A dive in Ethiopian & Malian blues

WOW!
Thanks a lot for you deep explanations
I’ll study them tonight hoping to improve the masinko sound a bit

unless I am diverted toward the Flamenco song I am studying With A Little Help From My Friend @jjfagot :grin:

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Audio for most of those we’ve mentioned.

There are several tools which allow for pitch-shifting through MIDI pitchbend. Including Fluid Pitch and the recent Fluid Chords. There are limitations, in MIDI 1.0 and even in MPE. Deeper work on pitch and tuning should be possible in MIDI 2.0… once devs start adopting it.

The aforementioned tools which support the MTS-ESP protocol overcome several limitations in current MIDI implementations. Basically, they synchronize your tuning system across diverse plugins. Which means that I can have Surge, Fury-800, Pendulate, and Triple Cheese (all free) play in tune with one another. Much easier than loading tuning files in each plugin. In fact, you could change the tuning as you play.

There’s a free plugin (MTS-ESP Mini) which allows you to load tuning files and synchronize that among MTS-ESP compatible plugins. It even receives SysEx. (I mostly use Bitwig Studio which actually blocks SysEx.)

A tool I use is Entonal Studio. I use it to load different tuning files or design my own tuning systems with mapping.
It uses different methods to apply tuning to other plugins. MTS-ESP is one, making it remarkably convenient. Otherwise, it can host VST and AU plugins and bend pitch using MPE, monophonic MIDI, or “Multi” (which I’ve never used, though it sounds like it might use the channel messages that @yorkeman was mentioning). As far as I can tell (and I should check), it should be possible to use ES with audio pitch-shifting, in realtime.
Developer Adam Wilson has been quite responsive. Told him about a few wishlist items. For instance, I’d love it if I could dynamically change the tuning from the DAW.

All this to say… Both audio and MIDI can work reasonably well as a way to go beyond the pitches associated with the 128 MIDI notes. Hopefully, MIDI 2.0 tools will come out soon and we’ll be able to do a whole lot more, based on the two-way communication the protocol supports.

Sometimes a modwheel appears on the instrument itself, and you can also pitchbend midi notes and play that pitchbend from the pitchbend wheel or from another wheel or slider you assign on your controller (in which case your controller does not have that wheel).
On some instruments you can assign a planned detune from the start. This is the case of the Kontatk instruments
Some examples in pictures:




Normally in the instruments there is that TUNE option, which can change Octaves, or by semitones. You should look for the FINE TUNE.
Or else use the Master Tune (usually between 440 and 442 double vibrations/second for the A4). Experiment and tell how you solve it.
If you look at the 3rd example, Pigments has a microtuning function

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Actually, I found that I can use one of the 4 features of Broomstick Bass below (color circled)

So I think I’ll start to test them manually, because I still don’t know how adding an automation to them in Ableton Live
I tried yesterday but unsuccessfully

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Yesterday I “touched” by accident :grin: a strange MPE button and something happened to my Bass-Masenko track he he, but not what I wanted to happen

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Indeed. Sadly, unlike several other synths in V Collection 8, it has yet to support MTS-ESP.
Surge, Newfangled and u-he synths (including free ones) support both MPE and MTS-ESP. Winning combo.

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The facilities in Omnisphere are more extensive than I thought. For example, each instruments in a multi can have a different scaling. iSome more information and a list of tunings at

It also supports MPE.

Well, of all my plugins, the one that did the job in the easier way was the free Izotope’s Vocal Doubler

BTW, this is the 1st Izotope plugin I downloaded, and I bought then Neutron & Ozone discounted just because I was a loyal owner of Vocal Doubler… :grin: