A set of tools designed for working with microtonal/xenharmonic tuning systems in Drambo. Allows users to easily set up custom tunings using a variety of methods and with a high degree of harmonic accuracy. All CV tuners are fully polyphonic with the additional option of outputting microtonal MIDI, either monophonically or with polyphony via MPE/multichannel MIDI. Includes templates that can be used to quickly turn Drambo into a microtonal MIDI converter when hosted in other DAWs.
A more detailed explanation of each modules function can be found in the included manual.txt
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CV Tuners:
The CV Tuner modules take an input pitch CV and retune/quantise it to your specified tuning. Each tuner has a setting for Root Pitch and Root Key which can be shown/hidden by tapping the Root Note section. Root Pitch is specified in hertz while the Root Key is chosen between C3 and B3* (MIDI note numbers 60-71). These settings work in tandem so that playing the root key on your keyboard will always produce a pitch at the chosen frequency, with the rest of the tuning calculated in relation to that centre. All CV tuners default to middle C3 at 261.63 Hz.
*Some keyboards or software refer to this as C4-B4 – I’ve chosen to use Drambo’s numbering for simplicity.
MTT CV EDO: Create a custom tuning using the specified number of equal divisions of the octave (EDO).
MTT CV Ratios: Custom tuning via ratios, just intonation style.
MTT CV Cents: Custom tuning via precise cent values (including decimals)
MTT CV Knobs: Custom tuning via knob controlled offsets per note.
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MIDI Converters:
The MIDI modules take an incoming microtonally tuned pitch CV (eg the output of any of the CV tuners) and convert it to standard MIDI notes along with the appropriate pitch bend messages to retune your target synths. The monophonic version will work with any synth that supports pitch bend. The polyphonic versions require the synth to support MPE/multichannel MIDI (may also work with multitimbral synths).
MTT MIDI Mono
Tap the settings section to show the controls. Pitch Bend range should be set to match your target synth, which will often be the default of +/- 2 semitones. It’s important that all CV inputs are monophonic to ensure this module functions correctly.
MTT MIDI Poly x4
Supports up to 4 voices of polyphony. Pitch Bend range should be set to match your target synth, with a default range of +/- 48 semitones being common on MPE capable synths. Master Channel is set to either 1 or 16 (also referred to as lower and upper range) and again must match the settings in your target synth. The Global Pitch Bend knob applies pitch bend equally to all active notes while preserving their individual microtonal relationships. This can be automated or mapped to a controller.
Your target synth may need to have MPE MIDI mode enabled in its settings.
MTT MIDI Poly x8
Same as Poly x4 but with support for up to 8 voices of polyphony.
Note:
Occasionally when first adding one of the MIDI modules to your project, or changing the polyphony count of its inputs, you may notice erratic tuning behaviour. This can be fixed by simply saving and reopening your project (no need to close Drambo).
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DAW Templates:
These templates allow you to quickly use Drambo as a simple microtonal MIDI converter when hosted as a MIDI FX plugin in other DAWs such as AUM or Logic.
MTT MIDI EDO (mono, poly x4, poly x8): Tunes MIDI to specified EDO
MTT MIDI Ratios (mono, poly x4, poly x8): Tunes MIDI via ratios
MTT MIDI Cents (mono, poly x4, poly x8): Tunes MIDI via cent values
MTT MIDI Knobs (mono, poly x4, poly x8) Tunes MIDI using knobs to control semitone/cent offsets.
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Installation:
Extract the zip archive and copy the MTT CV Tuners and MTT MIDI Converters folders to your Drambo/Presets/Rack folder. Alternatively you can tap each preset individually to open in Drambo with a save preset dialogue. All CV and MIDI modules are presets specifically for the Rack module (not Instrument or MIDI Rack).
If you’d like to use the MTT DAW templates, the folder can be copied to Drambo/Documents/Templates.
Feel free to comment or message @micro64 on the Drambo forums with any issues or questions.
Thanks to @rs2000 for the great idea of feeding an N-1 switch with a self indexed poly signal.
This is great but I’m seriously scratching my head on how you managed to split the notes into different paths like that. I looked at the MTT CV knobs one and I just don’t get it. Works great though!
Thank you! The note splitting is an idea I got from @rs2000 in an old thread and it had me confused too at first. The notes are both split and then recombined using the idea of passing through a switch (1-N and N-1 respectively) that is being indexed/controlled by those same notes (after being appropriately scaled and having their octave reduced to between 0 and 0.125V). The splitting could probably be achieved in other ways while the recombination of notes is the really important part. After being tuned, the 12 split signals are passed into the N-1 switch to be recombined, and this process is again being controlled by the index input which tells the switch exactly what notes to merge and in which order of voices. For example the index is telling the switch ‘C, E, and G were played on voices 1 2 and 3’, and the switch selects those (now potentially microtuned) notes from its 12 inputs to be combined into one poly signal with the correct notes on each voice. This process also ensures any polyphonic gate or velocity CVs will still match up with the correct notes in terms of voice numbering.
excellent work.