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In a message dated 8/4/05 12:25:05 PM, spr@spridley.freeserve.co.uk writes:<BR>
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> I wondered what anyone knows about Gamelan tuning in relation to linear detuning. <BR>
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I suspect something like a Serge TKB or a Buchla 112 would be a better route. I'm fairly<BR>
ignorant on Gamelan tuning, but I reckon the ability to detune on a note be note basis<BR>
would be necessary.<BR>
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Steve<BR>
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Thanks to everyone who's replied so far on & off list. I was hoping that people with closer/more hands-on experience with Gamelan (or for that matter, synths and SDIY) would weigh in on this.<BR>
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For example, the above reply mentions the Buchla 112, which via Google I came to understand is a keyboard with 2 individually tunable CV outputs per key. Indeed, one approach to getting a Balinese Gamelan effect in a synth would be tuning note for note to the desired scale and beat difference relation of each instrument pair/note. At least for bass register instruments, which (as kindly posted) are generally played in unison, one would have the option in an analog setup of sending separate pitch CVs to two complex but similar modular/semi-modular patches. Doing the same sort of thing with MIDI and/or virtual instruments (again as posted) would be possible.<BR>
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My line of questioning on this dual approach for detuned unisons is partly in regard to the idea that linear detuning is boring by itself and needs some non-linearity to spice things up. I'm curious, when dealing with an original Balinese Gamelan or some elaborate synthesis that has a similar timbral complexity, whether linear detuning is no longer boring. Is such a dull consistency hidden, or helpful, in the context of complex clanging timbres?<BR>
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Or (suppose I should be googling tuning charts, such as they might exist, for a specific Balinese Gamelan) is the detuning used in Balinese Gamelan so strictly linear?<BR>
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As musicians and Gamelan builders tune with care (another good posting on the 20 min spent tuning) but not with a strobe, I may be taking an overly clinical view of things. Who's to say that even a builder with sharp experienced ears is going to really attempt to create a dead consistent 2 Hz beat difference? Or that the musicians will choose that exact pitch relation over and over every time they tune. There's bound to be some slop or conscientious sweetening that may not exactly equal what's linear detuning.<BR>
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Were that the case, using linear detuning to create a Gamelan like sound would lack any such variations and may perhaps end up sounding less interesting. Something ultimately one would probably just have to rig up and try out.<BR>
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Sorry if this is rather OT or abstract. Beyond those of us who are fans or practitioners of Gamelan music, I would hope that in relation to SDIY this wondering aloud may at least help to shine some new, if oblique, light upon the issues of stable and not-so-stable VCOs, tempcos, the much hazier notions of "warmth" and "fatness" or well, something of use. <g><BR>
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Thanks again,<BR>
K. Seward</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2"></FONT></HTML>