A plugin for tuning micro-intervals: Request For Comments

• Mar 10, 2010 - 23:19

Hi,

I'm finishing a plug-in for tuning micro-intervals (quarter-tone and similar). A screen-shot is attached and should be rather self-explicative (the choice between "whole score" and "selection" is still to implement).

Any comment or suggestion is welcome; in particular about the default values for accidentals and about needed/useful additional functions (existing functions can be inferred by button names ;-) ).

Thanks,

M.

Attachment Size
microtune.png 6.52 KB

Comments

Beautiful!
I would add the same preset pitches for the arrowed accidentals witch are very popular and practical (except for the double arrow ones, I would leave them blanc.)
*Sorry.. about existing functions I can`t infer very well what they would do. What exactly do the [update] [rename] [add] [delete] buttons do?
*I suggest a [save to file] button. That would imply that the plug in could read presets from a plug in folder. So that people could not only save their presets and transport them along with the plugin but also share them on this forum or something like that.

You give quarter-tone tunings for accidentals that are not used in quarter-tone music. Please leave the following blank by default: "flat-slash2", "mirrored flat slash", "sharp-slash2" and "sharp-slash3".

Then you can have another preset for Turkish maqam and use these extra accidentals in their proper context.

Like Tato, I also recommend giving quarter-tone tunings for the arrowed accidentals as mentioned here

Thanks for the replies. I'll update the default definitions.

Tato: [Update], [Rename],... buttons are used to manage presets, i.e. to update the selected preset with the values currently displayed, rename it, delete it, add a new one... Of course, from a screen-shot, it is not possible to see that each button has its own tooltip explaining it in more words.

Presets are always saved to disk in an INI-like file. Sharing presets would need some kind of import/export function.

David: of the many sharp's, I'm not not sure which are "sharp-slash2" and "sharp-slash3", but I'll figure out.

Thanks,
M.

In reply to by Miwarre

Great! love it.
Actually the "Selection" option isn't really that necessary since the only case I can thin of its appliance would be if in the same document where to have different settings for the same quarter-tone symbols which I think is very unlikely . Except the reason were that the plug in takes to long to proses the entire document I think that option can be spared.
I would add two simple comments to the box for a quick comprehension of the plugin.
1 - " * 100% = half tone" .. Why, well Since we are dealing with QUARTERtones, the first thing a person would infer is that 1/4 = 25% 1/2 = 50 etc.
2- "the plug in acts for already written alterations"(or something like that). The user may assume that the plug in is just something you activate and it keeps working, like most add-ons or scripts.

In reply to by Miwarre

Miwarre, The latest picture looks much better. With regards to the names, I was using the text that appears in the tooltips when you hover of the accidental in the palette.

If you plan to add support for other presets you might want to add the standard flat, sharp, and natural signs as well.

Tato, 100 cents = half tone. This is a standard unit of measurement used on tuners and elsewhere in music. See //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent_%28music%29

Hello,
I downloaded zip, uzipped, copied to my mscore/plugins - and nothing happens. I start MuseScore, and have nothing in Plugin menu. I run 0.9.6 prerelease (revision 2902M) from latest SVN.
Any help will be greatly appreciate. I would really like try this stuff - it's something I've been dreaming of for a long time!

In reply to by David Bolton

Yes, the built-in plugins are in my menu, but there are no stable at all. I mean sometimes they work, and sometimes they doesn't work. I started MuseScore in the debugg mode, and here is what I got (after the last message the program crashes):

[piotr@localhost ~]$ mscore -d -D
...
MuseScore::changeState: STATE_DISABLED
start event loop...
preferences.checkUpdateStartup: 72
lastupdate: 27.03.2010 09:12:08.220
enterState <>
enterState Normal
MuseScore::changeState: STATE_NORMAL
enterState Drag
Run Plugin /usr/local/share/mscore-0.9/plugins/createscore.js : run
/usr/libexec/unknown: No such file or directory.

I've got cmake 2.6.4.

In reply to by perotinus

The plugin has been tested under Win XP and Ubuntu 9.4 with latest pre-release (0.9.6 beta 2) and latest (at that time) SVN revision r. 2891.

If you see no plugin at all, not even the built-in ones, as David says, probably the issue is not with Microtune but with something in your setup; I'm sorry, but I do not know enough about MuseScore internals to guess what it might be.

Anyway, some detail on your setup (OS, compiler, etc.) may be helpful to understand the problem.

M.

In reply to by Miwarre

Hi,
I run Fedora 10, MuseScore 0.9.6 r 2902M, which I built from SVN. I built it from sources (It was the first time I had done it), because I wanted to try your plugin - there are no prerelease packages for Fedora.
Other plugins are in place.
Best

Hello,
I am using this plugin , and still confused
Example: I want to convert C-major scale into Maqam Rast ( quarter note based)
Maqam RAst is C-major ( western) with the fllloing alterations
C D (1/2 flat) E F G A (1/2 flat) B
How can you create a preset that produce this change for the whole score.
explicitly
I want to have for the entire score for example
C=200cents
D=200 cents
E=150 cents
F=200cents
G=200cents
A=200cents
B=150cents

In reply to by phil.balladur

If you want a C major scale with a half flatted E and a half flatted B, why raise the other notes 200 cents as in your list?
Doing so necessitates raising the half flatted notes '+150' cents (instead of merely '-50' cents for those 2 notes only).
1. Simply enter a C major scale placing the half flats as needed on all the B notes and all the E notes.
2. Run the (Microtonal tunings) plugin after you have entered all the notes.
3. Playback the score.
4. If you wish, you can check the note properties of the half flatted notes - you will see they have been offset by -50 cents.
Be sure to use the accidentals from the Accidentals Palette (F9), and not the Symbols (Z) or Signature (K) palettes.

Regards.

In reply to by Jm6stringer

1. You are absolutely right quarter note and quarter tone are not the same
2. I have attached file for better explanation
a) first line: all notes are 0 cents : C major ( western)
b) I use ( slash-flat) accidental from the palette ( F9) and assign them to E & B
c) select all score then apply the plugin ( with default values); Notice the value of slash-flat is -50cents which the correct one
d) result: only notes with accidental have been affected which is correct, however the values are wrong, instead of -50cents, the value is 200 cents and the note is silent.
e) the last line is the expected outcome, I have entered -50 cents for E and B manually

Thanks

Attachment Size
05-25_testing-2014.mscz 2.07 KB
microtune_Interface.png 6.52 KB

In reply to by phil.balladur

Your attached file is a bit confusing to me. You show a half flat on the E & C in the second system. From your other post, I'm guessing you want it on the E & B.

So, I have taken your attachment, manually reset the offsets of the second system back to their defaults (0 cents), and applied a half flat accidental to both the E and the B of the second system. At this point, I have not yet run the plugin on the attachment.
Please open this attachment (05-25_testing[2].mscz) and run the plugin yourself -- only this time first click the 'Update' button in the plugin, then 'Apply'.
Does that work?

Now, without getting ahead of ourselves:
The third system (where you manually lowered the offset on the E & B) shows no corresponding accidentals on the notes -- do you wish to create a 'custom' key signature?

Regards.

Attachment Size
05-25_testing[2].mscz 2.1 KB

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

...I noticed your noble attempt on the other related thread.

However:
Without confounding the situation, and not knowing how far our fellow MuseScorer phil.balladur wishes to push the 'notation along with playback' envelope; I was prepared to mention that, after using the plugin to assign the tuning offsets, all the half flat accidentals could be selected and made invisible.
Then, a key signature comprised of half flats could be created from the key signatures (K) palette and added to the score.

I only thought to mention this because:
The third system of phil's attachment (05-25_testing-2014.mscz) notates what 'looks' like a C major scale, but does not 'sound' as one - the E & B offsets were changed manually, with no corresponding accidentals added to either the notes themselves or to the key signature.

Best regards.

In reply to by Jm6stringer

Great, now it is working
1. Sorry for the confusion, I meant E & B
2. It works very well when I click "Update" then "Apply"
3. In the third system I sent earlier I did not use the plugin, just manually lowered the notes by 50 cents to show you the expected outcome
4. I was able to create a preset and apply it to the whole score, different accidentals have been used correctly.
4. Ultimately, having a key signature with these accidentals would be wonderful as well.
Thank you so much

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