Microtonality for Furnace #suggestion

[9Skrip]

The following was taken from Goat tracker readme:

7. Microtonal tunings

---

Microtonal tunings can be applied by setting using the following options:

/J sets special note names
/Q sets equal division per octave
/Y sets the path to a Scala file

Setting special note names is important for scales/tunings with a number of
notes in an octave/cycle that differs from 12. But it can also be used to show
note names with flats instead of sharps.

For each note, 2 chars have to be given, e.g. C-DbD-EbE-F-GbG-AbA-BbB- for note
names that show flats instead of sharps. The number of notes can differ from 12
and should match the number of notes used in an octave/cycle.

Setting the equal division per octave is an easy way to apply tunings e.g. used
by Easley Blackwood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbuFPpiJL1o or for the
Bohlen-Pierce tuning (Bohlen-Pierce has 8.2019143 notes per octave and 13 notes
in a duodecime-cycle, so it also needs special note names).

By loading a tuning from a Scala file, the /Q setting will not be used, and if
the Scala file comes with note names inside, the -Jxx setting will not be used.
Scala files have to follow the rules described in
http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/scl_format.html and note names can be
applied by separating the name from the ratio value using whitespace. Example:

! bohlen-p_et.scl
!
13-tone equal division of 3/1. Bohlen-Pierce equal approximation
13
!
146.30423 1-
292.60846 2-
438.91269 3-
585.21692 4-
731.52115 5-
877.82539 6-
1024.12962 7-
1170.43385 8-
1316.73808 9-
1463.04231 A-
1609.34654 B-
1755.65077 C-
3/1 0-

[dotmatrixgirl]

I would really love to see microtonal support in Furnace. Scala import would be so amazing

[gexahedron]

Has there been any progress on this?

[tildearrow]

None.

[nuliankeay]

Is it something that you intend to add or work on in the future?

[Abdullah-Ajeebi]

Most likely no.

[dkonar]

https://github.com/MarkCWirt/libscala-file Not sure how complete this is, but there is a MIT licensed C++ library for reading the scl files.

But I think it would be simpler to have a menu/dialog (or an external tool) to map cents to E5 (and 04) commands. Like what value for E5 is 50 cents (quarter tones)? How do I make 33 cent vibrato?

[gtr3qq]

try the depth/E5xx value until it sounds right?
Or draw your 33cent vibrato in instrument.pitch window.
It might even depend on particular chips, notably Atari POKEY.

I could be wrong, but Furnace appears to be linear frequency slides.
With that, and E5xx: Set pitch. 00 is -1 semitone, 80 is base pitch, FF is nearly +1 semitone. from https://github.com/tildearrow/furnace/blob/master/doc/3-pattern/effects.md

It could be inferred one quarter shape/flat should be E5(80 +/- 20) (all in Hex).

Tho most values I've ever used are like 77 78 7A 7C 80 82 83 8A, just to detune the channel for sweet chorus effects so naturally I didn't test it before.

04xy: Vibrato. changes pitch to be "wavy" with a sine LFO. x is the speed, while y is the depth.
maximum vibrato depth is ±1 semitone.

with that, a one third vibrato depth should be F(Hex) divided by (3/5) x 4))................

[gtr3qq]

Yeah, to have all that effects in note.semitone. it gotta be linear.

[dkonar]

At least for the Gameboy chip it seems like 80-FF and 0-80 work like 127EDO which slightly smaller than a cent (100EDO) so you can get a pretty good approximation of any pitch. So E5C0 is approximately one quarter tone up.
It also has effect memory so you need to reset it to E580 to go back to standard pitch (I confirmed this by putting a bass drone in another track).

With this I was able to mock a up certain well known theme from a certain extremely popular streaming series that uses quarter tones

Looks like various methods of micro-tuning are pretty widespread in trackers
https://sevish.com/2016/microtonal-music-trackers/

[dkonar]

So at the bottom of Sevish's article there is this online tool which can convert .scl and .tun files to text format which converts to scales to Deflemask commands which should work in furnace because of Furnace/Deflemask compatibility.

This is good enough for me

Have fun!
https://sevish.com/scaleworkshop/?version=2.4.1

[Olivitakemi]

Furnace is very powerful. If Furnace had microtonal capabilities, it would be the most complete and perfect modern tracker to date.