On 15 Apr 2009, at 14:19, Kassen wrote:
I have used it in Scala for about a year, mostly in E31 (close to Renaissance extended meantone).
It's not very urgent, more like a future idea for a "luxury" feature but I think it would be interesting to be able to load Scala files and have those affect Std.mtof().
Scala is a bit more MIDI oriented, and is quite difficult to develop ones own tunings with (notation systems are hardwired), though of course very useful for many microtonal tasks.
That function is one of the few bits in ChucK that makes any assumptions about "what music is". Of course we are all free to develop our own scales and tunings; I'm still happy with integer multiples of 200Hz.
The (generalized) diatonic pitch system I use the set of pitches p M + q m, where m (resp. M) is a choice minor (resp. minor) second, and p, q runs through all integers. It blends well with other music if one sets A = 440 Hz. The Pythagorean tuning is close to E53 and sets m = 4, M = 9; the Renaissance meantone is close to E31 and set m = 3, M = 5. The layout is C# D# E# C D E F# G# A# B# Cb Db Eb F G A B Fb Gb Ab Bb C' You might check that transposition takes place by translation. Play C major, and see that the fingering is the same as on a piano keyboard. Then it is the same in all other major keys: each scale needs only one fingering, independent of key. Same for chords.
The new Apple flat mini-keyboard (with USB chord) is good for this purpose. Rapid melodic movements and ornaments are possible :-).
Keyboards matter; both the tactile feel and "ghosting" are important, IMHO. I think it's a great shame that so many companies cut so many corners there these days. Good to hear you found one you like, ...
This the best I have tried so far, trying some other Apple keyboards of older vintage before. Typing keyboards often have the problem of a distinct touchpoint, but this keyboard has instead a firm and rather short key movement, more like favored on accordions, for example.
...USB "chords" sound especially interesting. :¬p
Sorry to poke fun at your typo; I just imagined what a USB chord would be like.
The chord-less ones may have a small delay in them. That is anyway the case of joysticks. Not good for music.
Hope, so too :-). I have something to go for.
I think the Smelt one and the one in /examples/ are quite comparable. The Hid interface is quite pleasant to work with, there will be lots of "magic numbers" but the code for the device abstraction is very readable.
The Smelt files kb.ck and kb-fret.ck have enough info in them that it might be possible to for me to figure it out. But your suggestion may be of help, too. Hans