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I'm a little late posting this, but here's my 968.83 cents:
1. Korg 05/RW - I use this mostly, 1200 cent resolution.
2. EMu Proteus Orchestral module - the resolution isn't as good
as the Korg, I don't even have it in the rack right now.
3. mid-'70's Gibson L-6S with a Roland synth pickup - I use
this for controlling the Korg. I've also been ear training
with Cakewalk, sine tones, a glass slide and an E-Bow. Handy
for open tunings too. Used with a pair of silver face early
'70's Fender Princetons.
4. There's a brand new fretless/nutless G&L S500 (read Strat) shipping
today from Manny's, NYC. It should show up here sometime in the next
few days. In a few weeks it will be fretted for 13 limit just
intonation (my own tuning). Let me know if anybody's interested
in getting in contact with Jon Catler at Mannys to get a frettless
guitar. I'll hook you up with his email address if you need it (It IS
on his Freenote records web page). Why use a krap guitar when you can
get a new fretless with a quality neck?
Here's my all electronic setup:
Yamaha TX81Z synthesizer module
Ensoniq EPS sampling keyboard
Yamaha DX7IIFD+E! synthesizer keyboard
Kurzweil K2500RS sampler/synthesizer module
Amiga with Bars&Pipes Pro sequencer
Scala
Justonic Pitch Palette
I gave up an acoustic sideline several years ago as I never practiced the instruments enough to become proficient. The instruments were an Osi-Drum (a wood drum with four tunable wood slats), a bowed psaltery and a hammered dulcimer. The latter two instruments are fairly easy to come by in the Asheville, NC area. They are well suited to just intonation since they have a single string per note, though the bowed psaltery was nearly impossible to tune.
I am not sure that this question, what microtonal instruments you own and play, was directed at me. But in the spirit if the reckless pursuit of truth....
My main microtonal instrument is an SGI Indigo R3000, aging but still in fine voice. The secondary instruments are a PC/Pentium166 (recently upgraded from a 60MHz), and a new PentiumII/266, which will be upgraded to Linux as soon as the 166 has settled down. I also have a portable 133Hz ThinkPad560 which is used largely for sounds, and a PowerMac which is sometimes pressed into service.
In addition I have a consort of recorders (no bass, alack) on which I can and sometime do play almost any pitch. I am actually way out of practice on these though.
Others have reported voice as well; it is nigh on 35 years since I sang except on a bike of course.....
For what it's worth, my main non-12 weaponry consists of a vast range of harmonicas, in a variety of different layouts. Mostly 7-limit JI, but I also have many using higher limits, as well as as a few that use meantone-type tunings, not to mention the ones in 5TET, 7TET, 24TET, etc. I also have some chord harmonicas and other strange beasts, also in JI. (I repair, retune and modify harmonicas and related instruments commercially, although I am unlikely to make a vast fortune out of it!)
I also have a couple of cheap guitars (one acoustic, one electric) which have been de-fretted, a sitar, an ancient 6-string lap steel (currently in the JI tuning that was recently posted here), various mbiroid instruments, plus a selection of non-detwelvulated things.
My microtonal MIDI explorations began about 10 years ago on an IBM Music Feature Card, which contained the same chip and fuctions, more or less, as the Yamaha FB01 external box. This chip allowed for the creation of up to 8 voices using a 4 operator FM synthesizer. The sound is cheap and dull by today's standards, but it allowed for very flexible microtonal work. For every note, you sent a system exclusive to indicate the pitch and how many cents to detune it. It had no problem keeping up with very fast passages, even on my 8086 vintage computer driving it. It is a shame that Yamaha dropped support for this format of microtonal support. If there still exists a better sounding sampler or synthesizer that does support this protocol, I would love to hear about it.
Here is some Pascal code from the program I wrote to drive the card:
WriteToCard(#$f0 + #$43 + #$75 + #$70);
{ Play all the notes you want for as long as you want }
Channel =3D 0;
Tone =3D 64; { 0-127 for each of the normal MIDI Notes }
Cents =3D 0; { 7 bit 2's complement -64 to +64 }
Velocity =3D 64; { normal MIDI velocity data }
WritetoCard(Channel,Tone,Cents,Velocity);
{ When finished, send the following to end the system exclusive }
WriteToCard(#$F7);
I am surrounded by;
1. Martin D-18
2. Martin O-18K (slide guitar)
3. Steinway M in a Young well temperament
4 Steinway V upright in a Kirnberger III
5. Harmonica in the sock drawer (:)}}
6 One brand-new Etherwave Theremin
7. Small French grand in a modified Meantone (Hawkes )
8. monochord with movable bridges
9. hurdy-gurdy in JI (actually can bebung most anywhere)
10 A violin that no one here can play
11. Two cornets
12. bags of the kids keyboards and odd electronic things.
Gee, this looks worse than it really is..
The only microtonal instrument I play is Dinarra (read deenarha).
First of all I must congratulate to John Starrett by his exelent idea to make the poll of the musical microtonal instruments. Luthier Germano Banchetti was the fist to refret a guitar into dinarra. In those times (70=B4s) he lived in Montevideo, and in the 80=B4s he back to= his land Arezzo, Italy. He told me he had a brother of him working as luthier in the New York (USA) area.=20 Germano refreted three acoustic guitars. With the second one I played in Hawaii in Nov. 1978. To day (1998) he must be a man of about 70.=20
Luthier Ariel Ameijenda refreted two acoustic and two electric (Washburn brand) guitars. Also he made ENTIRE four acoustic Dinarras. The soundboard of one of them was made of Canadian (pink) Pine and the three others of Alerce Pine (from the south of Argentina).=20
In this moment there are some pupils that play dinarra better than me.
Just to say - (because I can't remember if I did before, and I forgot to mention it yesterday) -
I hope very soon to be the proud owner of two Renaissance Tenor Recorders built in 19-ET which Alternative Tuning Projects commissioned from Lewis Jones and Dave Armitage at London Guildhall University.
I guess I should add my instruments to the list, incase anyone is keeping statistics and extrapolating from them. No electronic instruments. I keep my Steinway in equal temperament. The organ at church is tuned to equal, at 68 degrees Farenheit; my practice time in the winyter is usually at closer to 55 degrees, so when I use the reed stops, the beat presence is alarming/astounding. Harpsichords at home and church. Clavichords: unfretted, double fretted usually to mean-tone, triple fretted usually at Kirnberger II. (changing tuning on fretted clavichords isn't the work of a spare 10 minutes).
Recorders by Alec Loretto and Rob Turner made as replicas of Renaissance and 17th century instruments, which can handle any temperament. Cornetto by John McCann which picks its own temperamints and with which I have many heated disagreements. Sackbutt which will play anything.
i create my own instruments on the kyma system. i mostly use midi as the control, but am now building analog sequencers in kyma. the instruments range from sample processing/pitching to additive synthesis to processing other sounds from other synths. i've written a tuning tool in kyma, which implements many of erv wilson's tunings and rhythms. this tool changes the tunings of all of my instruments in real time.
it is tough to build expressive digital instruments. i don't think i've been particularly successful just yet, but i believe that in the long run, digital is the way to go. sample rates will improve, and so will the software technology for controlling the instruments.
It's been pretty interesting to see who plays what so here's my 2 cents- I've got an electric guitar and bass both with warmouth necks in 19tet. They were both fenders- a Stratocaster and a Precision bass. Todd keehn of Denver Colorado did the work. Todd does excellent work, unfortunately, last I heard was carpal tunnel syndrome had slow his luthiership down to a crawl. In any case, the Strat sounds nothing like a classic Strat now. It got more sustain and timbrally it's much more monochromatic and doesn't have that twang fenders have. The P-bass still sounds and plays like a p-bass. I've lent these instruments to a number of excellent musicians and they really like them, also. The necks also were made with a flat radius.
I've also got a great double neck Gibson Lee steel guitar form the early 60's (I think from the early 60's) It has an amazingly warm sound. I run it through a Hughes and Kettner Triamp into an old Rodgers tone cabinet (from the 50's I think). The sound is so rich. I've got that thing usually tuned to and open 19tet tuning.
On the synth side of things I've got a Kurzweil K2000 with a sampler. That's also usually tuned to 19tet. It's a great synth but after playing around with it for a couple of years I've got to say that digitally produced synth music leaves me at best luke warm. Even guys that are really excellent with them like Brian Eno and the Orb or Tricky don't produce music with them that I can really totally get into. And this is not a criticism of them at all it's a criticism of the instruments. It's a shame that we don't have acoustic instruments or electro acoustic instruments available to us more readily and ones that are readily playable. In my opinion so much of music has nothing to do with the tuning and has to do with the feel the musician puts behind the notes. Compare the sound of a great digital synth to a Hammond B-3 or a Wurlitzer electric piano and it's dissapointing. The Hammond or Wurlitzer tends to evince musical phrases and nuance but with the Kurzweil I always have felt like I'm sitting behind a glass pane watching music arise in the next room. This, of course, is only my experience.
I've got bunch of other 12tet instruments but that's for another time.
My microtonal instruments:
Sitar
Two mbiras
Zither (East-German)
Some Chinese flutes
DX7II with E!
FB-01
PC soundcard
Nonmicrotonal instrument:
Chinese sheng
However - I don't own a synth - I don't like them. The unit I use is a Roland S750 sampler, which I bought back in 1991. (_speaking of which microtonal instruments do you have_ my main instrument is an 1890's Bechstein _but unfortunately it's not too keen on being re-tuned _).
I play a 7-string 22TET guitar, fingerboard by John Starrett, the rest by Ibanez. The technique required to the fretting fingers to produce a clean tone is a bit like ballet. I forgot to mention my Ensoniq VFX-SD, which I played in 22TET on the >tape swap tape.
In response to the request for posts on the instruments we play, here is my collection.
My instrument of choice today is Csound on an IBM Thinkpad while at the= office and on the road for business, and an IBM Aptiva at home. I wrote a DOS = front end program that takes note names and generates Csound score files as i= nput to a sampling orchestra file. The scale is Partch 43 Just.
I ocassionally bring out my 31-tone equal finger piano, but it needs a = lot of work and I have real trouble with that 31 tone 3:2. I am working on an= acoustic bass kalimba tuned to 12 tones chosen from among the 43 Partch tones, but progress is slow without a drill press.
About my non-12TET instruments:
I own two Javanese gender barung (metallophones), one in JI slendro and one in JI pelog with interchangeable keys, built on my commission by Suhirdjan of Yogyakarta. The tunings and other details are in the last issue of 1/1. I also have a Balinese tingklik (bamboo xylophone) tuned to slendro and several Indonesian suling (bamboo flutes). (I also have a gong and kempul, but they don't count since they are tuned to A 27.5 and A 55 respectively.) Electronically, I mostly work on a Kurzweil K2000 and Csound, though I have a couple TX81Zs which are useful. I've have also tried to keep my old upright piano in Kirnberger II, with mixed success under my amateur piano tuning hands.
Well...
I'm using "play" rather loosely here, as I'm still working on some basic techniques, but my current micro instruments are... ;-)
My two basses (my "babies" :) consist of a 5 string electric fretless (soon to sport a high C) and a 4 string acoustic upright, though I won't play that in front of anyone yet. My current collection of guitars are: Temporary Guitar (a cheapo classical with glued on wire frets) and a cheap strat clone in 22tet, soon to be redone to clean up my mistakes (and practice my lutherie semi-skills). I also have a 22 tone keyboard, construction of which was described on the list, connected to an Emu Classic Keys, though I don't play it, but just use it as a learning aid. That may change, though -- necessity is a powerful motivator.
I've got two projects lined up at the moment, which are to convert my 12tet fretted bass (4 string), and another guitar which I just picked up (Epi "Dot" -- happy birthday to me :) to 22 as well.
I should have some form of sampling/digital manipulation ability shortly, and I also have a hammered dulcimer, but I don't even pretend to play that... ;-)
That's what I've got for now.
I have just completed a 19-tone electric guitar from scratch. I am however, going to begin building acoustic, gourd based instruments in the next month or so. I'm quite unsatisfied with the limitations of standard hardware for electric instruments, so acoustic seems to be the way to go for experimenting.
For those that are interested other gear that I use:
Ztar Mini ZX MIDI controller (currently developing a Patch editor for
this)
Roland PC-200 keyboard MIDI controller
World Music Menu retuning software
Scala (the latest version)
PowerTracks Pro (excellent reasonably priced sequencer)
Well, I use a lot of instruments. Some of these are mine, others belong to
the center or are on loan to me or the center. I and feel a little awkward
taking up so much space on this forum with a list of them, since there is a
big section of the SEJIC web site devoted to them. But I'll give it a start:
1. Paia Theremax thermin (all pitches and tunings)
2. Cosmolyra - originally built by Ivor Darreg, restored by Buzz
Kimball and
then put into it's final form by me:
Side 1: Harmonic Series 4-16 on G=384 cps.
Side 2: Subharmonic Series 3-12
Side 3: - Otonality hexad: 4/5/6/7/9/11
- Utonality Hexad: 4/5/6/7/9/11
- 6 unisons for chorused melody
Side 4: Harmonics 1 (tripled), 2,3,4 (doubled)
3. Starrboard- Strings tuned to harmonics 2-18 and subharmonics 1-12.
Fretts
remain in equal temperament, so modulation is limited to factors of 3 and 2.
4. Electric diamond marimba -built by Jeff Bunting - same layout as Harry
Partch's, but made of steel bars with magnetic pickups under each.
5. Bass Marimba - Harmonics 2-10 with added 9/32 and 27/64
6. Wood Xylophones - One is harmonic series 16-32 on C, repeated in 4.5
dupeles. the other is Subharmonics on G and C with harmonics on A, Eb, Ab and
F.
7. Hammerstrings - Harmonics 2-18 on C=256, subharmonics 1-12 in high
register, Subharmonics 1- 19 in low register.
8. Orchestral Chimes - harmonics 3-16 on C. Subharmonics, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8,
9, 11, with duple (higher) equivelents of 7, 9, 11.
9. Tubular Bells - Harmonics 4-24, Subharmonics 2-12.
10. Fretless electric guitar.
11. Guitar refretted to harmonic series 24-48 (Lots of modes and keys
available).
12. Set of Fipple Pipes and custom recorders to play Entire 17 limit
matrix.
13. Arp 2500 analog synthesizer.
14. Ensoniq Mirage - with tuneable operating system.
15. 2 TX81Z's, Kawaii K5, Proteus/2, controlle with Oberheim XK MIDI
controller and Casio Digital Horn controller. Tuned and sequenced by means
of two PC,s running Microtonal MIDI terminal and various other programs.
16. Two Mbiras.
17. Various Effects devices.
18. All sorts of Drums and Percussion stuff.
All this stuff is available for use by guests and residents at the
Southeast Just Intonation Center.
Hope this messages arrives after AOL managed to make my first one on this really interesting subject disappear.
I own 2 ( in fact rather macrotonal ) instruments:
1.) An electronic organ, tuned to what is now known as Bohlen-Pierce
(BP),
built by me in the early seventies (1973?). Dreadful home-made sound
generators, nevertheless much loved and played, now in need of repair.
2.) An acoustic steel guitar, recently refretted and tuned by me to
BP. I
still need to learn how to play it, though.
---------I've got two fixed pitch instruments-----------
1) 6 foot grand piano (will soon be tuned Justly, but is now in 12)
2) Cosmolyra (built from scratch for about $100 under the guidance of
Denny
Genovese at the Southeast Just Intonation Center)...
a) Two-sided electric slide guitar after Ivor's Hobnailed Newell Post
b) May be stood on end, on the floor, and played on either side
c) May be put on side, on a table, and flipped to get at either side
d) 33" of pine 2 x 6 (body) plus 1.5" (stands) is 34.5" total length
e) String length 26", Harmonic 4 is the 12-tone F# below A=110
f) 13 strings on side one, tuned to harmonics 4-16
g) 15 strings on side two, tuned in three groups...
6 in a otonal hexad
6 in a utonal hexad
3 in unison on harmonic 16 (chorus effect for melody)
h) Body is marked on each side with 2 octaves of each of the
following...
otonal: 1/1 9/8 5/4 11/8 3/2 13/8 7/4 15/8 2/1
utonal: 1/1 12/11 6/5 4/3 3/2 12/7 2/1
i) Use of piano tuning pins in red oak and custom steel tail (with
holes to
catch gromets on strings) allows high degree of tuning accuracy and
stability.
I built the Cosmolyra mainly for ear-training purposes. I have found that
it can also be used with good effect as a solo instrument, as a great thing
to sing along with, and even as a good instrument for ensemble work (a
recent jam with 12-tone electric guitar shows promise). I may get around to
publishing full specs and even music for it (maybe in 1/1)...
---------I have five free pitch instruments------------
1) 1976 Bach Stradivarius Bb trumpet w/72 bell in silver
2) 1995 Yamaha Professional Heavy Wall Bb trumpet in silver
3) My voice
4) My whistling
5) Mollenhauer soprano recorder (wood)
My stuff is:
AWE64 Gold soundcard
TX81Z synth module
DX21 performance synth
Studio 49 input keyboard
The 64G, naturally, lives in a PC, but that isn't mine. I've written my own Windows program to tune by pitch bends in real time, and that's used with the 64G and DX21 for output. I use Scala to set the full keyboard table on the TX81Z.
It is possible to set up Sound Fonts with specific tunings for the 64G. I know how to do this, I just have to get round to writing a program to automate the process.
The DX21 has a customised, symmetrical keyboard for input.
I've also got a Wave Blaster daughterboard, living in a different PC. I have seen mention of this having tuning capabilities. Is this right?
I microtonally perform on:
a Puchner bassoon
a Dolmetch alto recorder @ A=440
a von Heune alto recorder @ A=415
and voice
And, of course, I have had the good fortune to conduct various combinations of instruments by numbers of composers in a variety of tunings.
My microtonal instruments:
10TET:
Guitar and Bass. Steel-string acoustic, both kinda cheezy built
from kits
as
part of a science fair project in my second year of high school. Gosh,
that must have been about 22 years ago. This was my introduction
to the
field of unusual tunings. At the time I didn't know that anybody else
was doing much of anything beyond quartertones. The bassist who played
on my music examples then encountered Ivor Darreg's landmark Guitar
Player magazine article, which contained his address, and thus
began the
big, 18-year string of letters! Ivor introduced me to John
Chalmers, who
at the time was living in the same city (Houston). The science
angle of
course was the physics of vibrating strings, as applied to this unusual
application. I also have a 10TET fingerboard for my interchangeable-
fingerboard guitar.
Flutes. Undertaken also as a science-fair project, the following year. The science angle was - analogously - a study of flute acoustics based upon Boehm's book on the topic along with some research of my own. That project went all the way to the international level, which was held in the Anaheim stadium at which time I met Ivor Darreg, Erv Wilson, and Glen Prior for the first time.
14TET:
Fingerboard for my interchangeable-fingerboard guitar (Takamine C132S).
19TET:
Refretted guitar (I did the refretting), and a 19TET fingerboard
for my
interchangeable-fingerboard guitar. These are both classicals.
22TET:
RREEEAAALLL cheezy classical.
7-Limit Diatonic JI:
Fingerboard for interchangeable-fingerboard guitar.
Quarter-comma Meantone:
Fingerboard for interchangeable-fingerboard guitar.
88CET:
Acoustic 12-string (I did the refretting about 1.5 years ago).
Programmable tunings:
Ensoniq ASR-10, mostly played from Yamaha WX-11. This is what I
use the
most now.
A variable-width pulse-wave, digital synthesizer based on a couple
hundred
or so TTL ICs (my design) and run by a single-board 6502-based micro-
computer (Synertek SYM-1) running software of my design. This
would play
most any tuning of up to 32 tones per octave, and was played from a
con-
troller that could probably best be characterized as kind of like an
electronic version of a Chapman "stick" (although at the time I didn't
know of the stick). As you might have guessed, this was undertaken as
another science-fair project. Unfortunately it didn't make it
beyond the
regional level!
I own the following guitars, which I refretted:
19tet acoustic guitar
19tet electric guitar
19tet acoustic bass guitar
19tet electric bass guitar
NH owns these, but I play them when we get together:
34tet electric bass guitar
34tet acoustic bass guitar
I am currently practicing on a StarrBoard with justly tuned strings and 12tet frets. Some interesting sounds come out of this one!
And of course the trusty old
Yamaha TX81z rack mount synth
with $100 MIDI Composer keyboard.
I am currently making a 19tet electric guitar with a tulipwood fingerboard and one piece rock maple remainder. Also in the works is a 19tet fretless bass and a 31tet fretted bass.
John: My microtonal armamentarium includes a one octave set of 31-tet
tuning bars from Ervin Wilson, a Harrison/Colvig monochord, an
old guitar fretted to 24-tet (a poor choice!), and an FB01 and a DX11
with software (HMSL, JiCalc, etc.) to control them.
I bought my first lap steel in a pawn shop and tuned it JI to A C# E G# B E. Steel is naturally a microtonal instrument, so I've spent the last 25 years learning to play it "in tune" with 12TET bands. I still tune my non-pedal instruments JI, but I've gone to meantone on my pedal steels.
I think that the steel guitar is the best microtonal instrument "out of the box". Nearly every other instrument has to be custom made or modified. Steel, like the violin, is microtonal by nature, but goes beyond the bowed string family with its chord capabilities.
I was working up "Remington Ride" with the band the other night and noticed that there's a quarter tone (actually, it's probably an 11/9) in the melody. I tried to use it to discourage the fiddler and the guitarist from playing bad harmony lines with me (EVERYONE wants to twin the steel on that tune). No such luck - the fiddler found some harmony note right away, and the guitarist did a horrible string bend that he thought worked pretty good. This band needs a dictator!
>
My only (microtonal) instrument is an electric JI guitar. It contains 20 frets in the first octave-- straight across, no partial frets. Mostly 7-prime limit intervals (except a 12/11 fret, mostly because there was space there for another fret). I designed and built "Nora" from scratch-- my first attempt at luthierie (not counting an earlier kit), and overall a quite successful and rewarding one.
The only microtonal instrument that I am playing these days is a set of flutes based on a 17 tET scale. I made these flutes myself. You can play a java version of these flutes yourself. Simply point your browser to http://www.sirius.com/~touchles/poetry.htm then click on the graphic that says "click here." What follows will be a little multi-media game. Every time you click on either the animated triangle or the animated circle, you will be either starting or stoping these instruments.
Have fun,
>My instruments:
19 tone electric, built by Starrett (whose is it, anyway?), with a
Roland GR 300 guitar synth controller installed;
19 tone Goya nylon string acoustic, refretted by Starrett;
34 tone Telecaster electric, neck redone by Carruthers guitars in LA;
34 tone Tele bass, also done by Carr;
34 tone Goya nylon acoustic, refretted by Starr;
34 tone acoustic bass, built from scratch by Starr;
31 tone Carvin guitar, new fingerboard by Todd Keehn (Roland GR 300
electronics soon to be installed);
Fretless Roland electric, soon to have a metal fretboard...
And last, but I still love it, is my trusty 12 tone Cort Flying V,
with GR 300 electronics aboard (lifted from the Roland guitar)...next...