Making Microtonal Music is Easier Than You’d Think: Difference between revisions

Thank you.

Kontakt is a very robust sampler, that has a bunch of very real sounding instrument samples. You can basically play a whole orchestra or rock band or most well known classic synths in it. And I really doubt more than about ' of 1% of people could tell the difference. And any who could tell would likely tell based on the playing style rather than the sound. You can also import any sound into Kontakt and play it on a keyboard. A lot of software can do this, but Kontakt is very tweakable with what you do with the sound. There are also a lot of tutorials online for most anything.

With this technique, you can't import tuning files. But you can play ''any instrument'' that comes with Kontakt in any equal temperament tuning. You can also do that with any sound you import, including human voice samples. I do that a lot lately. First, open Kontakt and pick an instrument. [https://biptunia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/kontkt-1a.jpg][[undefined|link=]][[:File:Kontkt-1a-298x350.jpg|[[Image:kontkt-1a-298x350.jpg|link=|300x300px]]]]

NOTE: Kontakt is a stand-alone program, but some people don't know that is also comes with a VST version, that will work inside your DAW. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2FoVxBgyv8 Here's a video tutorial I made on that] a while back. It's for an old version of Cubase, but these instructions should work in any DAW if you can't figure it out on your own. Note that some of the comments on that video are people saying they didn't know it could be used as a VST.

Then click on the little wrench (or ''spanner'' if you're in the UK) and the click on Script Editor: [https://biptunia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/konk-2.png][[undefined|link=]][[:File:Konk-2-450x342.png|[[Image:konk-2-450x342.png|link=|300x300px]]]] Now go to Preset / Factory / Tuning / Notes Per Octave [https://biptunia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Kontakt-4.jpg][[undefined|link=]][[:File:Kontakt-4-450x338.jpg|[[Image:Kontakt-4-450x338.jpg|link=|300x300px]]]] Finally, set the number of notes you want per octave. Here I've set it to 53 notes per octave. This will produce the tuning system of 53 TET (53 edo). [https://biptunia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/np0.png][[undefined|link=]][[:File:Np0-450x294.png|[[Image:np0-450x294.png|link=|300x300px]]]] You can set it to anything between 2 edo, and 1200 edo. Though no human could discern adjacent notes at 1200. Most people can't do it at much more than about 53 edo. I can discern them at 120 edo, and [https://biptunia.com/?p=3194 I have a song that's partially in 120 TET]. Then hit the wrench icon to go back to the instrument controls, and start playing. When you go to close the instrument (or close Kontakt) you will be prompted to save the instrument. If you save it, it will be in that tuning when you re-open it. You should do this if you're putting it onto a project in your DAW.

It's not as easy to do non-12 TET equal temperament in Native Instruments' other flagship synth product, Reaktor. Reaktor is a graphical modular software music studio, that comes with a bunch of pre-built synths and samplers, but also allows users to build and share new instruments. The only Reaktor microtonal synth I've found is [https://reaktortips.com/2015/01/microtuning-in-reaktor-with-instrument-download.html this re-mix of the default Reaktor synth], SoundForum, with microtonal capabilities added. The direct download is hard to find in that article, [https://s3.amazonaws.com/reaktortips/Soundforum+Microtuned.ens.zip the zip download is here]. SoundForum, in this iteration, has an additional knob added to pick the number of notes per octave: [https://biptunia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sforum.jpg][[undefined|link=]][[:File:Sforum.jpg|[[Image:sforum.jpg|link=|300x300px]]]] If anyone who is good at remixing Reaktor ensembles wants to isolate that module, and make a new module that will modify any other module in Reaktor, let me know and I'll add it here. I make my synths in [https://www.synthedit.com/ SynthEdit], and I only use the pre-built ensembles in Reaktor. Also check out [https://www.native-instruments.com/en/reaktor-community/reaktor-user-library/entry/show/11297/ Reaktor Microtuner], a free block for Reaktor to re-tune any instrument in Reaktor. Requires Reaktor 6.1.1, (R35), or later: [https://biptunia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/4665509_7855.microtunerimage2.png][[undefined|link=]][[:File:4665509 7855.microtunerimage2-450x216.png|[[Image:4665509_7855.microtunerimage2-450x216.png|link=|300x300px]]]] Finally, I would be remiss in the soft synth list if I did not mention this Microtonal Rhodes piano VST: [https://patchstorage.com/ep-mk1/ EP-MK1:] [https://biptunia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/epk.jpg][[undefined|link=]][[:File:Epk-450x259.jpg|[[Image:epk-450x259.jpg|link=|300x300px]]]] It works for Linux, Windows and Mac. (Files for all are in the same download zip). The EP-MK1 only has one sound (electric piano), but does it well. Is a little muddy (so are actual physical Rhodes electric pianos!), but sounds great if you add a gentle high-end boost before a little bit of reverb. It cannot import tuning files, but can play any EDO or even ED-non octave. And can do something few microtonal VSTs can do: it can play non-integer EDOs (!). Try entering something like '''15.7''' into the ''<nowiki># of DIVISIONS</nowiki>'' field and hit ''Enter''.