Q: I’d be more excited about bitTemper if I knew a bit more about historical tuning systems! Do you recommend any resources?
A: Carey Beebe, an Australian harpsichord builder, maintains an excellent collection of resources on historical tunings. Visit his website and follow links to Resources/Technical Library/Temperament. He provides detailed steps for recreating historical tunings by ear.
Q: What is the “Target” tuning?
A: The “Target” column indicates what historical tuning you are currently using, and the notes of each temperament, listed as cents offset from equal-tempered tuning. This is your goal as you tune, to bring each pitch to the target offset by ear. By default, the target is Pythagorean, which can be changed by clicking on the drop-down menu. The “Yours” column will show the results of your tuning efforts after you hit the “Reveal” button.
Q: Why can I only tune notes in the blue “Temperament” box?
A: The blue box is the octave that you are tuning, a single octave which historically is referred to as a Temperament. From there, a tuner would use that octave to tune the rest of the keyboard. In bitTemper, this blue box corresponds to the “Target” and “Yours” columns on the left-hand side.
Q: Why doesn’t anything happen when I select a note on the top keyboard?
A: The higher of the two manuals is where you’re putting your ‘virtual tuning hammer.’ The idea is to select a key on the upper manual, then with your right hand play that corresponding note on your MIDI keyboard, while adjusting the pitch with your left hand. In that way, you’ll be adjusting only the selected note, and approximating the process of a piano or harpsichord tuner.
Q: I’m holding shift and hovering my mouse over the tuning strip, but nothing happens.
A: That is the tuning procedure for bitDyad. In bitTemper, the user actually clicks and drags the mouse, trackpad, cursor, etc.
Q: What does “Reveal” do?
A: As you tune your virtual keyboard and toggle between the “Target” and “Yours,” you will be making changes to “Your” tuning. At its core, bitTemper is an ear-training app, so the only way you will be able to see these changes is to click “Reveal,” which will uncover the changes you have made to each pitch. Outside of that, it’s up to your ears to do the work.
Q: As I work in the “Create” menu, should I see some correspondence between the three windows? Ratios, Commas, Offsets?
A: These panels are related but not necessarily designed to be used in conjunction with one another. When you make changes in the “Tune by Commas” panel, they will be reflected in the other columns. The information displayed across the panels may be informative, but for clarity, bitTemper is essentially designed to be used in one mode at a time. Adjusting ratios in one panel then adjusting the comma in another panel may become confusing.
Q: Why does “Offset to ET” use MIDI integers and not cents?
A: Cents can be viewed in the “by Ratios” column. It simply provides another perspective for understanding the differences between these tunings, displaying the pitch offset in another commonly used format. For example, 4 MIDI steps (semitones) is a major third, so we can quickly read 4.5 is a “bigger” major third.
Q: Are “Sharp Side” and “Flat Side” just labels? Are they changing something?
A: When tuning a temperament, direction matters. The science of tuning is often preoccupied with where to put the sharp or flat intervals, and depending on the starting pitch and the direction of the tuning, this pitch offset can be placed between different pitches, and will have consequences farther around the circle of fifths. See the description of tuning to Pythagorean fifths under Example #1.
Q: Can I actually “create” a new tuning in the “create” menu? Can I save presets?
A: As you make changes in the “create” menu, whether altering a historical tuning or building your own, those changes will be reflected in the “target” column on the main interface. You cannot save these changes as presets.
Q: What is “Last Interval”?
A: The “Last Interval” is the distance between the note being played and the last played note. The unit of distance is MIDI steps. This provides a quicker grasp of what the last interval was. For example, a distance of 7.02 is 7 half steps plus 2 cents.
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