Using scales in a DAW

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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Hi I have been producing for a number of years now and have very little knowledge of musical theory. However over the last couple of years I have become facinated with melody and begun to base a lot of my music around it. It has become glaringly obvious to me that the style of production I am going for now does not seem to use a convential tuning. I have been using the "scale" midi effect in ableton and I noticed that the same notes would change slightly with the effect on or off depending on the scale. I have been told that the paino is mathmatically tuned to "in-between" frequencies so that it can incorporate all scales.
My question is a broad one really so I will seperate it out as best I can:

1. is it possible to get new scales into the ableton midi effects? If so where can I get them from and how do I accomplish this.

2. Can anyone identify the scales used in these examples or suggest any that might fit the style I am going for.

I am well aware that I am siddling past the major issue which is my own lack of musical theory but as this is something that will take me time to master I would still appreciate the help in the mean time and any advice to help me on my way. I am also still a bit fuzzy about the whole issue of tuning in a DAW as a whole, is it's standard tuning the same as a piano? etc....so any insight into the mechanics of it all would be appreciated. Thank you

Here are some examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95s-lEwY7_w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD6b-cQTdKc


Heres an example of my own work:

https://soundcloud.com/zaigonen/message-from-minimal

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<the issue of tuning in a DAW>

I don't know from Ableton. Virtually every DAW defaults to 12 tones equal in an octave. There are strategies implemented on the DAW side so that the piano roll is skewed to send other pitches. I believe the presets are technically providing pitchbend data to send.

I have never bothered with it from the DAW side, I make it the instruments' job. EG: in Kontakt there is a script to provide for defining different cents and according to any of the 12 tones as the base. VSL's Vienna Instruments Pro takes scala, and you may define the base. It's easy to create scala files, it's a text doc written in a certain way with the extension .scl.
Implementations may not provide for defining the base. In which case .tun was developed. .tun is not so simple like .scl.
I haven't used it, although I see that Logic has its own implementation of the same idea, for its internal instruments. Cubase has alt tunings, but afaik they relate to C as the base. They do for Cubase 5, certainly.

But then, if what you want is 'Harrison's 16' or 'overtone series' you have the disagreement with the piano roll's meaning, 12 to an octave. I have used that kind of thing via Absynth but not particularly coherently, by ear while understanding 1:1 = C. With 'overtone series' it's the lowest C in MIDI protocol. The piano roll is of little assistance here besides that fact.

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Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I will have a go at "making it the instruments job" as you said altho sounds like it might get troublesome keeping differant VSTs in tune with one another, especially if they dont have that function.

I like the scale midi effect in ableton because it comes before an instrument is even involved. Ideally I would like to find a way of tuning that or finding a VST that does something similar. I have tried ripping some interesting scales from a controller device a friend had but they were incompatible as the ableton scales are .adv (Ableton live device preset files)

I am very much a layman so I may have to do a bit more research before I can fully understand all of your message but ideally what I would love to find is either a resource of new .adv scale midi effect files or a VST that acts like a midi effect, altering the singal before it goes into the VST.

Do you know of anywhere I could do further reading on this .scl .tun etc?

Thanks again

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this is the simplest, clearest look at what .tun is and does IME:

http://www.u-he.com/scripting/Arprestrictor.php

compare:

http://www.midi.org/techspecs/midituning.php

.scl needs just the 12 values; .tun must be 128, from 0-127 as per MIDI protocol.
The default for note 0 in MIDI is C = 8.1758 Hz.

Bit of a PITA if you ask me, so I'm happy the things I use have it in a GUI that's simple.
Now, I have Kontakt things in the same project as VSL so if the latter via scala uses a rational tuning, I have to know its correspondence in cents if I need a match.
IE., a just intonation which reads: [1:1] 16:15; 9:8; 6:5; 5:4; 4:3; 45:32; 3:2; 8:5; 5:3; 16:9; 15:8; [2:1].
Is [approximated] in cents: [0] 112; 204; 316; 386; 498; 590; 702; 814; 884; 996; 1088; [1200].
Cf., 12tET is 0, 100, 200, 300 etc.

Or I could just create a scala file in cents.

scala file for JI as I gave it [there are others] looks like this:

Image

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wow thank you, you've been really helpful. I think scala might be the answer I've been looking for. It says here it can "create MIDI files from a microtonal score". I'm still unclear as to precisely how midi files work but does this mean the tuning would be contained within the midi file itself? I suppose I'm still trying to work out if I will be able to make this work across the board without being limited to compatible VSTs. Either way this will be a lot of fun experimenting with so thank you.

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I didn't install Scala the application before today. It used to be extremely geekazoid to install on a Mac system but it isn't anymore.
It will 'send tuning to a synth' if set up right, apparently. but setting it up properly here is slightly involved according to documentation, so I have yet to 'send to a synth'.
If you're on windows it undoubtedly works more straight-out-of-the-box, like. I have 'Developer Tools' set up correctly here already, otherwise I will have bailed out of this, it has to run under 'X11' here as it's a windows application.

I opened up a .mid in cubase from its directory and it's like my remark above, it's using pitch bend:

Image

So, for me the advantage of the actual scala application over what i'm already doing is these pitch-bend-using .mids. I already know how to write a scala file, there isn't more to it than my image there. It looks like you can create midi files from a scala file you've input or opened, but I'm not sure it works right under my OS.

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Here's the file I wrote working in VIP:

Image

As to 'send synth tuning' to something that is not set up to use scala - I never heard of Kontakt doing so, for example - I do not know what it technically does or if it does.
But midi is midi, that method will 'work across the board' no doubt.

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Judging from the examples and the specific question about the Scale plugin (had to look up exactly what it does) I don't think microtonal adjustments is what you're after. The examples so use some detuned sounds but they generally stick to the traditional western 12 tone system.

The scale plugin, as I understand it, confines you to only using a specified scale which as default is probably a simple natural A minor or C major scale. The examples you posted goes beyond those scales.

My advice would be to ditch the plugin completely, play or program the melodies you find pleasant or suiting while at the same time researching different scales to get a feel for what mood they bring. Perhaps you'll find you prefer melodies that are outside the obvious scales but the research may at least broaden you palette a bit.

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Jancivil knows his stuff, it always worth a listen what he has to say. You can experiment with microtonality just for the sake of fun. OTOH i agree with mehum that the examples you posted seem not to be microtonal to me either.
The first example is clearly using normal pitches but it does not stick to the usual major/minor scales and being so minimalistic puts the spotlight on the more interesting rythmic composition and unusual "melody". It is not based on harmonies that's why he gets away with it.

The second example has lots of detuned sounds and probably artefacts from unusual fm synthesis usage (you can get not in tune sounds with fm). Detuned patches usually sound strong on their own but it is very hard to use them in harmonies in the classic sense.
These two examples are minimalistic and not really tonal. You can get there simply by trial and error. I would say probably the original composers did it that way too.

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mehum wrote:The examples so use some detuned sounds but they generally stick to the traditional western 12 tone system.

The scale plugin, as I understand it, confines you to only using a specified scale which as default is probably a simple natural A minor or C major scale.
No, that seems to be a misunderstanding. There is no 'default'.
I don't have any really compelling use to install Scala, the program but I did to fully understand what I'm talking about for such an inquiry.
The only thing novel as per my experience was, here are some .mids so you can handle this from the sequencer's end. And they employed pitch bend which I expected.

I'm already creating scala files in the text editor; they can be anything you want them to be. My use of them is in something that only uses 12 notes from them, but they can be anything you can write if you follow its format. The image I posted is a working scala file. It shows the difference (rounded off) per 12-tone Equal Temperament, but it's a mistake to take from that that the founding idea is "detuning" conventional scales. The rational scales predate 12tET by centuries. So, fairly often I have used Arabic-derived intonation which is arrived at by ratio; the 'minor second' is ~29¢ flatter than in ET for instance. It is not going to fit conventional harmonies.

BUT, it could just as easily be a Gamelan tuning which is completely different than a western scale; such as will have two notes very closely together, nowhere near a semitone, in a basically pentatonic row.
A scala file is one scale at a time. I don't know what the expectation is to find that 'confining'.
VI Pro confines to 12 to an octave. But if I want less, it's a matter of specifying how I want to distribute tones among the 12.

I'd have to write 7 dummy entries to use this:
Image

Here's another fairly exotic one:
Image
Last edited by jancivil on Wed May 06, 2015 3:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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AND, if you take that JI example and do not have a way to change the fundamental, it's going to get worse and worse as you move from say 'C'. This is why temperament became a thing, this is why 12 tone equal was invented. Before that we have a lot of different calculations to deal with the problem - to temper the problems - of a new key.

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I was referring to the original post:
I have been using the "scale" midi effect in ableton
So I don't think it was Scala this refers to.

If you listen to the references posted there don't seem to be anything else than the tempered modern 12 tone system going on but uses slightly exotic scales.

I might very well be wrong and I know the post specifically asked for microtonal adjustments. I just don't think that is what was really the problem and wanted to express a perhaps more approachable solution.

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My mistake. You're right, I don't see anything non-12tET about the Ableton thing. So here's me giving a lecture just for fun! But my last bit def. applies to
I have been told that the paino is mathmatically tuned to "in-between" frequencies so that it can incorporate all scales.
Pianos are tuned to 12 [more-or-less] equal before an 'octave' replication. The reasoning for it is transposition. The rational tunings, 1:1 is lost as soon as 1 is a new note. So when people started wanting new keys, temperament became a thing.

I didn't get far enough in the youtube; the OP's track on SC appeared to be 12tET.

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