Window 26

=  Midi In Options =

Open at start
Opens the selected In device whenever Tune Smithy starts up...

Select this if you normally use FTS for midi input as otherwise you need to open the midi input device as an extra step each time you start up FTS.

If you use FTS for playing fractal tunes or some of the other tasks, you may not want to select this.

Only one program can use the same in device at a time (usually) so if FTS opens it then it won't be available to other programs. For instance if you use your midi keyboard with your notation software or to play a soft synth directly, or whatever, you can't simultaneously use it with FTS.

Close MIDI in now
Opens whichever device(s) you have selected in the menu

Open MIDI out now
This opens automatically when you play notes or open midi in...

The reason for adding this here as an option is so that you can see whether the out devices are open or not.

You can also use this it to switch off midi out in FTS if it is open and you need to close it e.g. to use in another program.

You may also sometimes want to use this to open midi out in advance before you play a note, to avoid short delay that may happen when you open Midi Out while FTS sends all the midi out resets etc.

Input channels:
The channels to respond to from Midi In

Kbd. regions...
Set up regions of the keyboard for each part, use music keys as shortcuts etc.

Pitch bend opts...
Pitch bend ranges, adjust scale as you play, pitch bend ripples, etc

Presets
Select a preset to try from Music keyboard...

These provide a showcase for some of the capabilities of Tune Smithy, and can be a starting point for your own keyboard layouts.

Koto + Shakuhachi - use of keyboard regions. This is a traditional Japanese combination of instruments.

Left half plays Koto, right half plays Shakuhachi. They actually play parts 1 and 2. So if you go to the Parts (Ctrl + 9) window you can vary any of the parameters for those parts - including controllers, scales for the parts, instruments, etc. You can configure the keyboard regions - e.g. split into more regions or change the boundaries between the regions - or which note plays the 1/1 in each region - from the Keyboard Regions window Ctrl + 26

Clavinet, well tempered scale (Bach's time) - an example of using FTS to play standard twelve tone music in a historical temperament. The clavinet btw is an electronically amplified version of the clavichord.

Tip: For those who want to experiment with changing the 1/1 of the temperament to notes other than C, you may be interested in Pitch of 1/1 (Ctrl + 10) | Auto select note for 1/1 - with that switched on it is easy to change the retuning tonic - just vary the Pitch of the 1/1 and the note to play the 1/1 from the music keyboard will automatically get changed to match.

Gamelan - tubular bells, xylophone and marimba - shows use of keyboard regions, and playing a scale from the white notes. Since this scale has few notes to an octave, then it is possible to just ignore the black keys, so the white keys behave a bit like one of the traditional Gamelan percussion instruments. Black keys play the same notes as adjacent white keys.

Since there are no Gamelan instruments in the general Midi standard sound set, roughly similar percussive instruments are used instead. With some soundcards you may find that the tubular bells on the card don't go very low in pitch so below a certain point the notes may all sound the same in pitch (or perhaps might go silent).

Your soundcard may have a wider sound set with bells and other sounds, with the XG and GS sound sets being the most prevalant - see Voice Menu Opts and other Voice Menus (Ctrl + 157) which has example typical menus for Roland XG and Yamaha GS type sound sets.

String trio, well tempered scale (Mozart's time) - use of keyboard regions again - the lowest notes play Cello, middle range notes play Viola and high notes play Violin

Acoustic Grand Piano, equal temperament - for those who want to use their keyboard as a standard equal tempered twelve tone piano with no special features - useful also sometimes as a starting point perhaps.

Sitar, Indian Shruti scale - you can select Indian Ragas from the drop list of arpeggios. These are from the Scala modes archive - Ragas generally have distinctions of rising and falling melodies like the Western melodic minor, but here they are ignored.

If anyone is interested to provide a list of ragas with distinctions of melodic direction, then they may be able to be added to FTS in the same way that the melodic minor was added. I am interested to add them to FTS in the future, so do get in touch, if there is anyone with knowledge of the subject who is interested to provide such a set.

Sitar, Modern Indian gamut (twelve tone scale) - this is a twelve tone scale for modern Indian Ragas. It retunes the keyboard in such a way that someone with knowledge of the modern Indian Ragas should be able to find the pitches they need on the keyboard. The older Ragas require a larger gamut of 22 notes.

Kalimba and whistle, Pygmie scale - keyboard regions, using the Pygmie scale from the scala archive, left plays Kalimba, right plays whistle, configured using parts 1 and 2.

Church organ, quarter comma mean tone - Quarter comma mean-tone is the scale that church organs were tuned to in medieval times, and for some time after. It is tuned to give many pure major thirds, so particularly sonorous major chords. However it has one wolf scale (G sharp major) which is completely unplayable - try playing a G sharp major chord, or play a tune in G# major, and you'll see what this means. Does it sound rather sour to you? This is the true wolf fifth, and unfortunately the chord also has a sharp major third. Compare with the sonorous C major chord. The C major chord does have a noticeably flat fifth (all the fifths are flat apart from the wolf which is very sharp), but at the time this was considered tolerable, and the sonorous major third was considered more important. These chords are particularly noticeable in church organs which is why quarter comma meantone continued to be used for them long after it had fallen out of use for other keyboard instruments. But the unplayable G# major is a serious disadvantage for later common practice music. Microtonal composers can also use the idiosyncracies of quarter comma meantone for effect.

... To be continued.

Meanwhile, also look at the presets section under Midi In from Help | Help for current main window task - that section is also currently incomplete as it is quite old now, but it has information about some of the remaining  presets.

Scales for parts Presets
Useful or interesting presets - tonality shifts, diesis shifts, CPS sets,...

More >>
Shows this window with either more space, more options, or alternative layout

Pos. in scale or arpeggio

 * 1) or b here usually indicates one scale degree higher / lower...

The number of #s or bs shows the number of scale degrees in the accidental.

Example - if the arpeggio is say 5, and the accidental takes it up an extra two scale degrees to 7, then it will be shown as 5##

If you have half flats / sharps notation switched on in the Accidental symbols window (Ctrl + 61) then + / - is used for single scale degree steps when the arpeggio steps are large enough.

This notation can be used if there are any arpeggio steps of at least 3 scale degrees. Then + is used for + 1, - for -1, # for + 2, #+ for +3 etc.

If you have twelfth tone notation switched on, this will be used for any arpeggio with a step of at least six scale degrees, and as before simply shows the number of scale degrees in the accidental. So for instance, the Maneri Sims ^ when used in this field is just used as a shorthand for +1. The > then is short for +2, and ] for +3.

As you can see, this isn't intended as an implementation of any conventional sharps / flats notation. It is intended just as an abbreviated way to show the number of scale degrees in the accidental, so that you can see that at a glance. It may sometimes coincide with conventional notation for some scales, but that is more or less accidental.

Record To File Options...
Choose the file name to record to and file format. Many options.

Play From Custom...
Choose keys for arpeggio or scale (music kbd, relaying or midi file retuning)...

Here you can set which of the keyboard keys play the arpeggio - or the scale depending on whether set to play in arpeggio or scale.

For play in arpeggio:

If you leave gaps between the mapped notes, for instance if you only say that white keys play the arpeggio, then in between keys - in that case the black keys - play any available in between notes of the scale.

If there are no notes of the scale between the arpeggio notes, the in between keys repeat the mapped keys.

When there are more scale degrees than there are in between keys to play them from, then you can use various methods to choose whether to play e.g. the lower or the higher of the available accidentals.

To explore that see the Accidentals symbols and special opts window (Ctrl + 61) or the "in between notes as accidentals" list in the Music Keyboard Options window (Ctrl + 45)

Help = F1
Click for help for this window. Or F1. Other opts: Shift, Alt, Ctrl + click...

F1 or click shows the help for the current window in your web browser.

Some windows may have no help yet in which case the help icon is shown crossed out with a red line.

Shift + F1 or Shift + Click brings up the tool tips extra help window (this window) to show any extra help for a tool tip.

You can tell if a tool tip has extra help if it ends ... like this one.

Ctrl + F1 or Ctrl + click takes you to the list of keyboard shortcuts for Tune Smithy.

Alt + F1 or Alt + click (alternatively Caps lock physically held down + F1 or Click) takes you to the on-line page at the robertinventor.com web site about the current main window task - which gives a short introduction to it for newbies to the program. If there is no on-line page specific to a task, takes you to the main tune smithy page on the web site.

Since the help for Tune Smithy is currently a bit out of date and needs to be redone completely for the new 3.0 release, then you may find the on-line page for some of the newer tasks particularly useful.

Organise Windows = F2
Or F2 - Reset / save / open for individual windows, right click for cat. list...

Shows the Organise windows window - which you can use to reset all the parameters for the current window - or save them all, or open previously saved parameters for just this window. Also has a drop list of all the windows and their shortcuts.

You can also right click on this icon as a quick way to get the floating drop menu of all the Tune Smithy windows organised by category

Midi In Dialog Star
Tip of the day - Relaying category - right click for neighbouring windows...

Left click for a tip of the day in this category.

Right click to see a menu of neighbouring windows.

The neighbours are the ones you most often move to after this one or within a minute of this one, arranged by popularity.

So as you continue to use FTS, it will learn your habits, and the neighbouring windows listed here, should be the ones you most often visit after this one.