List of music software

Electronic composing & software

• Csound (Wikipedia article).
• microcsound – a Python-based front-end to Csound specifically geared to microtonal composition (tutorial).
• alt-tuner microtuning plug-in, does adaptive tunings, on-the-fly retuning, and scale analysis.
• Mutabor – open-source dynamic microtuner, allowing mutable and static scales and tunings using flexible language developed for musicians with GUI (tutorial).
• Rationale: A Just Intonation Sequencer – open-source software based on Csound and Python.
• Scala (Wikipedia article)
• TiMidity (Wikipedia article)
• Tonescape – music composition, analysis and educational tool.
• Tune Smithy (Wikipedia article)
• blue – a composition environment and frontend for Csound with python-based scripting capabilities.
• Dynamic Tonality – freely available dynamic tonality synthesizers and sequencers. (Info on dynamic tonality).
• Melodyne Editor v. 2 – commercial audio software with editing and analysis functions for scales and tunings.
• Offtonic Microtonal Synthesizer – a JavaScript browser app that lets you play around with tunings.
• ZynAddSubFX – freeware microtonal-capable softsynth which runs as a standalone program (Windows/Linux) or as a VST plugin for Windows.
• Droneo – 8-voice polyphonic droning iPhone app, defines intervals in Just rations, equal divisions of an interval, or interactively with a tone spiral. Sounds nice, too.
• Scala Microtuners for Kontakt and SynthEdit which enable real-time scale or key change for an ensemble of soft synths by means of note events on designated midi channels.
• Schismata Musical composition tool in any user defined tuning. Supports polyrhythms, tuning changes in real-time, sliding notes, instrument design.
• Scale Workshop Browser-based scale-creation site by Sevish. Allows playing via QWERTY computer keyboard. Can also export .scl and .kbm files.
• SoundModeler Free sound modeling application. Exports audio files and Halion multisamples. The note pitch is transposed in accordance with chosen temperament (Equal, Pythagorean, Just or Mean-tone 1/4 comma) in the settings.
• Terpstra Keyboard WebApp – cross-platform web app that allows mapping of any tuning (in Scala format) on any form of generalized hexagonal layout. Settings are stored in the address bar for easy sharing.
• Orphion – an iPad/iPhone touch-to-play app with customizable layout and scales.
• Wilsonic – an iPad/iPhone app for exploring alternative scales, see it in action: the source file 3 - YouTube.
• Tuning Vine – an interface for just intonation, with a color-coded lattice..
• Frequency Explorer – a browser-based synthesizer + sequencer with precisely-configurable musical scale and harmonic spectrum.
• scalemap – drop-in microtonal note-to-frequency mapping for C, C++, and Javascript.
• Sonic Pi - The Live Coding Music Synth for Everyone – besides Live Coding, you can also record to WAV format, microtonal capabilities are provided through adding decimals to MIDI numbers.
• Xenharmonic Keyboard – a Windows-only isomorphic microtonal MIDI keyboard.
• Chameleon – a customizable MIDI controller interface that can be used to create, among other things, virtual microtonal keyboards.

Computer Synthesis and Instrument Software

Microtonal Music Study using specialized chromatic keyboards and Web Audio API, Web-browser based, with the tool for synthesizing of musical instrument sounds and embedding it in the on-screen instrument applications. The instruments can be played with 10 fingers provided touchscreen is available. Life play on each of the instrument in a Web browser is accessible from this page.

Software plugins (VST etc.)

See List of Microtonal Software Plugins

Audio recording software (DAWs)

See DAWs

Notation software

• abcm2ps Free, open-source, ASCII-based editor with support for some microtonal accidentals.
• MuseScore open-source notation software. Can be microtuned with the retuner plugin for almost any edo. The Xentuner plugin by Keenan Pepper is also very good. See MuseScore for the dedicated page.
• Lilypond Free, open-source, outstanding notation software that produces beautiful engraving-quality output on a par with commercial applications like Sibelius. Thanks to the work of Graham Breed, can use Sagittal glyphs. With the Ekmelily extension, it can support several other notation styles, namely Tartini, Richter Herf/Madel and Sims.
• Mus2 is a microtonal score editor with intonationally-correct playback. It allows the retuning of staves and import of symbols from graphics files and fonts to be used as accidentals.
• Dorico, expensive but a leading notation software with full support with the same method as Mus2 above. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaadFpqm3-U
• MaxScore is an Java object for Max/MSP. It is based on Nick Didkovsky's JMSL which natively supports quarter-tone notation, but is capable of playing back microtonal music with unlimited precision. In the most recent version of MaxScore, microMaps have been implemented in the score canvas that allow the display of microtonal inflections in any kind of notation system provided that a font exists to represent those inflections. So far, microMaps for 48TET and 72TET exist. It is planned to develop an standalone editor which doesn't require any Max programming expertise. For more information send an email to [email protected].

Research

• Temperament finder - site by Graham Breed
• Interval calculator—a nice online interval calculator tool, shows linear fraction and EDO fraction expansions, too
• An animated Javascript Moment of Symmetry (MOS) ring demo, another untwelve.org creation
• An excellent Firefox browser tuning demo synthesizer, 'Wicksynth'
• Continued Fraction Calculator
• The Tone Spiral - Web based interval visualization

About

• Creating Scala scl files for rank two temperaments

Programming

todo:

• Projects
  • ongoing ~
  • planned ~
• Language decision