Hello, I’m fairly new to coding and have made a few tools personal use which I’m looking to share with the community.
I like working with frequencies, for example building instruments where each note is a specific frequency not necessary related to the other notes in a traditional way, just whatever feels good to me… or setting BPM and device parameters derived from a frequency value.
I’ve made a frequency calculator that can perform various calculations on hz values and automatically set a chosen parameter in Renoise, like the interval between two frequencies in cents and can update chosen sample transpose / finetune values accordingly, or multiplying a frequency by a ratio like ‘4:3’ or decimal. Other calculations include hz to BPM, hz to LPC (for LFO), hz to milliseconds.
It also features a separate notepad style gui for storing results or anything else you wish, supports opening and saving .txt files.
For now I’d like to know if this tool would be useful to others and if there’s other utility they think it could provide? If so I can share the latest version in the forum for feedback before submitting the tool.
Later I will cover my instrument creator that builds instruments based on a list of frequencies, by generating single cycle waveforms of each frequency, setting appropriate looping and mapping options so it’s instantly playable across keyboard. User has many preferences including interval / harmonic option for layering frequencies, mapping to white keys only and inserting modulation sets. Additionally I have a separate scale creator to generate intervals from a base value which are easily transferred to the instrument creator.
Update… scale creator now supports importing and exporting scales as Scala .scl files. You can load any scl file and edit however you wish, get a full MIDI ‘tuning / frequency dump’ print out, export scl and use scales with afta8’s scl to xrni tool or any software / hardware with scl support. Use of scl files is optional as the scale creator works independently, does not require Scala.exe at all.
The instrument creator now also features creating octaves from scl files, by defining a base frequency and range of octaves then inserts results into the instruments creators frequency list. This allows building instruments from multiple scales / base frequencies and non repeating octaves!
Now I’ve reached this milestone I’m looking at tidying up code and gui for sharing. Still fairly new to coding so quite messy, however I’m pleased with the functionality.
Great idea, I’ve also been dreaming of making such a tool for a long time for various use cases. Just I’ve always lacked the time and strength to pull it through with too many other things binding my attention. Will the tool be free?
I have some formulas I made for certain use cases I use often, I could provide them. One example is calculating transpose values in the modulation section, i.e. for pitch bend and ring mod/comb filter pitches, where you sometimes want to add operators as an offset to transpose the sound by a certain number of semitones, also to adjust a pitch-bend macro to the right (sub-)range, or to tune the sound/effect to a certain harmonic of a sound. Another use could be setting filters or equalizers to exact note values, or again transposed or harmonics of. I have formulas for all this sitting around somewhere. Also you can be aware of the option to use pitch modulation to tune a sound to make it more exact than with the semitones/finetune effect. I have to look for the text file with my ideas of what to calculate.
The tool will be free at least initially, currently the frequency calculator doesn’t have any modes for calculating would be note letters and detune offsets, I will implement this if people find useful, I did create a max / msp patch a few years ago that calculates changes in pitch to frequency to midi note number / note letters with offset and vice versa for personal use in the past.
Anything you can share would be appreciated as I’m still learning, thank you!
I got side tracked working on a VST synth but it’s time for me to finish these tools now. I haven’t had much experience with Formula (yet) but I may be able to help with preset saving and loading, I made this preset handler for Sample Modulation Devices so we’re not limited to saving them within full Modulation Sets…
