I’ve gone on another microtonal trip lately, and have been working with ratios again. The thing about composing music with frequency ratios is that it places you in a brave new world where each interval is made up of TWO numbers instead of one (as in the traditional system, a fourth, third, fifth, etc). There are also all kinds of undiscovered tones and frequencies and relationships. There has to be a way to explore all this!
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picture of the GUI for the reaktor arpeggiator
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For those of you that aren’t hopeless music nerds like myself, a frequency ratio is just a relationship between frequencies. It is also the language of a tuning system called “just intonation.” A basic example: In the key of A, with the root frequency being 440 hertz, the A in the next higher octave is related to the original note a440 by a frequency ratio of 2/1, and is 880 hz. A major third is the ratio 5/4, or 550 hertz. Instead of the normal 12 steps per octave of Equal temperament, there is an infinite gradation of frequencies that you can manipulate to your heart’s content. Â
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With all that freedom comes massive confusion. I have been trying to come up with some systems for composing with these numbers. The first most obvious idea would be to just make a fixed scale, choose a few notes, and play with that. That is fun! But, it doesn’t take advantage of all the flexibility that working with just intonation truly gives you. Instead of just choosing 7 or 12 or 10 notes, you can start with a set of 5 notes, and make them mutate and evolve into an infinity of other frequencies, but all logically related by numerical relationships!
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This is my first system for making melodies and chords in just intonation: a harmonic arpeggiator. There are two different tables containing numbers for the numerator and denominator, and these tables can be moved through independently, at different speeds. Midi input triggers notes, but only the time and octave of the input notes is taken, and the rest is controlled by the ratio sequencers.
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I have implemented this system in both my Nord g2 modular and in Reaktor, so I can make them work together. Â
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Here is a simple melodic sort of track I did with the g2 patch:
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Here is the Reaktor patch:
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Here are a couple g2 patches:
G2 Harmonic Arpeggiator with Karpluss Synthesis
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I will be coming up with more stuff soon! I want to make some programs that allow you to dynamically change the scale as you play. Not sure how easy that will be to do in the g2, but I’ll definitely be able to do it in reaktor.
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[...] # Harmonic Ratio Arpeggiator [...]
I am glad I came across this (via rekkard.org), this sounds fascinating…a real creative take on working with ratios which is also an interest of mine. Can’t wait to try it out and also see what else you ‘cook up’.
Thanks for sharing your ensemble. ;-)
[...] Master has released Harmonic Ratio Arpeggiator – a free microtonal arpeggiator for Reaktor: This is my first [...]
Thanks for this great piece of software, great as the your G2 macro .
thanks
Nice…thank you…very musical ensemble
[...] Visit: bagger288.com/goldenmaster [...]
askaoldki
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[...] Downloadeaza gratuit Harmonic Ratio Arpeggiator pentru Reaktor. Tags: arpegiator, arpegiator pentru Reaktor, Harmonic Ratio Arpeggiator, program de facut muzica, program gratuit de facut muzica, Reaktor Share this post! Twitter Digg Facebook Delicious StumbleUpon Google Bookmarks LinkedIn Technorati Favorites This entry was posted on 28 februarie 2010, 02:30 and is filed under Software pentru muzica. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [...]
[...] is a new track I made, featuring more use of my harmonic ratio arpeggiator.  I was also using my Pitch Bend Tuner to tune my hardware synths to the microtonal pitches the [...]