Just Intonation

[srijan]

So here's what I'm trying to do (and I'm new to this)

I've managed to use the Juno Di Editor to create a just intonation scale using scale tune. Now I want to hook my Di up to garageband (or any sampler, really) and play the keyboard in just intonation. I've got the basics covered and am able to play the instruments in garageband using the Di - but they don't play in the just intonation scale that I've tuned using the editor.

What am I doing wrong? Thanks!

[tnicoson]

Scale tunings are not part of the MIDI specification and, therefore, are not part of the MIDI data transmitted by a keyboard. You would need to do the tuning in Garage Band or whatever VST instrument you are sending the MIDI note-on/note-off data to.

[srijan]

According to http://www.midi.org/techspecs/midituning.php , scale tunings are part of the midi spec. Is there something I'm missing?

[tnicoson]

Very interesting. I stand corrected, and apologize for poor wording on my part. I was aware of the Bulk Dump (non-Real Time) tuning support, but I was not aware of the Single Note (Real Time) tuning support. The question now is - does the Juno-Di support it ? The spec does imply that not all devices will support it, much the same as not all keyboards support the transmission of After Touch. I ran through a PDF copy of the Juno-Di's MIDI Implementation Chart with text search and could not find any mention of it. I did find support for receipt of Bulk Dump tunings, but not transmission of Single Note tunings. You might want to go to the Roland Email Support Site and send them a message. I have used this quite often, and they normally get back to me within 24 hours. Be sure to specify that you are talking about transmission of Single Note Real Time Scale Tuning messages and not receipt of Bulk Dump Non-Real Time Tuning messages.

http://www.rolanddga.com/customer/support/email/

Of course, this leads to the final question: Does Garage Band support receipt of the Real Time Scale tuning messages ? Here again, much the same as not all tone devices support (respond to) receipt of After Touch messages.

Good luck !

[srijan]

Thank you! I"m a bit of a MIDI novice, so I'm wondering why I can't use Bulk Dump to do this.
And if Garageband doesn't support receipt of tuning messages, I'm sure I can find a sampler that does. Any suggestions? Thanks for the tip about writing to Roland!

[tnicoson]

Your problem with using Bulk Dumps for this is that you will not find any keyboard that has a front panel button or menu item labeled "Send Bulk Dump of Alternate Tuning Data". Bulk Dumps originated by the keyboard are typically limited to Bulk Dumps of all user data to an SD Card, USB Flash Drive, or PC/MAC hard drive as back-up data. It may be possible to query a specific dump of alternate tuning data with a MIDI Sysex command from an external source such as editor/librarian or DAW software, but Sysex commands are very specific to the Brand and Model of keyboard in question and their use requires a rather in-depth knowledge of that keyboard. Sysex commands are very specialized, so it is highly unlikely that you would find much already written for your particular keyboard, except for the most popular functions. Most likely you would need to write your own query command - a very daunting task, to say the least, unless you are a programmer with a solid MIDI background. I don't mean to sound discouraging in all this, but I really think it would be much easier for you to just find a DAW, sampler, or VST software program that supports alternate tunings and just manually tune it, the way you did your Juno-Di.

You might also be interested in a product called "Pitch Pallet" from Justonic Tuning, Inc. It appears to be quite close to what you may be looking for. Since you mentioned Garage Band, I assume you have a MAC. "Pitch Palette" supporst both Windows and MAC (OS9) environments.

http://www.justonic.com/

Good luck !