User:Tristanbay

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I'm Tristan Bay, an electronic musician in Portland, Oregon. I've been writing music for well over a decade now (since I was a kid), but I only started getting into microtonality seriously in 2021. I'm not really an expert in anything musical, but often know more or less what I'm doing.

Listen to my music here:
On YouTube
On Newgrounds

While I find interest in just intonation, I especially like the idea of using EDOs in practice. In my opinion, equally dividing the octave by the simplest ratio greater than a unison strikes a nice balance between simplicity and versatility in practice. Here are my favorite EDOs above 12 and why I like them in particular.

31edo kalimba made by me
My classical Kite guitar (Cordoba C5)
My soprano Harmony ukulele with a 3D printed 17edo fretboard

In summer 2023, I made a 31edo kalimba. Around the same time, Kite Giedraitis and I made an even larger 41edo kalimba with a Kite guitar inspired key layout. Speaking of Kite guitar, I also have one of those. I actually have pretty much no formal guitar training and hadn't gotten into guitar seriously (still kind of haven't since I'm in school and I don't know of anyone teaching Kite guitar professionally) but I do play it and practice sometimes.

Prototype TS41 keyboard with 126 small keys of various colors
My prototype TS41 MIDI keyboard with open source firmware

I've been working on a couple of MIDI keyboard designs: the TS41 (which I have a fully working prototype of and uses 1 tactile switch per key) and a design with force-sensitive keys.

I'm also interested in making microtonal software and other microtonal hardware (I'm majoring in computer science at school so hopefully I'll get good at writing code and building programs sometime in the not-too-distant future).

It's still a work-in-progress, but my website is tristanbay.com. There are links to my other pages/social media at the top of the home page.

Stuff I've named

Musical Intervals

Temperaments

Scales I've found

Concepts I've thought of

Other stuff of mine