is more complex and less accurately tuned, but still within reasonable use and accuracy... though, it needs the 12eg val. This can mitigated if you use saquarumas as accidentals... but still, kinda sorta not the best.

In Olympic, you must use the weak extension Metaolympic, in which your garischisma is split in two heavily inflated 10241/10240 halves, and you use one of these halves to reach 17/16 and 19/16, -1 and +1 respectively. Through Batshittin (a weak extension of Batshit), you use the same 10241/10240 and minas; 4096/4095 ~ 4225/4224, with of course perfect precision.

12f

17 is very easy to reach in diaschismic, equated with 16/15. 19/16 is kinda shit... the best extension I could find is 46h & 58, which is the one that can extend beyond better. 46h & 58 & 270, 12f Ultimate, is very good in the yazalathana (possibly better than septischismic, but sucks for prime 17 (as seen here), which is considerably less accurate.

However, things get better as you use Kalimera, as 10241/10240 and the scintillisma are added into the comma mix. This alone is a top-tier temperament, to an extent easily writable in a score (though 19/16 is extremely painful). The chalmersic extension adds the scintillisma and 104976/104975 or 228096/228095 into the mix, requiring kalismas to notate 17/16 and 19/16, not primes 2-13.

As an extra... Kalimera apparently has a strong extension to the 23-limit! I don't know what that is, though.

12de

This is one sequence I haven't explored too much beyond the 19-limit, as results were inconclusive. 17 is very easy to reach in srutal, equated with 16/15. 19-limit? Not that good, and not that extendable. Donar has an accurate but unusable extension to the 19-limit, requiring a jaw dropping +24 half-valinorsmas to reach qualities of 17/16 and 19/16. I don't deem it easily extendable beyond this.

Notation

Notation and temperament are parts of the same coin RTT-wise, and since the temperaments are different, the notations are different. Here are the notations for 12e and 12f (12de not designed):

The notation for the Ultimate and ULTRAOLYMPIC sequence, as I call them... see here here for more info about this specific notation.

See what I was referring to when I said that 19/16 is extremely painful? Goodness! Looks like Fairie's Aire and Death Waltz! I did not mean for the half-valinorsma accidentals to be shaped like dicks.