# Microtonal metal?



## The Omega Cluster

Have any good heavy brutal technical microtonal metal to suggest me?


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## Evil Weasel

The only band I know of using microtones are Massive Audio Nerve. Not really tech but at least it vaguely fits the critieria.
BLABBERMOUTH.NET - M.A.N Claims To Be First Metal Band Ever To Incorporate 'Full Scale Quarter Tone System'


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## Necris

There aren't many microtonal metal bands, most metal musicians and musicians in general are too afraid to leave 12-edo.
I'm working on microtonal stuff but I need to mod my guitars to the tunings I've come up with before I can record any of it.


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## BucketheadRules

Anyone remember this man? 

Sadly, he's the furthest I've got with micro-tonal metal. I would be interested in hearing more, if there is any.

EDIT:

Actually, to be fair to the guy - I just found this on his Soundcloud and it's quite cool:

http://soundcloud.com/ron-sword/seven-string-16-tone-electric


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## Don Vito

Came to post Ron Sword.

Ninja'd from a mile away.


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## TankJon666

I would love to hear some more! That M.A.N track is good but its a bit "nu-metal" for my tastes.


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## The Omega Cluster

Keep em coming, it's not bad!! It'd be cool though if it were a little more arabic in sounding.


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## ixlramp

16 equal steps per octave


TetraF in 16 ESPO: http://soundcloud.com/fff-fiale/vietato-dissentire

16 ESPO


Zach Curley in 26 ESPO: http://zachcurley.bandcamp.com/track/dacrygelosis

16 ESPO


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## ixlramp

Blut Aus Nord use fretless guitars a lot and seem very free tonally.


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## ixlramp

More TetraF in 16 ESPO: NIGHT OF THE LIVING COPS by Fabrizio Fulvio Fiale on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

January 2030, acid rainy day
Greenhouse effect
reign in pain
People lives inside overalls
under tiranny
- illusion democracy

All is calm in the city,
all is very bright
No leaf moved in the night
Acid rain is soakin&#8217;slowly
all the graveyard
Deads are soaked very hard

From the grave,
with their cludgels,
Cops of sixty years ago
Wakened from
very long sleep
Want to stretch
their forearms
With their eyes like embers
And their teeth like fox-snares
From the ground, that cracking
THE NIGHT OF
LIVING COPS !!!

Go out from the ground
By rain they&#8217;re found
Seeking heads to split
Hitting brain like shit
With their big cludgels
All the longhair fell
Now, with stinking breath,
They meet you the DEATH!!!

24 ESPO


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## CrownofWorms

I guess Gorguts


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## Stealthdjentstic

CrownofWorms said:


> I guess Gorguts



No....they use normally fretted guitars. Unless they changed their minds for the new album?!


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## Eptaceros

There's a microtonal thread popping up every week. That being said, everything I've heard with microtonal music (aside from Easley Blackwood's stuff) is some reiteration of altered minor scales, which doesn't really make any original use of microtones, imo. Bands like Gorguts, Ulcerate, Blut Aus Nord, Baring Teeth, Concealment, etc. make music that blows any of this microtone shred out of the water while sounding 10x more "out there" with 12 tones.


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## ArtDecade

Necris said:


> There aren't many microtonal metal bands, most metal musicians and musicians in general are too afraid to leave 12-edo.
> I'm working on microtonal stuff but I need to mod my guitars to the tunings I've come up with before I can record any of it.



I don't think fear has anything to do with it. First of all, the genre itself has limited appeal. And secondly, its not exactly easy to find a microtonal guitar without making a relatively serious investment financially. 

Personally, I don't "understand" the music but I wanted to learn more through the thread. It seems like a lot of the examples here are just playing atonal guitar solos, which is something that Adrian Belew has been doing for 30 years. Oddly, his sense of atonality never completely forgoes melody.


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## ixlramp

Micrometal artists are a minority within a minority within a minority, in 4 years of searching the above are all i have discovered, and most of them are beginners. With so few artists there's a low chance of finding something you really like or consider 'extremely talented'. However personally i do think most of these artsis are very talented.


The Omega Cluster said:


> It'd be cool though if it were a little more arabic in sounding.


17 and 24EDO are good for an arabic sound.


Necris said:


> I'm working on microtonal stuff but I need to mod my guitars to the tunings I've come up with before I can record any of it.


I would be interested to know what tunings you've chosen


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## Stealthdjentstic

Well its also a pain in the ass to find people to play with. I have enough trouble finding people that tune to B standard.


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## ixlramp

Asteroidi Esadecafonici: VIETATO DISSENTIRE by Fabrizio Fulvio Fiale on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Now that TetraF has 16 metal frets per octave instead of nylon cable ties, 'Hexadecaphonic asteroid' have rerecorded Vietato Dissentire.


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## The Omega Cluster

That last one was much interesting! It is sad, though, that most microtonal metal artists tend to stay on some illusory "safe path" with bland drums and used song structures... Imagine if Unexpect would play microtonal? That would just be amazing!


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## ixlramp

Yeah i know what you mean, so far the most innovative metal bands are actually using 12ET instruments.

Concerning your original post, i think Last Sacrament is the one to keep an eye on, new material coming soon:
Last Sacrament - Official page of the Florida Death metal band
Maniacal Meditations | Last Sacrament this demo's rough in places and is deliberately old school death. Drummer is Guido Wyss, using 2 double-beater kick pedals.
Last Sacrament | Facebook

Taster of mind-blowing new material: http://soundcloud.com/ron-sword/more-shreddin


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## The Omega Cluster

That new material indeed sounds mind-blowing!


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## Necris

ixlramp said:


> Yeah i know what you mean, so far the most innovative metal bands are actually using 12ET instruments.


I'm kind of biased because in the grand scheme of things even Gorguts weren't doing anything new, stuff like their music had been being created for at least 50 years before they were even formed, they just did it in a metal setting (and they still weren't the first). Not that microtonality is new either, it's been around for as long as music itself. 
For example:
19-edo piece from 1558.

Mozart is also thought to have composed in a 12 note subset of 55-edo.


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## JStraitiff

That first MAN song was surprisingly not the worst thing ive ever heard.


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## ixlramp

One more i almost forgot, 'Seal of Graphiel': Seal of Graphiel | Free Music, Tour Dates, Photos, Videos
I'm not too keen on this but someone might like it. This guy converted his guitar to 24EDO by adding extra frets between the existing ones:


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## Necris

I find it funny they decided to refer to 24-edo as "Pagan Temperament" since it's just a doubling of 12. I've done the same thing though by tying nylon guitar strings around my fretboard to get 36-edo on the first 10 frets, 24-edo until the 17th and 12-until the 22nd, a far more reversible (but slightly less useful) mod.


ixlramp said:


> I would be interested to know what tunings you've chosen


The only perfect octave tuning I have a lot of interest in is 27-edo (43 is unfortunately not particularly applicable to guitar  ), the tunings I've come up with are non octave, generally with a stretched 3/1 (they normally fall into the Starling Family of Temperaments), there is one that I came up which divides 2616 cents into into 71 equal parts (if you want an exact EDO approximation it would be 32.56878119478574-edo  it comes within 5 cents of a doubled octave) that I may or may not decide to use depending on whether or not I want to put in the effort to fret it.


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## John Strieder

Eptaceros said:


> That being said, everything I've heard with microtonal music (aside from Easley Blackwood's stuff) is some reiteration of altered minor scales, which doesn't really make any original use of microtones, imo. Bands like Gorguts, Ulcerate, Blut Aus Nord, Baring Teeth, Concealment, etc. make music that blows any of this microtone shred out of the water while sounding 10x more "out there" with 12 tones.



Agree. But, me and a friend, we're working on something since 2009 and we're going to release asap  ... we didn't put something online yet, but on my personal soundcloud are some of my works as composer, (mostly) microtonal compositions for acoustic instruments: John Strieder's sounds on SoundCloud


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## ixlramp

Hi John that sounds interesting 

Necris .. thanks for the info.


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## brick

The Omega Cluster said:


> That last one was much interesting! It is sad, though, that most microtonal metal artists tend to stay on some illusory "safe path" with bland drums and used song structures... Imagine if Unexpect would play microtonal? That would just be amazing!



Or Ulcerate


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## ixlramp

Necris .. do you know about Paul Rubenstein? Paul Rubenstein He is based in NY and is currently developing metal movable frets for guitar, not sure if the neck can be tapered or not. He might be able to provide you with some. I think he may be patenting the design soon.
His 'Eleutherotonal guitar' has 3 strings tuned in octaves EEE and movable frets, allowing frets to be placed for each tone in a scale .. all fret positions are then within the scale, very intuitive and no patterns to memorise.


Necris said:


> there is one that I came up which divides 2616 cents into into 71 equal parts


So 2616 cents is the scale repeat interval? bizarre .. i'm thinking that's a stretched 9/2.

EDIT I just listened again to the Last Sacrament EP on bandcamp on quality headphones rated flat to 10Hz, i think they may have rerecorded and/or remixed some or all of the tracks, the first 2 tracks certainly sound different somehow and have an excellent production. So i apologise to the band for saying the demo is rough in places based on the first mixes


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## MF_Kitten

i am dying to have a guitar made with 24EDO. that's the one where you basically just divide your seminotes into quarter notes, right?


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## Necris

ixlramp said:


> Necris .. do you know about Paul Rubenstein? Paul Rubenstein He is based in NY and is currently developing metal movable frets for guitar, not sure if the neck can be tapered or not. He might be able to provide you with some. I think he may be patenting the design soon.
> His 'Eleutherotonal guitar' has 3 strings tuned in octaves EEE and movable frets, allowing frets to be placed for each tone in a scale .. all fret positions are then within the scale, very intuitive and no patterns to memorise.
> 
> So 2616 cents is the scale repeat interval? bizarre .. i'm thinking that's a stretched 9/2.


I'll have to try to contact him, one or two of those fretboards would be useful to have considering I would need about 15 non-movable fretted guitars to play in the tunings I've made that I like (so far), or one guitar with a removable fretboard. 
I'm horrible with just intonation ratios, I know the Just intonation ratios for 29 and 31 limit though (solely because I have an interest in both), trying to figure out the most reasonable tuning that can approximate 29 has been difficult, the lowest one that can do a halfway decent version of 23 is something like 94-edo.



MF_Kitten said:


> i am dying to have a guitar made with 24EDO. that's the one where you basically just divide your seminotes into quarter notes, right?


Yeah, 24-edo divides a half step into two quarter steps. You'll get access to Supermajor and Subminor intervals with that, Supermajor is like a "harsh" sounding major, subminor is "darker" than minor. Ivan Wyschnegradsky (a favorite composer of mine) is mostly known for his 24-edo works. 


When it comes to tunings that are multiples of 12 I personally find 36-edo (adds 1/6 tones, 1/3 tones and 2/3 tones but no 1/4 tones) a bit more musical, but it would also be far more cramped on a fretboard.


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## Stealthdjentstic

Wow that last piece is awesome


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## John Strieder

I prefer Wyschnegradskys 1. Stringquartet  Personally I don't like microtonality if it sounds more or less like detuned tonal music. I prefer it when all parameters sounds "new". That's also the main problem I have with Alois Haba. Today, in contemporary music it's more or less common to use microtonality, and there are endless paths of doing it created.











(Some pieces I would like to post are not on youtube.)


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## ixlramp

I was considering getting a replacement non-tapering neck made for a bolt-on guitar and then use Paul's frets or perhaps make my own.


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## nicomortem

It was suggested to me to post my video of my microtonal guitar, sorry guys for not searching the forum first for this thread.


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## Robrecht

Listened again and liked again.

I think what I like most is that you really explore the peculiar musicality of your quarter tone fretboard.

Some other examples I've heard either somehow sounded a lot like standard (albeit somewhat out of tune) 12-tone music, or went for the 'absurd, ultra-brutal/technical, seemingly random and jarring interval successions' approach. Not that I don't like those, but I find yours more engaging in the end. Great riffs too, regardless of tonality.

By the way -- I didn't mean to say that you shouldn't have started a new thread when you did, I just thought your work would be appreciated in this one. 


nicomortem said:


> sorry guys for not searching the forum first for this thread.



_Edit:_ I just clicked through to your 'Micro-tonal Death Metal' video. Brilliant stuff, musically AND lyrically.    Post it already!


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## nicomortem

Robrecht said:


> Listened again and liked again.
> 
> I think what I like most is that you really explore the peculiar musicality of your quarter tone fretboard.
> 
> Some other examples I've heard either somehow sounded a lot like standard (albeit somewhat out of tune) 12-tone music, or went for the 'absurd, ultra-brutal/technical, seemingly random and jarring interval successions' approach. Not that I don't like those, but I find yours more engaging in the end. Great riffs too, regardless of tonality.
> 
> By the way -- I didn't mean to say that you shouldn't have started a new thread when you did, I just thought your work would be appreciated in this one.
> 
> _Edit:_ I just clicked through to your 'Micro-tonal Death Metal' video. Brilliant stuff, musically AND lyrically.    Post it already!



woah dude thanks for the kind words, and for understanding the music so well...and my apology to the board is in no way related to your suggestion to post here, I appreciated the suggestion.


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## nicomortem

here is a microtonal death metal song I wrote poking fun at people on web forums, try not to get offended, I made sure to include myself in the lyrics!


Micro-tonal Death Metal - YouTube


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## The Omega Cluster

Thanks guys! You've posted some killer music lately!!!

nicomortem : man! Do you have some sort of album recorded? Because that is sweeeeet! I particularly love the acoustic part in the beginning

By the way, I just made a post about you on my blog http://canthisevenbecalledmusic.wordpress.com/


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## ixlramp

Yeah nicomortem, i hope you take this further, we need more talent like yours moving into exteme microtonal metal. If you record and release music i would almost certainly buy it.


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## nicomortem

The Omega Cluster said:


> Thanks guys! You've posted some killer music lately!!!
> 
> nicomortem : man! Do you have some sort of album recorded? Because that is sweeeeet! I particularly love the acoustic part in the beginning
> 
> By the way, I just made a post about you on my blog Can this even be called Music?



No, I just got this guitar earlier this year, and the songs I write on it arent focused enough to be put together on a record, however, I do plan on writing a death metal record on the guitar, using exotic ancient scalings and more serious lyrical content. That will have to wait, becuase I am currently producing a record for the band Neomortem, on which I will play drums and do vocals, leaving the guitaring to others. It will not be microtonal, but there is talk of the guitarist in NM having his 7 string converted to 24-EDO for the next release following this one. And your post on the blog is one of the coolest things anybody has ever done to help me share my music, and I appreciate that more than any typed words on a forum could possibly express. thank you.


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## Necris

There is one thing I absolutely despise about many of the people into microtonality that I've come into contact with on various forums (this applies to no-one in this thread), and that is that they spend more time researching the theory of the music than actually putting it to work. It's useful and valuable to an extent but in my opinion if you use terms like "Pisot-Vijayaraghavan numbers", "pharmonics", "golden plastic moments" and "dyadic harmonic entropy values", when describing microtonal music you are completely useless when it comes to discussing that music with the average person with an interest in microtonality and have entered the realm of self parody.
So yes, we need more people like nicomortem and less dedicated theorists.


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## The Omega Cluster

That thread has just got a lot more interesting!

We've got classical music, death metal, pop, and what else haha!

As of now, I'm thinking of 24EDO-ing my 6-string bass, and maybe write solo stuff, but I'd wish to know if this might hinder in any way my playing of anything more conventional, as 12EDO songs... I figure not since I'd just have to skip the quarter-note frets, but this is purely speculative, maybe nicomortem might answer this, since he must have dealt with this dilemma or problem also?


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## Varcolac

The Omega Cluster said:


> That thread has just got a lot more interesting!
> 
> We've got classical music, death metal, pop, and what else haha!
> 
> As of now, I'm thinking of 24EDO-ing my 6-string bass, and maybe write solo stuff, but I'd wish to know if this might hinder in any way my playing of anything more conventional, as 12EDO songs... I figure not since I'd just have to skip the quarter-note frets, but this is purely speculative, maybe nicomortem might answer this, since he must have dealt with this dilemma or problem also?



Fretless. Jeroen Thesseling (formerly of Obscura) went into fretless bass with the explicit end-goal of doing microtonal music. 

I haven't much of an interest in microtonal stuff, but my fretlesses would be my first port of call for that kind of stuff. 

JEROEN PAUL THESSELING - fretless bass player


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## The Omega Cluster

Yeah, I've got a fretless bass, but probably my hearing's not developped enough, I have a hard time playing on it, so I guessed that fretting quarter-tones would be the best option for me.


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## no_dice

nicomortem said:


> I am currently producing a record for the band Neomortem



I didn't know they were still a band. I thought they broke up and formed Nailshitter. Is it a recent reunion, or did they never break up at all?


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## ixlramp

The Omega Cluster said:


> As of now, I'm thinking of 24EDO-ing my 6-string bass, and maybe write solo stuff, but I'd wish to know if this might hinder in any way my playing of anything more conventional, as 12EDO songs... I figure not since I'd just have to skip the quarter-note frets, but this is purely speculative


Yeah 24edo is just 12edo with extra frets between, but they're not halfway between, use http://www.ekips.org/tools/guitar/fretfind2d/ to calculate a list of fret locations. Perhaps identical frets of different colours could be used to visually differentiate 12edo and the quartertones?

24edo by Atlansia:





ATLANSIA VICTORIA BASS

M.A.N.'s 24edo bass:




I see 2 colours of fret.


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## nicomortem

The Omega Cluster said:


> That thread has just got a lot more interesting!
> 
> We've got classical music, death metal, pop, and what else haha!
> 
> As of now, I'm thinking of 24EDO-ing my 6-string bass, and maybe write solo stuff, but I'd wish to know if this might hinder in any way my playing of anything more conventional, as 12EDO songs... I figure not since I'd just have to skip the quarter-note frets, but this is purely speculative, maybe nicomortem might answer this, since he must have dealt with this dilemma or problem also?



to answer your question, yes, you can skip over the quarter tone frets and play the 24 EDO instrument as a 12 EDO. Thats why I chose it over 16 EDO, or any other EDO system, because I still wanted to be able to play the warlock like a standard guitar. It took some getting used to, but as long as you have the inlays in the standard positions, I doubt youd have a problem using the bass for standard stuff.


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## nicomortem

no_dice said:


> I didn't know they were still a band. I thought they broke up and formed Nailshitter. Is it a recent reunion, or did they never break up at all?



Neomortem has been around, the whole time, never broke up. A full length CD was released in 2006 but there was never a tour behind it due to the drummer leaving the band shortly after its release. Nailshitter was started by Neomortems old vocalist, who left the band when Neomortem decided to stop playing live shows in order to focus on writing. The live scene in Orlando caters to less abrasive types of metal, when Neomortem does play live, it is usually out of town.


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## nicomortem

Necris said:


> There is one thing I absolutely despise about many of the people into microtonality that I've come into contact with on various forums (this applies to no-one in this thread), and that is that they spend more time researching the theory of the music than actually putting it to work. It's useful and valuable to an extent but in my opinion if you use terms like "Pisot-Vijayaraghavan numbers", "pharmonics", "golden plastic moments" and "dyadic harmonic entropy values", when describing microtonal music you are completely useless when it comes to discussing that music with the average person with an interest in microtonality and have entered the realm of self parody.
> So yes, we need more people like nicomortem and less dedicated theorists.



thanks for that comment, which I can not help but agree with. I do know a bit of standard guitar theory, but I know little to nothing about microtonal theory, and I intend to keep it that way. For the time being, I'm taking the exotic scalings that I know, most of which were learned from the last chapter in Dave Celentano's "monster scales and modes" and simply changing some of the notes to quarter tones, whichever ones sound good to me. some of them sound horrible, like an out of tune guitar, yet others sound as if they belong in the scale more than than the notes in the book. and also for the record, I don't think that I'm better than everybody else on the forum because I have more frets hahaha


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## no_dice

nicomortem said:


> Neomortem has been around, the whole time, never broke up. A full length CD was released in 2006 but there was never a tour behind it due to the drummer leaving the band shortly after its release. Nailshitter was started by Neomortems old vocalist, who left the band when Neomortem decided to stop playing live shows in order to focus on writing. The live scene in Orlando caters to less abrasive types of metal, when Neomortem does play live, it is usually out of town.



Ahh, my mistake! I haven't really been up to date on things around here.


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## nicomortem

no_dice said:


> Ahh, my mistake! I haven't really been up to date on things around here.



nah dude, I appreciate that you remember our band after all this time and for checking up on us.


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## nicomortem

here is some more microtonal stuff


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## Necris

So Ron did the mod for you? I was wondering if it was him.

I have plans to convert one of my guitars to 27-edo, and a bass to 43-edo (I figured out that it is playable above 32" scale"). Right now I'm waiting for the rest of my hardware to arrive so I can begin a build for a guitar fretted for a subset of 43.


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## Robrecht

You should be appointed official minstrel for sevenstring.org and immortalize all its build sagas, megathreads, memes and tragedies into mellifluous microtonal metal ballads.


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## Varcolac

nicomortem said:


> here is some more microtonal stuff


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## ixlramp

nicomortem said:


> For the time being, I'm taking the exotic scalings that I know, most of which were learned from the last chapter in Dave Celentano's "monster scales and modes" and simply changing some of the notes to quarter tones, whichever ones sound good to me.


Thought i'd mention the list of 24edo scales on this page (scroll down to '24 tone modes'): List of musical modes.
A good site for Arabic maqam scales that can be roughly approximated by 24edo: Arabic Maqam World
The huygens fokker site doesn't state the ascending and descending forms of maqamat so i would trust the maqamworld site for those.
BC Rich Quarlock? .. Kwarlock?


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## mishabasi

Well while atonal moreso than microtonal, Portal does a lot of stuff with microtonal bends. May be difficult for some people to get into but i love them. They are insane!

Portal - Swarth - YouTube


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## nicomortem

ixlramp said:


> Thought i'd mention the list of 24edo scales on this page (scroll down to '24 tone modes'): List of musical modes.
> A good site for Arabic maqam scales that can be roughly approximated by 24edo: Arabic Maqam World
> The huygens fokker site doesn't state the ascending and descending forms of maqamat so i would trust the maqamworld site for those.
> BC Rich Quarlock? .. Kwarlock?



those are great links, I have saved them in my browser, thanks! as fascinating and interesting as it is, it is however a bit too confusing for me at this point. I think i can use the first link, since it just gives numbers for the amount of intervals between each note in the scale. its a shame I have not been able to get more into the proper theory behind Arab and Indian music, my music is less authentic sounding than it could be. these links could help with that, thanks again.


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## nicomortem

Necris said:


> So Ron did the mod for you? I was wondering if it was him.
> 
> I have plans to convert one of my guitars to 27-edo, and a bass to 43-edo (I figured out that it is playable above 32" scale"). Right now I'm waiting for the rest of my hardware to arrive so I can begin a build for a guitar fretted for a subset of 43.




what kind of guitar/bass are you converting, did you make them yourself? also, how many strings?


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## ixlramp

As i can't read standard music notation i have those scales from maqamworld written out in numbers of semitones, looks like a good time to share these so i'll type them up soon and post.


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## ixlramp

These have a clearer formatting in the pdf file attached to this post.

Maqam from Arabic Maqam World
Approximations in 24EDO stated as numbers of semitones from tonic. 
'0' = tonic. '12' = octave. 'a' = ascending. 'd' = descending. '/' = alternative name.

Sikah
a 0 1.5 3.5 5.5 7 8.5 10.5 12
d 0 1.5 3.5 5.5 6.5 8.5 10.5 12

Huzam, Rahat El Arwah
0 1.5 3.5 4.5 7.5 8.5 10.5 12

Iraq
0 1.5 3.5 5 6.5 8.5 10.5 12

Bastanikar
0 1.5 3.5 5 6.5 7.5 10.5 11.5 (no 12)

Sikah Baladi
0 1.5 3.5 5 7 8.5 10.5 12


Bayati
0 1.5 3 5 7 8 10 12

Bayati Shuri / Karjighar
0 1.5 3 5 6 9 10 12

Husseini
0 1.5 3 5 7 8.5 10 12

Saba
0 1.5 3 4 7 8 10 12
0 1.5 3 4 7 8 10 11 14 15 (no 12)


Rast
a 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10.5 12
d 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10 12

Suznak / Suzinak
0 2 3.5 5 7 8 11 12

Nairuz / Nishaburk
0 2 3.5 5 7 8.5 10 12

Yakah / Yekah
a 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10.5 12
d1 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10 12
d2 0 2 3.5 5 7 8.5 10 12

Mahur
0 2 3.5 5 7 9 11 12


Hijaz
a 0 1 4 5 7 8.5 10 12
d 0 1 4 5 7 8 10 12

Jiharkah
0 2 4 5 7 9 10.5 12

Mustaar
0 2.5 3.5 5.5 6.5 8.5 10.5 12

Ushaq Masri
0 2 3 5 7 8.5 10 12


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## All_¥our_Bass

The Michael Vick Trip
Not metal but it's fretless guitar


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## nicomortem

@ixlramp thanks dude, I wont let your efforts go to waste! tell me though, when it says "1.5" or "3.5" etc, is the "x.5" describing the quarter tone?


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## ixlramp

Yeah .. so 1.5 is a minor second plus a quartertone. 3.5 is a minor third plus a quartertone. If you double all the numbers you get the scale in steps of 24edo = number of frets above tonic.


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## nicomortem

ixlramp said:


> Yeah .. so 1.5 is a minor second plus a quartertone. 3.5 is a minor third plus a quartertone. If you double all the numbers you get the scale in steps of 24edo = number of frets above tonic.




I had a hard time finding scales for my guitar, described in a way that I can use. I cant thank you enough!


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## nicomortem

the camera fell over when I was filming the drum tracks, so there are no shot of the drumming. No lyrics because I ran out of things to bitch about.


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## The Omega Cluster

Once again, nico, it's one really good song! However, I'm still quite unsure about the solos, I don'T know if it's just my ear that gotta get used to microtonality, but it just seems odd, instead of exotic to me.


----------



## nicomortem

The Omega Cluster said:


> Once again, nico, it's one really good song! However, I'm still quite unsure about the solos, I don'T know if it's just my ear that gotta get used to microtonality, but it just seems odd, instead of exotic to me.



haha my solos are odd even on a regular guitar, I like to float around and avoid the root note, pick as little as possible, suggest notes instead of actually play them, and I use a weird tone with a 1k notch, etc


----------



## ixlramp

To clarify, 3.5 is decimal notation for 'three and a half', therefore meaning three and a half semitones, half a semitone being a quartertone.
A thread that may interest you, and that has extra info about 24edo: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/music-theory-lessons-techniques/161530-retune-play-quartertone-scales-microtonal-beginners-guide.html

Are you using a fretless bass on these videos to get quartertones?

EDIT Your latest video above is excellent, my favourite so far.


----------



## nicomortem

makes sense, lately I have been playing in the Husseini
(0 1.5 3 5 7 8.5 10 12) I really dig it, it sounds so much more authentic than the middle eastern type scales I (and many others) have been playing for years.
for the bass, I just record a track with a clean guitar using the warlock, then pitch shift it an octave down and process it as I would a bass guitar. I want to work on putting together a 24 tone bass guitar though. And thanks for checking out the video and sending kudos, Its going to be a little while before I post any more of them, I'm running out of steam haha.


----------



## ixlramp

You can use http://www.ekips.org/tools/guitar/fretfind2d/ to print a list of 24edo fret positions to give to any luthier of your choice.

That beautiful and exotic 1.5 semitone interval, the neutral second, is actually only 1 cent away from the 'just intonation' interval written '12/11'. That fraction means the frequency ratio of the 2 notes is 12:11, for example 120Hz and 110Hz. The high note cycles through 12 vibrations in the exact time the lower note cycles through 11.


----------



## Necris

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17536860/27 tone to 17 tone Carlos Gamma.mp3

Not guitar or metal but I made this in case anyone wants to hear some alternative temperaments and how their intervals sound.
I decided to noodle around with 27-edo, 17-edo and the Carlos Gamma scale (in that order), nothing particularly inspired or serious, just having fun.


----------



## ixlramp

Good stuff, strangely beautiful.
EDIT first section intervals sound very weird but there seems to be a tonal consistency.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

it's really cool to hear new intervals, which doesn't only sound like thei're out of tune.


----------



## ixlramp

'Into the future' by Gregory Sanchez in 19EDO:
Into the Future by Gregory Sanchez 1 on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free


----------



## ixlramp

Asteroidi Esadecafonici (partially) live tuned to 16edo:


----------



## ixlramp




----------



## ixlramp

Taster of new material by Last Sacrament, 'Damnatio Memoriae' in 16 equal steps of pitch per octave: Last Sacrament - BandPage | Facebook


----------



## ixlramp

Figli Della Technologia by Asteroidi Esadecafonici, in 16 equal steps per octave.
Good grief this rocks 
Amazing and funny video.


----------



## Necris

Xaal by Phormlyss on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Messing around with organ sounds in a subset of 33-edo.
[12] - 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 2 to be exact.
The subset is not too different from 12, but it's just different enough to make a difference to my ears.

33 will likely be the next mod I do for a guitar as I've nearly finished my 27-edo mod for one of my guitars (not perfectly done, but okay for a first try) ,I just need to run some thinned CA glue through the slots and then bevel the edges of the frets.

Also, a bit of 24-edo black metal (not mine).
http://www.myspace.com/sealofgraphiel


----------



## TheOddGoat

Anthony said:


> ERG's are so overplayed now. I NEED a microtonal 7 string piezo equipped lo-pro Ibanez. How else am I going to make my progressive and original music stand out in this already over-saturated market of music? Good _*song*_writing? Get real.




Never!


----------



## ixlramp

Xaal is so atmospheric i like it (would make good black metal).

(I apologise for the huge image i posted in post 76, it takes too long to load, i'd remove it but its now uneditable  )


----------



## The Omega Cluster

At this point, you'd rather try a fretless guitar.


----------



## ixlramp

Another one from Asteroidi Esadecafonici, introducing 16EDO.


----------



## vampiregenocide

The Omega Cluster said:


> At this point, you'd rather try a fretless guitar.



Fretless instruments play and sound very different though. You might want extra range while keeping frets.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

vampiregenocide said:


> Fretless instruments play and sound very different though. You might want extra range while keeping frets.



How can extra range compensate for the presence of frets? With fretless, you have an infinite amount of micro-tones between each note, where extra fretted range will only give you more octaves of the same notes.


----------



## abandonist

I see Blut Aus Nord has already been brought up. 

That album MorT is seasickness inducing.


----------



## vampiregenocide

The Omega Cluster said:


> How can extra range compensate for the presence of frets? With fretless, you have an infinite amount of micro-tones between each note, where extra fretted range will only give you more octaves of the same notes.



Aye, but like I said, you might not like how fretless guitars feel or sound. I want a microtonal guitar for this reason. I wouldn't mind a fretless instrument for certain stuff, but for general playing they don't quite cut it for me.


----------



## pawel

The Omega Cluster said:


> How can extra range compensate for the presence of frets? With fretless, you have an infinite amount of micro-tones between each note, where extra fretted range will only give you more octaves of the same notes.



As mentioned above - a fretless will never sound like a fretted guitar. In addition, even on a lined board, playing consistently and "in tune" in anything beyond, say, quarter tones on a fretless is a pretty steep learning curve. Fretted boards will at least keep you in a consistent tuning system.


----------



## Necris

The Omega Cluster said:


> At this point, you'd rather try a fretless guitar.


I have two. 

Certain intervals like quarter tones (24-edo) and third tones (36-edo) etc are fairly easy to hear, and are consistently doable with some work on a fretless. At least when playing melodically, once you incorporate chords the learning curve gets extremely steep. 
The difference in interval size between 33 and 36 is less than 4 cents, and having already played around with and worked on 36 it is very likely that I would default to the 36-edo interval while trying to play 33 because the difference is so minute. I don't have superhuman hearing. My ear isn't bad, but it would require a lifetime of intense practice to easily sit down and play in just one of those temperaments on a fretless while incorporating chords that were actually in tune.

With training you can learn to hear, and also play and sing the intervals of 72-edo, which is something the boston microtonal society teaches, however the 17 cent intervals of 72 are only slightly smaller than a syntonic comma (~21 cents), which is the smallest interval that the untrained human ear can easily recognize. By comparison the difference in interval size between 33 and 36 is 3.364 cents, or slightly bigger than the smallest interval of 357-EDO.


----------



## abandonist

I've been thinking of getting a cheap knockaround guitar and doing a defret job on it for the Blut Aus Nord sound.

I've been thinking this for like 2 years. I'm easily distracted.


----------



## ixlramp

New material from Last Sacrament from the forthcoming new album Material Identity | Last Sacrament






Also this EP has been re-mixed and is downloadable Maniacal Meditations | Last Sacrament


----------



## Necris

Discontinuities | Jute Gyte

New music from Jute Gyte utilizing 24-edo guitars.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Also this just came out. Microtonal minimalist/experimental music on fretless bass.
&#39;DISCREPANTIUM&#39; - for 7-string bass (2013) | JP Thesseling


----------



## ixlramp

Necris said:


> New music from Jute Gyte utilizing 24-edo guitars.


Wow excellent use of 24EDO!


----------



## ixlramp

More new material from Last Sacrament in 16 tones per octave 
Enantiodromia | Last Sacrament


----------



## ixlramp

Asteroidi Esadecafonici have a cd release soon it seems ...


----------



## ixlramp

Tempostile by Asteroidi Esadecafonici.
16 tones per octave.

https://soundcloud.com/fff-fiale/tempostile


----------



## ixlramp

Discovered this album of Arabic / Indian influenced fretless guitar progressive metal, just the thing i've been searching for for years 
Bamba & Bissli | Ben Bad
Taboulle | Ben Bad
Humus Bang | Ben Bad


----------



## CD1221

^ that, my friend, is really excellent stuff. Thanks for the heads up.


----------



## ixlramp

So much good stuff being released at the moment.
Last Sacrament have 2 tracks up from a re recording of their EP and 3 tracks up from the album released soon:
Maniacal Meditations EP | Last Sacrament
Enantiodromia | Last Sacrament
What i'm liking about this is how natural the microtonal scales sound, although i admit i am somewhat microtonal-deaf, 16 tones per octave is highly consonant and can be subtly microtonal, also it shares 4 tones with 12ET: 0 300 600 900 cents, so has a semi-familiar feel to it, in 16ET each of those 3 semitone chunks is divided into 4 instead of 3.


----------



## ixlramp

Note the DIY 16 tone keyboard.
Acquamarina by ASTEROIDI ESADECAFONICI album release, zappaesque psychedelic metal in 16 tones per octave Acquamarina | Asteroidi Esadecafonici
Good track http://asteroidiesadecafonici.bandcamp.com/track/tecnologia


----------



## will_shred

Necris said:


> There aren't many microtonal metal bands, most metal musicians and musicians in general are too afraid to leave 12-edo.
> I'm working on microtonal stuff but I need to mod my guitars to the tunings I've come up with before I can record any of it.




well that's ....ing awesome.


----------



## will_shred

Imagine if Portal got some microtonal 8 strings... The beautiful chaos that would ensue would be glorious.


----------



## ixlramp

will shred, if you like Last Sacrament they have a new album out which is a huge improvement, they use 16 tone guitars with up to 9 strings, you can preview the 'Enantidromia' tracks here Enantiodromia | Last Sacrament
Mad track http://lastsacrament.bandcamp.com/track/emptiness-denial


----------



## ixlramp

I'm posting this album again because it's so awesome, in 24 tones per octave / quartertones.





Discontinuities | Jute Gyte


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Thanks guys, Last Sacrament-Enantiodromia and Jute Gyte-Discontinuities are some of my favourite microtonal albums these times, although I have quite the crush for Brendan Byrnes-Micropangaea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PYbIPaW_eg

Not metal, but gosh that's good!


----------



## ixlramp

Brendan Byrnes:
"Ever since I got my 22 EDO guitar (by Ron Sword) I've been working on a batch of songs in 22 to perform live with a band-hopefully sometime in the near future. This is the first one that I've finished and hope to crank out a bunch more in the next couple of months."
Brighter Sands | Brendan Byrnes

In other news LS are going in an interesting direction with more dissonant intervals:


----------



## VBCheeseGrater

Necris said:


> There aren't many microtonal metal bands, most metal musicians and musicians in general are too afraid to leave 12-edo.



...or just own regular guitars!


----------



## straymond

so VERY subbed so I can check out all the links when I get home from work


----------



## jonajon91

On a slightly related note, how ridiculously ....ing badass is this!


----------



## Basti

Great. I can barely cope with 12 notes. But seeing as I'm getting into Gorguts and Ulcerate this must be where I'm headed ;__;


----------



## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> Brendan Byrnes:
> "Ever since I got my 22 EDO guitar (by Ron Sword) I've been working on a batch of songs in 22 to perform live with a band-hopefully sometime in the near future. This is the first one that I've finished and hope to crank out a bunch more in the next couple of months."
> Brighter Sands | Brendan Byrnes
> 
> In other news LS are going in an interesting direction with more dissonant intervals:




Brendan, I really like Brighter Sands and am highly anticipating some new music from you! Also, I am looking forward to some new LS.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Basti said:


> Great. I can barely cope with 12 notes. But seeing as I'm getting into Gorguts and Ulcerate this must be where I'm headed ;__;



Wait... Ulcerate use microtones? Like quarter-tone or what?


----------



## ixlramp

The Omega Cluster said:


> Brendan, I really like Brighter Sands and am highly anticipating some new music from you! Also, I am looking forward to some new LS.


Perhaps i misunderstood but i am not Brendan


----------



## Basti

The Omega Cluster said:


> Wait... Ulcerate use microtones? Like quarter-tone or what?



Pardon, I meant they achieve a similar effect with regular guitars and that I would eventually progress to microtones from there. Not that I will, but it's all pretty interesting.


----------



## The Hiryuu

Wow. That Jute Gyte stuff is painful to listen to...in a bizarrely satisfying way.


----------



## ixlramp

Unsharp Mask
by uSSSy
Unsharp Mask | uSSSy
"experimental experimental instrumental mathrock noise rock noise-rock noiserock other psychedelic quarter-tone quarter-tones rock rock usssy &#1075;&#1086;&#1088;&#1086;&#1076; &#1052;&#1086;&#1089;&#1082;&#1074;&#1072;"

This kicks ass!


----------



## ixlramp

Someone playing along to Last Sacrament's sick riffs.
Ever seen a 41 tone per octave guitar? here's 2 ...


----------



## nicomortem

my microtonal songs got removed from youtube for being in violation of terms...whats that all about?


----------



## The Omega Cluster

maybe someone flagged them because they didn't know they belonged to YOU!?

Just a supposition.


----------



## Basti

^I like how one of those guitars has a Floyd Rose as well, just in case


----------



## nicomortem

The Omega Cluster said:


> maybe someone flagged them because they didn't know they belonged to YOU!?




See, I'm thinking it's just the opposite!


----------



## Nykur_Myrkvi

Last Sacrament have apparently planned ahead:

On the Possible Preserved Visual Consciousness in Blindsight | Last Sacrament

released 20 March 2014 


Beyond Reality | Last Sacrament

released 12 October 2015


----------



## Necris

Nykur_Myrkvi said:


> Last Sacrament have apparently planned ahead:
> 
> On the Possible Preserved Visual Consciousness in Blindsight | Last Sacrament
> 
> released 20 March 2014
> 
> 
> Beyond Reality | Last Sacrament
> 
> released 12 October 2015



They also just got a new drummer and are looking to play some live shows. I'd definitely go see them if I were down in Florida.


As for the pictures of the 41-EDO guitars, they're super cool, 41 is an really nice temperament if you can wrap your head around all of the notes. On the topic of guitars I'm still waiting on my 33, will post a pic when it comes in.


----------



## TheHandOfStone

Wow, the first one is one of the best album titles ever!


----------



## works0fheart

BucketheadRules said:


> Anyone remember this man?
> 
> Sadly, he's the furthest I've got with micro-tonal metal. I would be interested in hearing more, if there is any.
> 
> EDIT:
> 
> Actually, to be fair to the guy - I just found this on his Soundcloud and it's quite cool:
> 
> http://soundcloud.com/ron-sword/seven-string-16-tone-electric






Don Vito said:


> Came to post Ron Sword.
> 
> Ninja'd from a mile away.




It's bad that this is who I immediately thought of upon seeing the title of this thread...


----------



## sartorious

As stupid and superficial as it sounds, ^^this pic^^ is what I'm beginning to associate with microtonal metal. A guy and his guitar-penis. It can't be unseen. 

Also, I wish there were more slower paced microtonal metal/rock. Heck, I'd love to hear an old glam metal album redone in one of these scales.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

sartorious said:


> Also, I wish there were more slower paced microtonal metal/rock. Heck, I'd love to hear an old glam metal album redone in one of these scales.



Sir, it's my duty to introduce you to Brendan Byrnes' Micropangaea, if you don't know it yet.
Micropangaea | spectropolrecords

You will thank me.


----------



## sartorious

The Omega Cluster said:


> Sir, it's my duty to introduce you to Brendan Byrnes' Micropangaea, if you don't know it yet.
> Micropangaea | spectropolrecords
> 
> You will thank me.



Thanks! That's a different experience, and definitely worth it. The initial time through, "Fluorescent Desert" was the first track that made my ears perk up. "Fever Swimmer" was another highlight. Will go back for more.


----------



## guitarfan85

I don't understand microtonal metal. It seems that, in the first video, that the guy is playing these notes that are either slightly sharp or flat. Playing notes that are slightly out of tune with each other. Is that what's cool now? To not be perfectly in tune or to not play notes that compliment each other perfectly? Or am I missing something?


----------



## Necris

I assume you're referring to M.A.N? They're likely my least favorite band to go down this path, however as far as the bigger picture is concerned you definitely aren't "getting something". 

First of all, your idea of what is in tune is entirely relative to your experience in life hearing only music played in 12 EDO, maybe you've heard a piano in a 12 note well temperament at one point or another, but 12 edo has been centric to your listening for your entire life. Thus anything you hear that doesn't conform to what your ears have been conditioned to hear is perceived as out of tune/out of key whether or not they are actually "in tune" in the context of the EDO they're utilized in. 

12 is a very good temperament, however, it itself is not entirely "in tune" with the harmonic series. I doubt that has ever bothered you in your every day listening; and it may interest you to know that, for those who have an interest in tunings/intervals that conform more closely to the harmonic series a number of these higher edo's I.E.:41-edo are objectively more accurate than 12. 

For people like me who have an interest in exploring areas with little to no correlation to common practice music there are edos like 13,14,23,25 etc. and non-octave tunings which provide a new avenue to explore.


The idea is not to play "out of tune" or "intentionally dissonant" although dissonance has it's place in microtonal composition as it does in 12EDO and; I would argue, deserves to be explored.

However; the idea of these instruments, if you can say there is a single aim behind them, is to explore the new and previously unheard areas these new intervals reveal and provide access to: the new tonalities, new previously unheard chords/chord progressions, new scales/modes, new melodies, new higher limit harmonies.

If that doesn't interest you, or the music just doesn't mesh with your tastes though, that's cool.


----------



## jonajon91

I just thought about an interesting concept for a microtonal guitar mod where, instead of moving/installing new frets, you could perhaps move the bridge or wildly adjust the intonation. Obviously this would only work for a few specific EDOs, probably ones quite close to 12, but still. Could be interesting.


----------



## Necris

People have done it. The intervals change progressively as you move up the fretboard.


----------



## guitarfan85

Necris said:


> I assume you're referring to M.A.N? They're likely my least favorite band to go down this path, however as far as the bigger picture is concerned you definitely aren't "getting something".
> 
> First of all, your idea of what is in tune is entirely relative to your experience in life hearing only music played in 12 EDO, maybe you've heard a piano in a 12 note well temperament at one point or another, but 12 edo has been centric to your listening for your entire life. Thus anything you hear that doesn't conform to what your ears have been conditioned to hear is perceived as out of tune/out of key whether or not they are actually "in tune" in the context of the EDO they're utilized in.
> 
> 12 is a very good temperament, however, it itself is not entirely "in tune" with the harmonic series. I doubt that has ever bothered you in your every day listening; and it may interest you to know that, for those who have an interest in tunings/intervals that conform more closely to the harmonic series a number of these higher edo's I.E.:41-edo are objectively more accurate than 12.
> 
> For people like me who have an interest in exploring areas with little to no correlation to common practice music there are edos like 13,14,23,25 etc. and non-octave tunings which provide a new avenue to explore.
> 
> 
> The idea is not to play "out of tune" or "intentionally dissonant" although dissonance has it's place in microtonal composition as it does in 12EDO and; I would argue, deserves to be explored.
> 
> However; the idea of these instruments, if you can say there is a single aim behind them, is to explore the new and previously unheard areas these new intervals reveal and provide access to: the new tonalities, new previously unheard chords/chord progressions, new scales/modes, new melodies, new higher limit harmonies.
> 
> If that doesn't interest you, or the music just doesn't mesh with your tastes though, that's cool.



Its not that I'm not cool with it, and I knew someone was going to get philosophical and Tell me about my perception.....but I just think its somewhat trendy now that people are trying too hard to find something out of the 12 note realm with the intention of telling somebody else im being different. Now there will be hordes of people aiming to be different but in turn they will all be the same in their goal of claiming themselves different. Its called following a trend. Being different for the sake of being different. 

Now as long as you think these microtonal notes sound good to you, then that's cool. Just as long as you don't say that you like it, just for the sake of trying to be different. Because a lot of people do that you know...


----------



## Necris

I'd argue that conditioned perception is less in the realm of the philosophical than it is in the realm of objective fact when you take into consideration how many traditional musics of cultures other than ours sound so different from our own and yet it's mostly people from western cultures that reporting that "this music sounds noticeably different/off/weird/strange" etc. 
But, admittedly, that is an ongoing argument to begin with between people much more knowledgeable than me on both sides so it's almost pointless to argue further here.

Generally when I see a band or musician using microtonal instruments they mention the temperament, whatever it may be, more due to the interest of others, although there are, of course, exceptions. M.A.N, for instance did use the existence of their 24-edo instruments and music partially as a marketing gimmick.

However, I sincerely doubt many people are entering the realm of microtonality just so they can say they're being "different", genuine interest and enjoyment almost has to come first and foremost.

Based on my own experience, even with the internet and having gone to college for a time to pursue a degree in music, and thus being surrounded by musicians as a result, it still took me _years_ to find a group of people with a similar interest. Add to that the expense of obtaining or creating one of these instruments and the learning curve that comes with actually learning to play in these new temperaments combined with the general lack of information on some temperaments as opposed to others there is likely more than enough difficulty involved to turn away the average person who is only looking for a gimmick. 


For instance even 24-edo isn't nearly as well explored and researched as 12 and it's been actively experimented with by composers since the 1920s (possibly even earlier, can't remember), and it's just steps of 50 cents each as opposed to 12-edo's 100 cents each (thus you can play in 12 with a 24 instrument). Imagine how lost someone would be playing in instrument in a temperament without the 12-edo reference built in. 


Yet despite all of the (sometimes significant) difficulties that someone with an interest in this music faces there exists a whole community of people, both scholars and hobbyists from all over the world actively researching different temperaments and actually creating a musical theory for them, compiling scales and writing music in a multitude of new temperaments, creating notation systems to write with them, publishing research papers, creating newsletters. websites and online forums dedicated to this music, holding seminars at colleges, organizing microtonal music festivals writing computer programs that will allow them to play in them etc. etc.
I'd hardly call something like that a trend.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

If I wouldn't be so lazy, I'd put fret markers on my fretless bass to match some crazy temperaments and EDOs, and mess with them until I get a grasp on them.


----------



## ixlramp

2 live gigs in 24 and 16 EDO ...



http://usssy.bandcamp.com/



Acquamarina | Asteroidi Esadecafonici
TetraF has more psychedelic metal on his solo albums http://ffffiale.bandcamp.com/


----------



## ixlramp

Excellent 22 tone per octave demonstration video by Brendan Byrnes, music and intervals / chords, beautiful harmonies. Not exactly microtonal metal but of interest to those following this thread


----------



## Necris

Saw that video yesterday. It's a great example of how musical these temperaments can be.

On a side note, the second iteration of my 33-edo guitar is nearly ready, very excited about that.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

^please do a video demonstration.


----------



## 7stg

Not metal but I like the clasical piece Prelude #2 by Ivor Darreg in 19 edo.


----------



## ixlramp

The Omega Cluster said:


> If I wouldn't be so lazy, I'd put fret markers on my fretless bass to match some crazy temperaments and EDOs, and mess with them until I get a grasp on them.


You can get a good taste of 24EDO and just intonation intervals and chords (not so good for melody) using a normal instrument and this tuning:
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/music-theory-lessons-techniques/161530-retune-play-quartertone-scales-microtonal-beginners-guide.html

Here's my first conversion, a quartertone 8 string bass tuned at baritone pitch in fifths, unison courses ...


----------



## ixlramp

Indifferent Magma
Something not to my taste although impressive, sortakinda abrasive avant-garde contemporary classical / noise metal. Thought Necris might like dunno ...


----------



## pestilentdecay

New Jute Gyte: Vast Chains | Jute Gyte


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Oh yes! I already bought the new Jute Gyte, such an outstanding band and an incredible album!


----------



## ixlramp

Last Sacrament's 16EDO death metal Enantiodromia CD and cassette available for pre-order Enantiodromia | Last Sacrament


----------



## pestilentdecay

Hey guys, I did a guitar playthrough of a Mathcore/Death Metal song I wrote on my new 25edo guitar:


----------



## The Omega Cluster

^I like that!


----------



## InHiding

Basti said:


> ^I like how one of those guitars has a Floyd Rose as well, just in case



It's for dive bombs man.


----------



## John Strieder

Forgot to mention, that my project's INDIFFERENT MAGMA first release is out. Microtonal Mayhem ...

Bandcamp-Link: Indifferent Magma


----------



## The Omega Cluster

John Strieder said:


> Forgot to mention, that my project's INDIFFERENT MAGMA first release is out. Microtonal Mayhem ...
> 
> Bandcamp-Link: Indifferent Magma



I love this! (I just can't afford it right now )


----------



## nicomortem

pestilentdecay said:


> Hey guys, I did a guitar playthrough of a Mathcore/Death Metal song I wrote on my new 25edo guitar:
> 
> 
> So, where/how did you end up getting this guitar?


----------



## ixlramp

Not particularly metal, but Brendan Byrnes has released some demos of music he will be performing live with his 22ET band, excellent stuff Demos _ 22 EDO | Brendan Byrnes


----------



## InHiding

ixlramp said:


> Not particularly metal, but Brendan Byrnes has released some demos of music he will be performing live with his 22ET band, excellent stuff Demos _ 22 EDO | Brendan Byrnes



That's really interesting music. It's like another world. There were some nice things there but it's probably hard to write music that way when you are used to standard scales. This is a band that I plan on following.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> Not particularly metal, but Brendan Byrnes has released some demos of music he will be performing live with his 22ET band, excellent stuff Demos _ 22 EDO | Brendan Byrnes



I followed this guy for some time, he's genius!


----------



## ixlramp

Chilean Ian Schmelzer has this interesting video mix of varous types of guitar music (including hair metal) in 14ET, often considered to be a strange and difficult tuning. Good stuff i hope he releases full tracks sometime. LOL 'transgenic metal for future generations', 'this guitar is open source'.


Also, can't resist posting this one by Mark Allan Barnes again. Cheap DIY guitar and bass with exchangeable microtonal necks, here in 14ET.


----------



## Necris

14 seems unloved. I was going to mod a guitar to it, went for 27 instead. Someday I'll go back and do 14 (would certainly be less work as far as fretting is concerned).


----------



## ixlramp

13ET metal from Cryptic Ruse, formally City of the Asleep.
https://soundcloud.com/crypticruse/the-oncoming-swarm
"Rough mix of first track written for forthcoming ALBUM, entitled "Chains of Smoke". In 13edo. Consider this a "teaser" for the album, due out June 2014!"


----------



## nicomortem




----------



## The Omega Cluster

How do you even know where you are in the high frets haha. Amazing.


----------



## ixlramp

Rock gamelan with 7ET guitars and bass, close up of carved body guitar at 2:55.



nicomortem, that sounds good, very interesting, and yes the use of the high frets is impressive


----------



## Necris

Not metal.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I love uSSSy! Also, I'm pretty stoked on the new mathrock/metal album from Cryptic Ruse! If you don't know em. Cryptic Ruse


----------



## coreysMonster

Man, browsing through this thread, most microtonal metal sounds like complete, utter garbage. You can definitely tell the people who really get it and understand that kind of music from the people who do it just because it's different and weird.


----------



## Science_Penguin

coreysMonster said:


> Man, browsing through this thread, most microtonal metal sounds like complete, utter garbage. You can definitely tell the people who really get it and understand that kind of music from the people who do it just because it's different and weird.



Yeah, I pretty much don't like any of what I'm hearing on this thread at all, but it's pretty easy to tell the difference between people who really want to experiment with this interesting concept and make unique sounds vs people who are just "Avant Garde." And I'm the sort that finds Avant Garde to be, quite literally, the artistic equivalent of a joke.

Setup- "Hey, check out this MUSIC I just found"
Punchline- [Insert song by The Residents here]


----------



## Necris

I love The Residents, though. But yeah, this will always be a niche concept to begin with, and many people will simply use it as a gimmick. M.A.N for example used it as a marketing tool for their shitty Korn riffs "The first ever 24-edo metal band" or something was a press release they put out. To make matters worse the whole microtonal music "community" seems to have a fetish for throwing out half baked, poorly thought out ideas as "pieces". But there will be a few people are seriously interested in the concept quietly working on worthwhile music on the side.

I'll support those who I feel are putting out worthwhile music.


----------



## Wings of Obsidian

I literally was just looking up a thread on here for a microtonal guitar....and suddenly I check back ten minutes later and find that someone has bumped this thread.

<.< ...it's a sign!!!


----------



## Science_Penguin

Necris said:


> I love The Residents, though. But yeah, this will always be a niche concept to begin with, and many people will simply use it as a gimmick. M.A.N for example used it as a marketing tool for their shitty Korn riffs "The first ever 24-edo metal band" or something was a press release they put out. To make matters worse the whole microtonal music "community" seems to have a fetish for throwing out half baked, poorly thought out ideas as "pieces". But there will be a few people are seriously interested in the concept quietly working on worthwhile music on the side.
> 
> I'll support those who I feel are putting out worthwhile music.



I certainly love making my friends listen to The Residents. I wasn't kidding when I said I considered it to be a joke... it's just a joke that usually only makes _me_ laugh... at how much my friends want to punch me...

I agree with you about M.A.N. though. All I heard in that video was generic Brvvtal Metal with the very occasional use of those extra tones... And even when they DID use them, it was just descending down a scale. It was as if they needed to fill their quota of actually making use of the 24-edo but didn't know how else to do it.

Who knows, maybe I'll hear someone down the line who'll make use of microtones in a way that I like... Now that I think about it, that Nico guy's clean passages sounded pretty alright, I think the distorted part was what threw me...


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Microtonal artists I actually DO like, or I am eager to hear more from them
-Brendan Byrnes : Micropangaea
-and his new 22EDO band : Demos _ 22 EDO | Brendan Byrnes
-Pestilent Decay's new stuff : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYcZ5Nhvsts
-Jute Gyte : Vast Chains | Jute Gyte
-Cryptic Ruse's new stuff will probably be awesome
-uSSSy : uSSSy


----------



## jonajon91

There was something along the lines of 'last sacrament' on one of the earlier pages that I dug as well.


----------



## ixlramp

'The Moors': subtle just intonation 90's darkwave / trance rock, fretless ERG and female vocals. Excellent, subtly exotic and not overly self-conciously microtonal.



Quoting guitarist Scott Dakota's posts in facebook xenharmonic alliance 2 group:

"Greetings, Xen cartographers and explorers - I'm new-ish on this group but not new to Xen music making. A hello and well-met to share - I was half of the overtly non-12tet trance rock duo The Moors, out of Boston in the 90's. By the final version of the band, the music was framed around wide-range fretless guitar with loose 72edo assisted thinking to do organic just intonation along with open pitch-continuum expression. The songs were all arranged around live looping to build the layers and textures, and no keyboards, synths, or basses were used. Everything here is fretless guitar, tuned drum machine, and vocals. The only thing missing in the live versions were the vocal harmonies, and the performance energy more than made up for that. The pagan/goth aspects of that band were much more vivid for the audience to get a handle on than the microtonal aspects, so the press and PR was usually about the spiritual and darkwave elements. But it is interesting to note that a non-12tet band sold albums pretty well by indie standards, had international distribution and a cult fan base, and most people didn't notice it wasn't 12tet. They just liked the feel of it. --- Side note: in this video, the stage shots are me and the singer, the woods shots are two actors. --- Anyway, this isn't angular crazy bleeding edge Xen, but it is a very focused Xen for this context. Hope you enjoy, thank you!"

"Mostly 5 limit with various modes and lambdoma/diamond things polysuperimposed. There are some moments in the solos that use 7/4 and 7/6 briefly for that blunt color, but are ornamental, not structural. On those fretlesses I use everything up through 13 often enough, but The Moors material stayed somewhat coordinated with the singer's woodwinds and flutes, which could only be bent so far."

"What functions as bass is the low range of the "wide range fretless guitar", which covers bass through guitar range. It's tuned low to high starting from Eb a half step below bass guitar low E, up in open 5ths. Eb Bb F C G D. The idea being, with careful part writing and some looping assist, I can cover most of the octaves needed for rock orchestration."


----------



## All_¥our_Bass

Not metal, but dig up sevish on youtube or facebook:

A Bohlen&#8211;Pierce piece


22edo






15edo


Easley Blackwood


9edo
Ivor Darreg


19edo


16edo


24edo


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Sevish makes awesome music! Dammit I forgot to mention it in the list of microtonal artists I dig!  Sry.


----------



## FormerlyVintage

I came here to post Ron Sword. He's already been posted, but I don't care.

Ron Sword.


----------



## All_¥our_Bass

Bohlen-Pierce


----------



## lucasreis

I've been plaing guitar and several other stringed instruments since 1991 and somehow I came to this thread and I felt really ignorant. I didn't even know the concept of microtonal music before reading about it on the forum. I feel so dumb, but at the same time I think it's really interesting to read about this. Not something I would try to use in my compositions but the concept is really interesting.


----------



## ixlramp

For the fans of Cryptic Ruse / Igliashon Jones, he is re-releasing his microtonal albums as free downloads. The 'Transfinity' album uses a 23ET guitar on some tracks Gecko Rock | City of the Asleep


----------



## BEADGBE7

Damn, this thread is awesome. 

anybody post this yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYK_PF9WTRE

I really want one


----------



## The Omega Cluster

BEADGBE7 said:


> Damn, this thread is awesome.
> 
> anybody post this yet?
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYK_PF9WTRE
> 
> I really want one



I did notice something weird with the fretboard at first (other than the discontinuous frets), but when he explained you can move, add and remove frets, my jaw dropped. This is amazing! Please, please do an electric one! And bass guitars!


----------



## BEADGBE7

here's surprisingly beatiful piece by fretless guitarist Sinan Cem Ero&#287;lu and microtonal guitarist Tolgaha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT0z2nOyUlg


----------



## Veldar

This thread just gives me GAS for a fretless bass.


----------



## ixlramp

Secret Chiefs 3, electric saz and bass fretted for Arabic type scales.


----------



## Necris

A poorly taken photo of my microtonal guitar.  I've been writing music on it, but nothing yet that I feel is worth sharing. 
I'm still getting my bearings, in addition to completely changing the temperament I completely changed how I tune my guitar so everything familiar is more or less gone.  The only remaining notes I have that correspond to a normal guitar form an Augmented Chord.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Necris said:


> A poorly taken photo of my microtonal guitar.  I've been writing music on it, but nothing yet that I feel is worth sharing.
> I'm still getting my bearings, in addition to completely changing the temperament I completely changed how I tune my guitar so everything familiar is more or less gone.  The only remaining notes I have that correspond to a normal guitar form an Augmented Chord.



What EDO is this?


----------



## Peculate

1. I am SO. HAPPY. this thread is still going. 

2. The Omega Cluster and I have a solo project, XYAX, and our next album is going to have a lot of microtonal tech metal! (I still have to finish producing the first one though, haha :x) Fortunately, using MIDI instruments, making microtonal metal is much easier.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Peculate said:


> 1. I am SO. HAPPY. this thread is still going.
> 
> 2. The Omega Cluster and I have a solo project, XYAX, and our next album is going to have a lot of microtonal tech metal! (I still have to finish producing the first one though, haha :x) Fortunately, using MIDI instruments, making microtonal metal is much easier.



I am also really happy that it gets refreshed from time to time with microtonal news! Also, I still need to write actual music for the new album, I'm not seeing myself having time for this pretty soon, but I can't wait, I'll have help with xenharmonic stuff from the _Cryptic Ruse_ guy. He's pretty deep into microtonal stuff, and I could get some help, really!


----------



## ixlramp

Ian Schmelzer has joined the microtonal guitarist group at Facebook and the xenguitarist.com forum, and has 3 videos on Youtube. 14ET has a reputation for being 'difficult' but he has found some scales that really work in an exotic way. There's some heavier stuff in his 3rd video but start here, a good straightforward presentation:


----------



## ixlramp

Rob Fielding has just received his quartertone guitar conversion, 24 frets per octave contains the normal tones of our 12ET system:


----------



## ixlramp

I usually prefer the sound of Just Intonation to the various Equal Temperaments, more natural and subtle, although of course on a guitar it limits the transposing of scales into any key. Here's a beautiful example, music starts at 1 minute if you want to skip the photo and explanation text.


----------



## pestilentdecay

Hey guys, here's a humorous take I did on the whole pop punk/blink 182 style. I recorded two guitar tracks with my 25edo guitar, and basically each guitar track is tuned about a quarter step away from each other. Purposely dissonant sounding 

[sc]https://soundcloud.com/pestilent-decay-metal/pop-punk-wdissonance-and-microtonality[/sc]


----------



## ixlramp

Third album of amazing quartertone black metal from Jute Gyte:
http://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/track/oh-soft-embalmer-of-the-still-midnight


----------



## Necris

When I first got my microtonal guitar a couple months ago I kept but kept bullshitting 1 minute metal clips in the middle of the night but the problem was that I rarely wrote anything out, so once I forgot how to play it it was gone.

These are two of those:
[SC]https://soundcloud.com/phormlyss/witches-dance[/SC]
[SC]https://soundcloud.com/phormlyss/verigated-wisps[/SC]

Yes, I reverted to tremolo picking just to give myself time to think while I played when I was first getting used to playing it, even the biggest frets are almost smaller than my pinky. So enjoy the blast beats and crappy mix.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

That could be good! Make an album out of this kind of stuff!


----------



## pestilentdecay

Necris said:


> When I first got my microtonal guitar a couple months ago I kept but kept bullshitting 1 minute metal clips in the middle of the night but the problem was that I rarely wrote anything out, so once I forgot how to play it it was gone.
> 
> These are two of those:
> [SC]https://soundcloud.com/phormlyss/witches-dance[/SC]
> [SC]https://soundcloud.com/phormlyss/verigated-wisps[/SC]
> 
> Yes, I reverted to tremolo picking just to give myself time to think while I played when I was first getting used to playing it, even the biggest frets are almost smaller than my pinky. So enjoy the blast beats and crappy mix.



Awesome stuff man, really cool atmosphere.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Necris said:


> A poorly taken photo of my microtonal guitar.  I've been writing music on it, but *nothing yet that I feel is worth sharing*.
> I'm still getting my bearings, in addition to completely changing the temperament I completely changed how I tune my guitar so everything familiar is more or less gone.  The only remaining notes I have that correspond to a normal guitar form an Augmented Chord.



Things change...


----------



## Necris

I posted that picture the day after I got it, haha. After a couple weeks I finally had at least enough of a grasp of the thing that I didn't hate _everything_ I was coming up with. 

I'm still not quite at the point where I've written anything that I'd actually come up with a project name for, draw up a logo/art for and throw on bandcamp for download though.


----------



## ixlramp

Just released ... Cryptic Ruse 'Chains of Smoke', metal album with 13, 15, 23ET guitars https://cryptic-ruse.bandcamp.com/album/chains-of-smoke


----------



## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> Just released ... Cryptic Ruse 'Chains of Smoke', metal album with 13, 15, 23ET guitars https://cryptic-ruse.bandcamp.com/album/chains-of-smoke



I've waited so long for this album to come out! I didn't know it already did! Thanks for putting it here, I'm listening to that right now!


----------



## ixlramp

Necris, your tracks are excellent, some of the best microtonal metal i've heard.



"Microtonal band "fasat 14", testing musical technology developed in year 2006, after 8 years pause."

Unrelated, this 16EDO bass is gorgeous:


----------



## Defi

This may be a missing link in my perception of music. Where can I get one of these to start fu_c_king around with


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I'd say start with Brendan Byrnes' Micropangaea. It's the most easy-listening one in my opinion, that album is just so good! Use his website, he gives plenty of explanation on each song!

Micropangaea


----------



## Defi

Easy listening? Pff. I've always been totally drawn to the stuff in music that sounds like it doesn't belong even though it belongs and this seems to be... the epitome of that to me. Very inspiring. Just when all music is beginning to sound the same this might be a bit of something that has me thirsty again.

I mean I want a guitar though... but hell if I know what EDO (killer, new term I don't know) to get? I don't have any experience with eastern music or scales, I pretty much just want to get a guitar and make noise with it and see what happens. which is basically how i approach a conventional guitar anyway.

Shit there's an SG on ebay right now
Gibson SG 20 Tone Microtonal Guitar One of A Kind | eBay
And I was planning to get an SG for my next guitar anyway!

Alternatively I have a good tech that could modify one of my current guitars, but it would probably end up as much as that SG costs already.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

that's cool! Here's some guitar stuff just from the top of my head

https://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/

https://cryptic-ruse.bandcamp.com/

https://usssy.bandcamp.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYcZ5Nhvsts

https://lastsacrament.bandcamp.com/


----------



## pestilentdecay

Defi said:


> Easy listening? Pff. I've always been totally drawn to the stuff in music that sounds like it doesn't belong even though it belongs and this seems to be... the epitome of that to me. Very inspiring. Just when all music is beginning to sound the same this might be a bit of something that has me thirsty again.
> 
> I mean I want a guitar though... but hell if I know what EDO (killer, new term I don't know) to get? I don't have any experience with eastern music or scales, I pretty much just want to get a guitar and make noise with it and see what happens. which is basically how i approach a conventional guitar anyway.
> 
> Shit there's an SG on ebay right now
> Gibson SG 20 Tone Microtonal Guitar One of A Kind | eBay
> And I was planning to get an SG for my next guitar anyway!
> 
> Alternatively I have a good tech that could modify one of my current guitars, but it would probably end up as much as that SG costs already.



I know the guy who's selling that, he actually sold me his 25edo guitar. You can see a video of it in the post Omega Cluster just made (the only youtube link he posted)


----------



## Defi

pestilentdecay said:


> I know the guy who's selling that, he actually sold me his 25edo guitar. You can see a video of it in the post Omega Cluster just made (the only youtube link he posted)


I suppose there's no way to really know without trying? I could listen to some compositions in various EDOs, but would it make any sense without an experienced ear anyway?

I will have to sleep on this.


----------



## Necris

If it interests you jump in, it can't hurt.* 
You'll have to deal with a learning curve as your brain learns to hear what you're playing as something other than simply "12 out of tune", though. 
In 20 you'll have the familiar minor third interval identical to what you find in 12. The intervals are 60 cents. You would have access to Blackwood, Diminished, Mavila, Pelogic and even a weird version of 12-edo chromatic, among other scales/modes.


For a while I was making music with a bass tuned so that some of the strings were quarter tones sharp or flat, then I removed the frets from a guitar and played fretless for a few months, never wrote any music with it but it was a ton of fun.

You'll have to deal with a learning curve as your brain learns to hear what you're playing as something other than simply "12 out of tune) though.

Right now I'm thinking about having a bass done to match my microtonal guitar. I know it won't be cheap, but I have a candidate in mind for the job (Ibanez SR885LE)

*The cost of paying someone to refret a guitar to a new temperament will hurt your wallet for sure, though but it's a necessary evil if you aren't willing to do it yourself. I had a go a couple years ago at it with almost passable results.


----------



## pestilentdecay

Defi said:


> I suppose there's no way to really know without trying? I could listen to some compositions in various EDOs, but would it make any sense without an experienced ear anyway?
> 
> I will have to sleep on this.



As Necris said, you can just jump in and try. And I kinda agree with that it's a little difficult to discriminate between the different EDOs if you don't have an experienced ear, but obviously it's still weird and fun to listen to. But I'd definitely say it's a really different experience having the instrument in your hands as opposed to just listening to microtonal compositions, and I'm sure you'd still get some fun out of the instrument when you start screwing around with it, regardless if you're heavily into microtonal theory or not.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I have a fretless bass and I put vinyl fret markers in 22EDO on it... Let's just say I'm glad they weren't real frets, but it was really fun to play with it!


----------



## Defi

Necris said:


> If it interests you jump in, it can't hurt.



Ya this is more or less the conclusion I've come to. A few more shots of vodka and I'll probably pull the trigger on mr. 20edo sg.

Learning curve is exactly what excites me. So it begins.

I don't want to listen to other microtonal metal before getting accustomed to it myself a bit (but yet... I really do), I've heard enough to know I'm interested. There is so little of it it seems I would like to not know how it's being used haha.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Defi said:


> Ya this is more or less the conclusion I've come to. A few more shots of vodka and I'll probably pull the trigger on mr. 20edo sg.
> 
> Learning curve is exactly what excites me. So it begins.
> 
> I don't want to listen to other microtonal metal before getting accustomed to it myself a bit (but yet... I really do), I've heard enough to know I'm interested. There is so little of it it seems I would like to not know how it's being used haha.



The problem is that every tuning needs to get accustomed to.


----------



## ixlramp

Defi said:


> I suppose there's no way to really know without trying? I could listen to some compositions in various EDOs, but would it make any sense without an experienced ear anyway?


Nah you don't need an experienced ear, just listen to many different EDOs and see if one inspires you.
Lots of xen guitar stuff here Xenharmonic Guitarist - Index (i am admin), and if you do Facebook:
Microtonal guitarist https://www.facebook.com/groups/110164742335730/
Xenharmonic alliance (unbearable theory talk but links to music) https://www.facebook.com/groups/xenharmonic2/
You can get a very good taste of 24EDO using a standard guitar in this fairly usable quartertone open tuning http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/music-theory-lessons-techniques/161530-retune-play-quartertone-scales-microtonal-beginners-guide.html good for chords but awkward for melody.
Then there is 'just intonation'/natural intonation, an infinite system of unequally spaced pitches, very natural sound but limited modulation and a difficult fret job:


----------



## ixlramp

...Written in the Sea&#39;s Waves | Extinct
Demo of a spin-off project from Last Sacrament in 22EDO.


----------



## Defi

I went ahead and bought the 20EDO SG! So there we go, what's done is done. 

The fu_c_king last thing I need is an excuse to own more guitars and if I get along with this idea well enough I'm afraid my life is gonna become a game of EDOmon.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Defi said:


> I went ahead and bought the 20EDO SG! So there we go, what's done is done.
> 
> The fu_c_king last thing I need is an excuse to own more guitars and if I get along with this idea well enough I'm afraid my life is gonna become a game of EDOmon.



Keep us updated with the music you make with that G!


----------



## Necris

Defi said:


> I went ahead and bought the 20EDO SG! So there we go, what's done is done.
> 
> The fu_c_king last thing I need is an excuse to own more guitars and if I get along with this idea well enough I'm afraid my life is gonna become a game of EDOmon.



I'd recommend focusing on one (or two if you must) and learning it inside and out, learning to use a single alternate tuning as effortlessly as another player may use 12 is probably a lifetime of work as it is. 
With very few exceptions the people who jump back and forth between temperaments tend to just put out utter garbage in a variety of tunings and never really improve due to the fact that they're not spending any time really getting to know the tuning like they almost certainly did with 12. What you end up with from said people is generally a few improvised pieces and _maybe_ an actual piece that was written out before then they move on to the next tuning and the process begins again.


----------



## Defi

Ya I hear ya. What I like about it is how varied it becomes. If every artist only has one or two EDOs they are comfortable with the lack overlap would keep things so fresh. I think inspiration benefits immensely from passing through a few inimitable filters, and perhaps true inspiration necessarily does so. 

I am not the first or last to have to scrap riff after riff upon the "shit, it's been done" clause


----------



## jonajon91

I know Ron Sword is a sore topic around these parts, but this song is and always will be killer.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

jonajon91 said:


> I know Ron Sword is a sore topic around these parts, but this song is and always will be killer.




He writes pretty good stuff,but the production is just really bad. It might be a matter of tastes, but they're not to mine. Still have bought that album.


----------



## Defi

I got my guitar a few days ago. Refretted by Ron Sword, and I must say the fretwork and fretboard is the worst I've seen on any guitar. Horribly sharp fret ends, fret slots cut way too deep, inconsistent glue, the fretboard seam is misaligned on both sides the entire length of the neck.

Despite this I don't really notice anything while playing, and I think my tech will be able to right the wrongs. But kinda disappointing. Anyway, should work well enough to test the waters.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Defi said:


> I got my guitar a few days ago. Refretted by Ron Sword, and I must say the fretwork and fretboard is the worst I've seen on any guitar. Horribly sharp fret ends, fret slots cut way too deep, inconsistent glue, the fretboard seam is misaligned on both sides the entire length of the neck.
> 
> Despite this I don't really notice anything while playing, and I think my tech will be able to right the wrongs. But kinda disappointing. Anyway, should work well enough to test the waters.



Sorry to hear that, man. Sword's got quite the [bad] reputation. Mainly because of this guy (to me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNYhigb6aS4

The production is horrible but the lyrics are hilarious!


----------



## ixlramp

Here's a link for Last Sacrament fans only =) Last Sacrament

Defi, your SG was owned by the Cryptic Ruse guy then Zach, so it's a very early Sword conversion, their more recent customers seem happy.
Found an interesting 20 EDO Pianoteq piece http://chrisvaisvil.com/a-paradigm-shift-20-edo/


----------



## Defi

Interesting. Unfortunately the options for microtonal guitars are quite slim.

In any case I think I will be selling it shortly and am a bit bummed out because I don't feel right asking what I paid for it. I must liquidate some assets but ideally I would rather get a 24edo 7 string. I feel it would be a more natural adjustment and would get plenty crazy enough for me, and also I could sell my 7 string.


----------



## ixlramp

Yes 24ET is an excellent choice since it has many beautiful exotic Arabic flavoured intervals, many of which are within 4 cents of Just Intonation so work well with distortion, and many are fairly consonant: 1.5 3.5 5.5 6.5 8.5 and 10.5 semitones (neutral 2nd, neutral 3rd, superfourth, subfifth, neutral 6th, neutral 7th). I will be posting more 24ET theory in this forum.
I recommend a baritone for fret spacing issues, also a longer scale means an easier and more precise job for the converter (i only convert basses). More strings is useful because you will be playing more across than up due to how close the frets are, so it's a good idea to have the top string tuned as high as possible.
If you're on facebook try these groups, someone may be interested in buying a 20ET guitar:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/xenharmonic2/
Microtonal guitarist https://www.facebook.com/groups/110164742335730/


----------



## ixlramp

Short taster of Brendan Byrnes' live project in 22ET.


----------



## ixlramp

"Stephen James Taylor performs at Kulak's Woodshed in North Hollywood, CA December 2014. Performed on a custom made 31 tone per octave baritone guitar made by Halo Guitars."
home page

Unrelated Home


----------



## jonajon91

This is fantastic!


----------



## octatoan

Jute Gyte scares me a little.


----------



## Aion

I suppose I should mention, my composition teacher was Kyle Gann. He's a huge proponent of just intention (helpful information from his website: Just Intonation Explained). He's honestly one of the most wonderful men on the planet, as a composer and critic his ego is nearly zilch, and as a teacher his dedication to students is and admirable example of everything musical pedagogy should be.

All of that... brown nosing (for lack of a better term) aside, I just want to say that anyone who is interested in just intonation, feel free to message me with any questions you might have and if I think it's something that Kyle might have an answer for, I'll send him an E-mail. I cannot promise that he'll respond, but he's really an awesome dude, just intonation is one of his passions, and I do know that he wishes more people would look at it and study it seriously. So like I said, no promises, but I'm happy to help make a connection for anyone who is interested.


----------



## octatoan

I know that guy (his website, at least!) . . . what school was it, if I may ask?


----------



## Aion

octatoan said:


> I know that guy (his website, at least!) . . . what school was it, if I may ask?



Bard College in Upstate NY.


----------



## ixlramp




----------



## The Omega Cluster

I saw that earlier today, didn't know he was into microtonal stuff. He's a very perplexing character, this guy. Very, very peculiar in every way.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

For those of you interested, I'm explaining all that I can about my own microtonal project here.


----------



## bostjan

I've got a few 19-EDO and 24-EDO songs floating around with my project "Quiet, Please."

I heard an awesome shred song in 17-EDO a while back, but it's downloaded on a computer that stopped working years ago and now I can't remember the name of the artist. 

I've been a fan of Neil Haverstick ("Stickman") for years. He's not metal, but he has some stuff that borders on hard rock, along with his more straight-up stuff and folkier stuff.

I'd love to find another musician who likes 19-EDO and metal enough to get together and jam, but that's like saying I'd like to find a pet carrier pidgeon.


----------



## ixlramp

Posting this because it's been a while since he used his quartertone fretted bass, also it's a good example of how 24ET can work with 12ET.



Also i love this this crazy video.

Aion, Kyle Gann's site Just Intonation Explained was my starting point for studying Just Intonation in 2008. It also has a good explanation of the evolution of European tuning from Just Intonation, passing through Meantone and Well Temperament (one of True Temperament's systems) to today's Equal Temperament.
I can also answer questions about JI, i studied that more than all these confusing 'temperaments' obsessed over by microtonal theorists. JI is the absolute foundation, understanding it will explain what harmony actually is, why we have 12 notes per octave, why the root-fifth power chord is used so much with distortion and why the third was left out of it, why the major triad is so fundamental in our music and what it's true structure is. I'm not sure if JI is taught in music academia, probably not much, but it should be.

bostjan, the only metal i can think of in 17ET is Gregory Sanchez, although it's more straightforward heavy rock https://soundcloud.com/gregory-sanchez-2/last-of-lines


----------



## ixlramp

Brendan Byrnes live microtonal act '11ins' has a gig this coming Saturday.

11ins_ Pi Day @ Pieter Space!

14 March at 19:3023:45 in PDT
Pieter Performance Space
420 West Ave 33, Unit 10, Los Angeles, California 90031

We're thrilled to be playing our first show under the spell of Kerstin Hovland and Emery Martin's visual sorcery and sharing the bill with our freakishly talented friends in Deyrdier, Katie Stewing Rubber, and Georgia Bell & Max Gualtierri. According to Pi, this is a good night for us to play, so we hope you can join us.

Music will stop at 11pm, but we'll be sticking around afterward to celebrate.

$5 suggested donation and it's BYOB.

https://www.facebook.com/events/874563482565130/
https://www.facebook.com/11ins

Short taster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6CK9cKi_0k


----------



## ixlramp

Taster of some 24ET stuff by Aaron Brooks https://aaronbrooks.bandcamp.com/track/photonic-ritual


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## ixlramp

New track by 11ins, Brendan Byrnes' live guitar project https://11ins.bandcamp.com/track/tyfen

The guys at Metatonal Music made a 34" scale 7 string baritone guitar with 46 frets per octave as a crazy experiment https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/8961_10204697467489576_8230141815087128314_n.jpg?oh=f91b123066c3652dfc9b1a658c29d7d7&oe=557F8004&__gda__=1434947816_0d1700bf0e7491f22f7607a62a9f2224


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## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> New track by 11ins, Brendan Byrnes' live guitar project http://https://11ins.bandcamp.com/track/tyfen
> 
> The guys at Metatonal Music made a 34" scale 7 string baritone guitar with 46 frets per octave as a crazy experiment https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/8961_10204697467489576_8230141815087128314_n.jpg?oh=f91b123066c3652dfc9b1a658c29d7d7&oe=557F8004&__gda__=1434947816_0d1700bf0e7491f22f7607a62a9f2224



Yes, 11ins are amazing, if you want more from them there's the 22EDO Demos on Brendan's bandcamp page. 

Also, will these 46 edo guys make some music with this beast?


----------



## bostjan

ixlramp said:


> bostjan, the only metal i can think of in 17ET is Gregory Sanchez, although it's more straightforward heavy rock https://soundcloud.com/gregory-sanchez-2/last-of-lines



That's not it. The guitar solo in that one is pretty nice, though. I'm not so sure the rest of the song really speaks to me. 

The shreddy song I found years ago, I don't know if I'll ever find it again. It was two guys, IIRC. After my computer crapped out on me, I tried to find it again and there seemed to be neither hide nor hair of it on the internet. I will say that it was the first microtonal metal recording I had ever come across, so I'm thinking that it must have been done around 2005 or before.

Most of the other microtonal stuff I had in my library was either rocky/folky (Neil Haverstick), punky/poppy (John Starrett), piano (Paul Erlich), or ambient (pretty much everything else). One would think I would remember the name of the artist that did something more along the lines of what I normally listen to.


----------



## jonajon91

I've personally never strayed far away from from 12 or 24-EDO, but Wyschnegradsky is one of my heros, i'm actually writing an essay on him and his 24 preludes for quarter tone piano right now.


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## bostjan

I think 19 is the next logical step after 12 to get a taste. The notation is the same as we are used to in the West, and all of the strong intervals are represented. The circle of fifths in 19 also covers all 19 keys. It's not a crazy amount of tones, and it sounds "normal" (read like 12) unless you do some wacky modulation or try to push through a pile of transitionary semitones to get to a resolution.

24 is a pretty old system in Eastern music. There are some beautiful intervals there, but all have a middle eastern flavour to my ears. I think it's a great tuning system on its own, but I think that 19 is a better transition out of 12. Not that 12 is bad, either, it's just that it's the default tuning on guitar.

I'd like to see someone work backwards and get a well temperament out of a 19 tone system.


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## The Omega Cluster

jonajon91 said:


> I've personally never strayed far away from from 12 or 24-EDO, but Wyschnegradsky is one of my heros, i'm actually writing an essay on him and his 24 preludes for quarter tone piano right now.



Will you let us read it when it's done?


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## ixlramp

Talking of 19ET, i just have to post Zia and the geek goddess Elaine Walker. 19ET is good for pop and these videos were an excellent introduction to microtonal stuff for me.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> Talking of 19ET, i just have to post Zia and the geek goddess Elaine Walker. 19ET is good for pop and these videos were an excellent introduction to microtonal stuff for me.




Thanks for that! Just bought her most recent album. It's supposedly part of a space opera which gets me all sorts of thrilled!


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## jonajon91

The Omega Cluster said:


> Will you let us read it when it's done?



If it turns out any good, i's a uni thing and it's more a test of how well we can gather other peoples research I think so if you know anything about Wyschnegradsky it will not be worth reading really. I don't know i'm only a few hundred words into it to be honest.



bostjan said:


> 24 is a pretty old system in Eastern music. There are some beautiful intervals there, but all have a middle eastern flavour to my ears.



Generally curious, does this sound eastern to you?


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## Mprinsje

jonajon91 said:


> If it turns out any good, i's a uni thing and it's more a test of how well we can gather other peoples research I think so if you know anything about Wyschnegradsky it will not be worth reading really. I don't know i'm only a few hundred words into it to be honest.
> 
> 
> 
> Generally curious, does this sound eastern to you?




TBH, that just sounds extremely out of tune to me


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## The Omega Cluster

The Wyschnegradsky video is amazing and really good!


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## ixlramp




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## jonajon91

Mprinsje said:


> TBH, that just sounds extremely out of tune to me



You realise what this thread is right?


----------



## jonajon91

The Omega Cluster said:


> Will you let us read it when it's done?



Okay a few things, this is my first draft so there could be errors (I get mixed up with TET and EDO from time to time), i'm also torn over which title to use though i'm leaning towards the second.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/260873334/Wyschnegradsky-Essay

I'd also like to link this dissertation which practically wrote chunks of the essay for me and is hugely interesting. It covers quarter tone harmony and theory before delving into individual composers. Each chapter is around 10,000 words though so it's a bit much to digest.
Myles Skinner's Quarter-Tone Dissertation

---edit---

I also need to put the bibliography in alphabetical order.


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## The Omega Cluster

I'm just beginning to read this, and it's amazingly interesting up to now. Already bought the 24 Preludes on CD!

Also, there's a few mistakes/typing errors here and there! But it's your first draft so there's time to change things. And when you compare 12 and 24-TET, you say for 24 that it's A to G# by steps of 50 cents. However you should say it's A to G flat-and-a-half (or +75 cents).

Update: When speaking of "major fourth", don't you mean "between the perfect fourth and diminished fifth", instead of the perfect fifth?


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## jonajon91

^ yes and yes. I'm awful at reading through my own work. You're a saint.


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## ixlramp

A good introduction to 19ET.


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## jonajon91

Can someone explain to me why 19 and 31tet are so popular? Do they share characteristics with 12tet making them easier to listen to?


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## ixlramp

19ET has closer approximations of the just intonation major/minor thirds, fourths and fifths, all are within 7 cents, so much better than 12ET for approximating the JI tone system derived from modulated major and minor triads.
31ET even more so because the steps are so narrow: closer approximations.
19ET is also practical for guitar fretting, it is one of the most popular choices for microtonal guitars along with 24ET.


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## ixlramp

Hansford Rowe's just intonation bass.


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## ixlramp

https://ilevens.bandcamp.com/music
Sivi, another typically excellent track by Brendan Byrnes' live project Ilevens.


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## ixlramp

This video demonstrates the extremely in-tune soulful sound of the just intonation bass, and has a good close up of those exotic golden frets.


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## The Omega Cluster

New album from Sevish: Rhythm & Xen

https://sevish.bandcamp.com/album/rhythm-and-xen


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## jonajon91

Love Sevishs approach to this stuff!


----------



## Necris

Shocked I never thought to add Nivathe.


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## coffeeflush

The Omega Cluster said:


> New album from Sevish: Rhythm & Xen
> 
> https://sevish.bandcamp.com/album/rhythm-and-xen



Really enjoying this


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## coffeeflush

I know this isn't the theory thread but is there any way to understand how scales can be transffered from 12edo to any other system without understanding diatonic theory ? 

Im a fretless guitarist with 0 theory background and now im trying to understand how things work. I have some basic idea of music theory and xen harmonics systems. Basically play in 24 edo


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## The Omega Cluster

Necris said:


> Shocked I never thought to add Nivathe.




Thank you for this!


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## ixlramp

coffeeflush said:


> I know this isn't the theory thread but is there any way to understand how scales can be transffered from 12edo to any other system without understanding diatonic theory ?


List of musical modes This list of microtonal scales sows how some familiar 12EDO scales transfer, for example see the 19 tone modes.
Otherwise perhaps get a list of cents values for a microtonal system and round each 12EDO tone to the nearest? https://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/edo


----------



## coffeeflush

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB2aHGW45fY


----------



## coffeeflush

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKft-k4tiY

I don't think anyones posted this before


----------



## The Omega Cluster

coffeeflush said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKft-k4tiY
> 
> I don't think anyones posted this before



That sounds pretty cool! Do you know what tonal system they use? In fact I'm not sure it's microtonal at all, even if it's a little off because of the fretless.


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## coffeeflush

This one isn't, he does some other stuff in 24edo though but can't seem to find the youtube vids atm.


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## The Omega Cluster

coffeeflush said:


> This one isn't, he does some other stuff in 24edo though but can't seem to find the youtube vids atm.



Damn, I would definitely buy this though. Do you know the name of his 24 edo project?


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## ixlramp

New album of quartertone metal by Jute Gyte Ship of Theseus | Jute Gyte


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## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> New album of quartertone metal by Jute Gyte Ship of Theseus | Jute Gyte



My balls are imploding.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Here's a track I made in microtonal. It's not set in any specific microtonal system so I label it as "free-tone", correct me if this is wrong. There's a full album of this coming this summer.
https://vodmusic.bandcamp.com/album/tzibnajal


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## The Omega Cluster

I have made a new track that will be on my new TBA album this year. Check it out.
https://vodmusic.bandcamp.com/album/tba-2015


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## ixlramp

Reposting nicomortem's video from elsewhere in the forum.


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## jonajon91

In terms of the song, it sounds like you two are playing the same thing way too much. The one section where you separated the parts really shone.


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## ixlramp

By Fabrizio Fulvio Fausto Fiale
"official videoclip of the thrash-cantata in 16edo temperament"


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## ixlramp

Dave Fuze Fiuczynski with a quartertone guitar. Amazing fluent player.


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## coffeeflush

I love dave fuizinskis work, his kashmir rendition by planet microjam project is absolute awesome.


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## Fraz666

Fuze is awesome


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## The Omega Cluster

FINALLY made some progress on my own microtonal multigenre project. I'd say that overall it might come across as atmospheric/orchestral black metal though.

Here's the so-called progress. It's an orchestral/fanfare-ish introduction, followed by a minimalistic part and then some meat. Tell me what you think! I'm really excited to finally be able to begin finalizing this project.[SC]https://soundcloud.com/dave-tremblay/ainulindale-intro-demo-progress[/SC]

If you're interested, here's a link to our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Melopoeia


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## The Omega Cluster

More info on my previous reply:


> These are the first three parts of the 26-part album I am currently working on. The first part is fanfare-ish, the second is minimalist orchestral, and the third one is black metal/grindcore, kind of... The album will feature various genres of music and vocals, which are not yet recorded.
> For those of you interested in the tuning system and the compositional process: I used a 26 note per octave (26-EDO) system, so the smallest division is a tad smaller than a quarter tone, and the only intervals that equal those in the 12-EDO system are the root (and octave) and the tritone. As for the "compositional" process, I put that in quotation marks because I'm in fact translating a text in music, rather than composing music directly. I don't claim to be the composer of this, merely the arranger, and also the guy who had the idea of doing this in the first place. The text used is the first chapter of Tolkien's Silmarillion, Ainulindalë. The method of translation I used is that each 26 letters of the alphabet represents one note of the octave. Therefore, words become chords, and the string of letters become a melody. I associated one eighth in duration to each letter, so that a 3-letter word gives a 3-note (if there are 3 different letters) chord that rings during 3 eighths. On top of it are played the letters one after the other. Also, for the bass, or the root note of the chord, I used the first letter of the word. That's how I translated it, letter by letter, on three tracks. Then, I can arrange it the way I want. Pitch the bass up (in octaves) so that it becomes the melody, mute the chords, etc.
> At first, I put "A" as the first note of the octave, then B, then C, and so on. But then I realized that I had almost incessantly discordant chords, so I thought about it for a while. Finally, after a few tries and shuffles, I found a scale that I call "Relative Consonant". To reach it, I searched the most common pairings of letters in the English language, and the most common words, and arranged the scale so that these intervals and chords sound the best. Then, the other letters filled the empty places on the scale, and I got something that sound relatively nicer.
> The final scale goes like this (from root to octave): E-O-V-I-Q-C-F-A-J-Z-P-H-B-Y-S-R-K-D-T-L-X-M-N-G-W-U-e.
> For example two of the most common words in English are "and" and "the". With this scale, the AND chord gives an "A" chord, with the N being a slightly flat perfect fifth (692.31 cents), and the D being midway between the major third and the perfect fourth (461.54 cents), and the THE chord gives a "T" chord, with the H giving a slightly flat major sixth (876.92 cents), and the E giving a slightly flat major third (369.23 cents).
> As for the notation software used, I used Mus2, which is a music notation software dedicated to microtonal music. I would recommend it any day for those who want to try microtonal music, but it is somewhat awkward to use at first.
> Anyway, I'm really excited to finally be able to make music come out of my computer, I've been frustratingly unable to do that for this microtonal music. I hope you like it!


----------



## ixlramp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9MjtfEQl_c
Live in studio video of Brendan Byrnes' microtonal live project, good stuff (22 tones per octave).
Free tracks for download here https://ilevens.bandcamp.com/music


----------



## ixlramp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI8cdHnkPQ0
The second track, amazing.


----------



## ixlramp

https://soundcloud.com/skyshadowobelisk/the-polymorphic-bell-of-the-messenger
Quartertone track by Sky Shadow Obelisk, a project of Peter Scartabello
Yuggoth Records | PETER SCARTABELLO
Also involved in the quartertone black metal 'Seal Of Graphiel' project
https://myspace.com/sealofgraphiel
http://sealofgraphiel.bandcamp.com/


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## coffeeflush

Sea of Graphiel sounds extremely brutal. Would love something more like that.


----------



## coffeeflush

https://soundcloud.com/sevish/solo-piano-improvisation-in-22-edo

New sevish track in 22 EDO


----------



## jonajon91

Sevish is one of my favourite microtonal artists. interesting and accessible, you could get away with playing some of his tracks while talking with friends and no one will go commenting about it being too weird.


----------



## coffeeflush

Rhythm and Xen album from sevish was how I got into them, insane album. The microtonal aspect caught me off gaurd in a real nice way. 

I don't think this is microtonal, but definitely metal and I think most posters here will love it.
Weird Band of the Week: Dakh Daughters Band | The Weirdest Band in the World


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Also, here there's two demos and the artwork for my "free-microtonal" album. I say "free-microtonal" because it's not bound to any pre-existing microtonal tuning system, except perhaps 120-EDO because that's about to where human ear can distinguish pitch change.

https://vodmusic.bandcamp.com/album/popol-wuj


----------



## ixlramp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0pUt_Wvht0
Anders Thidell, the guy behind 'True Temperament' fretting systems plays some Hendrix on a 'Meantone' system guitar. The near-pure intervals work well with overdrive.

Meantone is not offered by TT, it was widely used in Europe a few hundred years ago and is the closest system to Just Intonation while still allowing some modulation between keys. It has purely tuned major thirds, near-pure minor thirds and near-pure fifths. Explanation here An Introduction to Historical Tunings

Here's a quartertone 9 string Agile conversion, tuned very low, roughly D#0 (19Hz) to G3.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Is that your terribly downtuned 9 string? Can we hear it?


----------



## ixlramp

16 tones per octave custom 6 string bass.
Nooooo these are not mine


----------



## jonajon91

The Omega Cluster said:


> I'm just beginning to read this, and it's amazingly interesting up to now.* Already bought the 24 Preludes on CD!*



Did this ever turn up? would be cool to see.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

jonajon91 said:


> Did this ever turn up? would be cool to see.



Yeah I got it. It's great! Many very good ideas of composition exploiting the 24-edo tuning in various ways.


----------



## nicomortem

My newest microtonal project, one of the songs my band is using. Out of the 8 notes used in the scale, only 3 are non-microtonal. We have 5 songs, 3 have vocals. We're using 24-tone guitars tuned a step down. I will be playing drums in this band, using my electric kit exclusively. Sam is playing guitar, Pete is playing bass, and his cousin Monica is our vocalist. She is writing lyrics to the songs now, I am teaching the riffs to Sam and tabbing out the basslines for Pete, so it's a process. Here is a preview of what's to come, with me playing all the parts for now.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

What do you mean only 3 are non-microtonal? You mean that 3 of the 8 notes happen to be on a regular 12-EDO note? That's cool, but the most important thing are the intervals. How many of your intervals are microtonal? I won't hear the difference if you play an E, or a semi-flat E, except if they are played one after the other for comparison, but I will hear if you play a minor third or a neutral third.


----------



## nicomortem

the intervals go: 3/4 steps, whole step, 3/4, whole, 3/4, whole, and 3/4 again. So I guess that means there are only 3 non-microtonal intervals in the scale. Played on one string, it would go:0,1.5,3.5,5,7,8.5,10.5,12


----------



## jonajon91

Song really stepped up around 40 seconds in, wasnt too keen up to there. 
Sorry to change the topic so quickly though, but this has been playing on my mind a little for a few months now, well ever since I wrote that essay on Wysnegradsky and his 24-tone music. In 24-tone music in between major and minor intervals you have neutral intervals (neutral thirds, sixths and sevenths). Is there any music out there that uses a neutral scale so;
Root - 0
Second - 1
Neutral third - 3/4
Perfect fourth - 3/4
Perfect fifth - 1
Neutral sixth - 3/4
Neutral seventh - 1
Octave - 3/4


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I love Wyschnegradsky's Preludes! I think they really show a potent diversity of the 24-EDO system. The octave you mentioned lack the neutral second (fret 1.5), in fact Nicomortem's scale is, I think, the most neutral one you could come up with. There is no way any emotion can be drawn from it, apart from, perhaps, the lack thereof. I wasn't a fan of the song at all, maybe in its final form it will be better, but the thing that I disliked the most was the singing, which if I remember correctly was off. I know it's difficult to sing with the quarter-tones, but it should be even more important to sing on the right pitch. Moreover, the guitar distortion was pretty bad in my opinion, and the riffs and song structure overall made it sound like some generic alt or nu metal band to me, a bit like M.A.N., which I totally despise.


----------



## nicomortem

hey guys, another video similar to the last one. This is another song we will using in my band too. My vocals sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks because I had to pitch-shift them up, I can't hit many of the notes. Our singer has a killer voice but she lacks in experience, plus as the songwriter, I naturally already have melodies and ideas for vocal parts in my head for all the songs I write. So I made up some quick, easy and somewhat comical lyrics in order to get the idea across, so she can just change the words to the song while singing the vocal pattern and melody that I've come up with. I've been playing in death metal bands my whole life, I have never been in a band with clean vocals before so a lot of this is pretty new for me. This new band, is supposed to be a kind of glimpse into the future of what metal could be. Microtonal guitars, electric drums, clean vocals and catchy songs are what I'm going for now, and I would love to see more metal bands use this formula in the future. Plus all of these songs I've written for this band have a kind of momentum, or a kind of motion to the beats, good music to listen to while you're driving. I have sacrificed some of the brutality and heaviness and put in their place something that I hope will appeal to a wider audience that I've been able to reach in the past, playing in technical, brutal and abrasive death metal bands my whole life to moderate success. I also am purposely trying to make it sound "normal" and not trying to make it sound deliberately "off" or making it a point to show that the guitars are microtonal in this band, I actually take it as a compliment if somebody says that it doesn't sound any different than a normal guitar...that, to me, means that I've been able to successfully incorporate microtones in a musical and practical way.


----------



## ixlramp

Good to see this progress. I like the approach of the project. I often think about how some microtonal projects will make a big thing of the tuning, while other artists will not even mention it (Brian Eno, Aphex Twin) and you find out later and think 'i would never have guessed, it just sounded good' which is a very cool approach and a good way to sneak microtonality into the mainstream. If listeners know it's microtonal first some may be listening for that or be put off through experience with difficult avant-garde modern classical stuff.



nicomortem said:


> Played on one string, it would go:0,1.5,3.5,5,7,8.5,10.5,12


That's a scale i played a lot when i first retuned a normal guitar to play quartertones. It has the familiar and strong harmonic framework of root fourth fifth octave while avoiding the out of tune 12ET thirds and sixths. All the intervals are within 4 cents of Just Intonation so are purely tuned harmonies that work well with distortion (distorted 12ET thirds are very discordant).

> Nicomortem's scale is, I think, the most neutral one you could come up with. There is no way any emotion can be drawn from it.

Nah .. just because an interval is midway between major and minor doesn't mean lack of emotion, the intervals have an exotic feeling.


----------



## nicomortem

hey friends, my 3rd and final video in this latest series of songs, more chipmunk vocals and funny lyrics, but this one has a lot more notes and application of theory, I used the same scale but I used a modal approach, starting some riffs from the 2nd note in the scale (1.5) some riffs start on the 3rd note (3.5) and some start from the open E, which is the 4th note in the scale. I didn't record any drum or bass footage, just a straight play-through for this one.


----------



## nicomortem

I did have one more song, probably our best one. I was going to save it for later but I was on a roll. This used the same scale but a completely different approach to the riffing, and the 2nd part of the song breaks away from the scale and is basically a simple 3-note chord, being paired at microtonal intervals, either 3,5, or 7 quarter steps apart. More chipmunk vocals, it was either that or sing it an octave below intended, which sounded even worse.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I am looking for a talented and available drummer to record a microtonal black metal album. Blast beats for days, tempo changes, weird rhythmic patterns. Contact me or tell me where to look in order to find one! 

Here's a preview, as it happens it's mostly orchestral but there is some metal at the end.


----------



## ixlramp

Found this on the internet, headless ergo fanned fret colour-coded 31 tones per octave.
More photos here I made a thing - Album on Imgur


----------



## jonajon91

Can someone recommend some software that I can use to write 24-TET piano music? I just tried Mus2 but the trial does not let you save or export your work and I don't have 60 dollars to drop on this software right now.

---edit---

I only need it for a few days for this project, but Ill be investing properly in the future. Perhaps one that has a few days free trial.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I use Mus2 for microtonal composition, but I guess you could write it on guitar pro, then go and edit the MIDI files, in Reaper for example, to 50 cents higher or lower. That'd be pretty laborious, but if you don't have anything else it will do the trick. That or adding pre-bends of 1/4 tone in guitar pro or whatever notation software you use.


----------



## coffeeflush

where do you guys get all this info ?
I googled Nicomortem's scale but got nothing, usually I dont post such questions but I have been stuck in a 12 tonal bias rut with the fretless guitar for quiet a while. I can`t find much credible information out there, I want to learn a few microtonal scales so I can get out of my rut.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/?responseToken=0cb3c0fe575e274b299c097be6e6bc8f9 is your friend.


----------



## ixlramp

jonajon91 not sure this is what you're after but my friend Jacky Ligon has free softsynths here VSTi &#8211; Xen-Arts
All the microtonal experts hang out on FB here and could give advice https://www.facebook.com/groups/xenharmonic2/

Lots of microtonal scales here, perhaps the 24 tone modes are a good place to start List of musical modes

Here's my list of Arabic Maqam:

Maqam from Arabic Maqam World
Approximations in 24EDO stated as numbers of semitones from tonic.
'0' = tonic. '12' = octave. 'a' = ascending. 'd' = descending. '/' = alternative name.
Some scales have no octave or are different in the next octave up.

Sikah
a 0 1.5 3.5 5.5 7 8.5 10.5 12
d 0 1.5 3.5 5.5 6.5 8.5 10.5 12

Huzam, Rahat El Arwah
0 1.5 3.5 4.5 7.5 8.5 10.5 12

Iraq
0 1.5 3.5 5 6.5 8.5 10.5 12

Bastanikar
0 1.5 3.5 5 6.5 7.5 10.5 11.5 (no octave)

Sikah Baladi
0 1.5 3.5 5 7 8.5 10.5 12


Bayati
0 1.5 3 5 7 8 10 12

Bayati Shuri / Karjighar
0 1.5 3 5 6 9 10 12

Husseini
0 1.5 3 5 7 8.5 10 12

Saba
0 1.5 3 4 7 8 10 12
0 1.5 3 4 7 8 10 11 14 15 (no octave)


Rast
a 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10.5 12
d 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10 12

Suznak / Suzinak
0 2 3.5 5 7 8 11 12

Nairuz / Nishaburk
0 2 3.5 5 7 8.5 10 12

Yakah / Yekah
a 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10.5 12
d1 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10 12
d2 0 2 3.5 5 7 8.5 10 12

Mahur
0 2 3.5 5 7 9 11 12


Hijaz
a 0 1 4 5 7 8.5 10 12
d 0 1 4 5 7 8 10 12


Jiharkah
0 2 4 5 7 9 10.5 12


Mustaar
0 2.5 3.5 5.5 6.5 8.5 10.5 12


Ushaq Masri
0 2 3 5 7 8.5 10 12


----------



## ixlramp

Matthew Grasso has a new Just Intonation Raga guitar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzQL_yHhzO0






New track from Stephen James Taylor on 31 tone baritone guitar, as far as i can tell it's mainly used to get closer to Just Intonation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5buPUqkmI6k


----------



## jonajon91

^ Thanks for the links, I love 31-EDO 

^^ Excellent, thank you very much. If I could rep you thenI would.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

My beef with JI guitars is that you can only play them in one tonality.


----------



## bostjan

The Omega Cluster said:


> My beef with JI guitars is that you can only play them in one tonality.



Well, more generally, you can only play JI with them in one tonality.  You can try playing weird stuff on them by transposing the key. But personally, I'm an ET guy. Actually, to be fair, I really only like a few tunings enough to spend the time and cash on a fretboard. A JI board to me is too restrictive, since I'm not really looking to play gut-wrenchingly dissonant intervals.


----------



## ixlramp

Luckily 24ET has many intervals very close to Just Intonation, as does 36ET, 31ET and 19ET.






A very beautiful JI fretboard using curved instead of split frets.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> Luckily 24ET has many intervals very close to Just Intonation, as does 36ET, 31ET and 19ET.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A very beautiful JI fretboard using curved instead of split frets.



I just saw this fretboard on facebook. Looks pretty sick if you ask me! I don't know how 24 JI sounds, though. At first, I thought it was some sort of random fretwork, just for the look, and it made me think that it could be cool to draw something with frets, and let the drawing decide of the tuning of the notes. Some kind of art-tonal, or artonal


----------



## bostjan

ixlramp said:


> Luckily 24ET has many intervals very close to Just Intonation, as does 36ET, 31ET and 19ET.



My only qualm with statements like that is that JI is not a tuning, but, rather, a class of tunings. There are just intervals like the perfect fifth, and then there are just intervals like the diminished second. There are also multiple versions of intervals like the just neutral third and just diminished fifth and such. In terms of the major diatonic scale (which still has multiple just interpretations of seconds and sixths), you won't find anything better approximating intervals in 24-EDO than in 12-EDO, but the neutral thirds and sixths are cool to play with, particularly doing anything Persian or Arabic flavored.

I like 17-EDO for the fact that it's got a very good perfect fifth approximation, and then everything else is a bit foreign. It also has half the notes from 34-EDO, which has many sweet intervals (maybe that's what you meant by "36ET"?).

I really think 19-EDO could have been adopted as an alternative to 12-EDO. I personally really like it, but it sounds "in," for the most part. I get a lot of comments from people who think that my 19-EDO stuff should sound more far-out, but, it really just sounds like normal music.


----------



## ixlramp

What i mean is those ETs have many intervals that are very close to simple-ratio just intervals.
24ET is good for intervals derived from 3rd and 11th harmonics, lots of neutral intervals.
36ET: 3rd and 7th harmonics, like the subminor 'blue' notes 7/4, 7/6.
31ET and 19ET: 3rd and 5th harmonics which is the basis of our standard system.


----------



## coffeeflush

Thanks a lot for this, 
I have used Xenharmanoic website before, but it doesnt always make sense to me. This helps a lot ! 

I miss the rep system for times like these. 


ixlramp said:


> jonajon91 not sure this is what you're after but my friend Jacky Ligon has free softsynths here VSTi  Xen-Arts
> All the microtonal experts hang out on FB here and could give advice https://www.facebook.com/groups/xenharmonic2/
> 
> Lots of microtonal scales here, perhaps the 24 tone modes are a good place to start List of musical modes
> 
> Here's my list of Arabic Maqam:
> 
> Maqam from Arabic Maqam World
> Approximations in 24EDO stated as numbers of semitones from tonic.
> '0' = tonic. '12' = octave. 'a' = ascending. 'd' = descending. '/' = alternative name.
> Some scales have no octave or are different in the next octave up.
> 
> Sikah
> a 0 1.5 3.5 5.5 7 8.5 10.5 12
> d 0 1.5 3.5 5.5 6.5 8.5 10.5 12
> 
> Huzam, Rahat El Arwah
> 0 1.5 3.5 4.5 7.5 8.5 10.5 12
> 
> Iraq
> 0 1.5 3.5 5 6.5 8.5 10.5 12
> 
> Bastanikar
> 0 1.5 3.5 5 6.5 7.5 10.5 11.5 (no octave)
> 
> Sikah Baladi
> 0 1.5 3.5 5 7 8.5 10.5 12
> 
> 
> Bayati
> 0 1.5 3 5 7 8 10 12
> 
> Bayati Shuri / Karjighar
> 0 1.5 3 5 6 9 10 12
> 
> Husseini
> 0 1.5 3 5 7 8.5 10 12
> 
> Saba
> 0 1.5 3 4 7 8 10 12
> 0 1.5 3 4 7 8 10 11 14 15 (no octave)
> 
> 
> Rast
> a 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10.5 12
> d 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10 12
> 
> Suznak / Suzinak
> 0 2 3.5 5 7 8 11 12
> 
> Nairuz / Nishaburk
> 0 2 3.5 5 7 8.5 10 12
> 
> Yakah / Yekah
> a 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10.5 12
> d1 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 10 12
> d2 0 2 3.5 5 7 8.5 10 12
> 
> Mahur
> 0 2 3.5 5 7 9 11 12
> 
> 
> Hijaz
> a 0 1 4 5 7 8.5 10 12
> d 0 1 4 5 7 8 10 12
> 
> 
> Jiharkah
> 0 2 4 5 7 9 10.5 12
> 
> 
> Mustaar
> 0 2.5 3.5 5.5 6.5 8.5 10.5 12
> 
> 
> Ushaq Masri
> 0 2 3 5 7 8.5 10 12


----------



## bostjan

ixlramp said:


> What i mean is those ETs have many intervals that are very close to simple-ratio just intervals.
> 24ET is good for intervals derived from 3rd and 11th harmonics, lots of neutral intervals.
> 36ET: 3rd and 7th harmonics, like the subminor 'blue' notes 7/4, 7/6.
> 31ET and 19ET: 3rd and 5th harmonics which is the basis of our standard system.



Thanks for clarifying. Isn't the third harmonic just the perfect fifth, the same from 12 EDO? But yeah, the 11th harmonic is a pretty nice interval to have, and the 7th harmonics sounds great in chords. 31 EDO has a nice 7th harmonic, too, in fact 31 EDO has a lot of nice consonant intervals.


----------



## works0fheart

ixlramp said:


> Luckily 24ET has many intervals very close to Just Intonation, as does 36ET, 31ET and 19ET.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A very beautiful JI fretboard using curved instead of split frets.



Any videos out there of people playing these? Very curious to hear what it might sound like.


----------



## ixlramp

i think the luthier might do a video at some point. These curved-fret boards are rare so the closest example you can find is partial-fret Just Intonation boards, where the contact points have not been connected by curves but small straight fres are used for each string. The fretboard in the photo is a fairly unusual tone system, i don't know of others using it.

3 videos by Matthew Grasso in increasing tonal exoticness on a Just Intonation guitar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCyk-qZ94gA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQm9qfnbviQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6tBWZfzUu0


----------



## ixlramp

uSSSy 2 tracks live in studio, huge processed sound from the guitar with quartertone frets (at 1.5 3.5 5.5 6.5 8.5 10.5 semitones, the quartertones close to 11th harmonic Just Intervals) and deep-scallop. Middle-Eastern influenced experimental psychedelic math / noise rock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdkAoy_cE7c
Albums uSSSy


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Jute Gyte just announced their new album, Perdurance, for June 6th!


----------



## ixlramp

Harmonic Isolator guitar. Finally they have made a Just Intonation guitar, sustainer pickup too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9mejzUqcuI
New Complexity






Their guitar with sustainer-driven sympathetic strings is lovely too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDlbFfy7MZ8


----------



## coffeeflush

that harp guitar sounds lovely


----------



## Andrew May

I saw some of their stuff a while back. Great and interesting concepts but they don't exactly go out of their way to showcase their true potential. I'm all for humility but there does seem to be a lot of very short clips with not a lot going on.


----------



## ixlramp

Perdurance | Jute Gyte
More quartertone avantgarde black metal, this time more electronics and some insane polytempi.


----------



## Andrew May

I just stumbled across this via Wire magazine: https://youtu.be/tZgT5swCGIo
Islam Chispy, not metal but I felt that readers of this thread would appreciate non western tuning, dual drummers etc more than starting a new thread(?)


----------



## ixlramp

4 short quartertone tracks here https://aaronbrooks.bandcamp.com/album/thought-party

Details of Paul Rubenstein's movable fret string instrument Paul Rubenstein&#8217;s movable fret instrument &#8211; Unfretted

The Ko Transmissions, which may or may not be Paul Rubenstein, apparently in 13EDO.
Sounds like alien music spread across the galaxy by being copied tape-to-tape many times on half-dead tape decks The Ko Transmissions &#8211; Unfretted


----------



## coffeeflush

Oh man, unfretted ! I thought that forum was dead for a long long time.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

You can listen to one song from my upcoming 26-EDO album now. There will be an instrumental version coming with the release.

https://melopoeia.bandcamp.com/releases


----------



## ixlramp

An artist i should have posted here a long time ago, an internet acquaintance of mine in the USA, Jacky Ligon, who is my favourite microtonal musician.
Deep atmospheric beautiful electronic music with a focus on delicious bass and powerful and often non-4/4 grooves.
He mostly works in carefully created Just Intonation scales that have a natural feel to them instead of being 'uneasy queasy avantgarde microtonal music'.

https://soundcloud.com/ism-studio/jacky-ligon-between-space
From https://soundcloud.com/ism-studio/sets/va-subversio-forthcoming-on
Which also has tracks from Sevish and Tony Dubshot.

https://soundcloud.com/ism-studio/jacky-ligon-hornbostel-shake
From https://soundcloud.com/ism-studio/sets/ligon-sevish-dubshot-23
All 23EDO, another split EP with the other 2 artists.


----------



## ixlramp

19 tone metal https://bostjanzupancic.bandcamp.com/album/vol-i


----------



## The Omega Cluster

New tune on Unfretted.com for my microtonal orchestral black metal project.

www.unfretted.com/microtonal/melopo...m-based-on-tolkeins-silmarillion-ainulindale/


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Cryptic Ruse just released a very interesting drone/doom microtonal album.
https://cryptic-ruse.bandcamp.com/album/wasting-thirsting


----------



## The Omega Cluster

New song on Heavy Blog Is Heavy!

http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/201...w-microtonal-black-metal-song-from-melopoeia/


----------



## ixlramp

Redrick Sultan video, 19 tone rock and fun video. Really sweet sounding guitar chords.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-l4ijAMBk

Stream of Conciousness. Metal using standard guitar but with "the high e the low e and the d string are a quatertone down".
https://soundcloud.com/streamofconsciousness/schizo-instrumental


----------



## TimothyLeary

Redrick Sultan are sounding too much like Tame Impala.


----------



## Andrew May

The Omega Cluster said:


> New tune on Unfretted.com for my microtonal orchestral black metal project.
> 
> www.unfretted.com/microtonal/melopo...m-based-on-tolkeins-silmarillion-ainulindale/



Mate, brilliant conceptually and musically. As I've said before. I can take or leave conventional extreme metal vocals but am really looking forward to hearing the instrumental version!


----------



## Necris

http://naufragous.bandcamp.com/

If 12-edo with the strings retuned to produce microtonal intervals counts then tracks II and IV on the first demo and the track "Architectures" would count. (This is a project of mine that's currently on hold.)


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I have trouble understanding your post. Do you mean tuning every other string a quarter tone up or down so you can play quarter tone music on a semi tone guitar?


----------



## Necris

In a similar manner to one of the links Ixlramp's last post. Tuning E A D G1/4b B E1/4b or whatever so that when one of the detuned strings is played with other strings you can produce a microtonal interval.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Here's a Turkish traditional music/jazz fusion band.


----------



## ixlramp

Stream of Conciousness https://soundcloud.com/streamofconsciousness/cleasing-through-fire-purity-through-suffering
This time a guitar refretted with quartertone frets. 'Black / doom metal'.
He put this track up on Soundcloud on my request because i liked it.

I like the Naufragous material.

I have this feeling that microtonality through retuning open strings has so much potential.
It's available to all at no cost, or at the cost of a custom set of strings when using a special tuning that optimises the method (like all-neutral thirds).
It's limiting but limits can be good.
No fiddly close frets or overwhelming number of frets.
'Stealth' microtonality, no one will know by looking at your guitar.
It uses a strength of guitar: the ability to quickly and easily retune.
A good use for 8/9+ string guitars, more strings tuned in smaller intervals helps this method.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I just made a video using my 26-EDO scriptophonic system and applying it to the scene in Stranger Things with the lights on the wall. Don't watch if you wish to remain entirely spoiler-free of the series, but you can see very clearly how our microtonal system works.

Video on facebook.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

My algorithmic black metal project is finally out. Text-to-music madness!

https://melopoeia.bandcamp.com/album/tolkiens-ainulindal


----------



## ixlramp

https://jocktears.bandcamp.com/album/sassy-attitude
Punk band in 17 tones per octave.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I talked in lengths about my microtonal text-to-music album on Toilet ov Hell.

http://www.toiletovhell.com/on-tolk...icrotonality-a-guest-post-from-dave-tremblay/


----------



## bostjan

ixlramp said:


> https://jocktears.bandcamp.com/album/sassy-attitude
> Punk band in 17 tones per octave.



Wait, what? There is nearly zero information on the interwebz about this. Funny thing is that it doesn't sound that much different from regular garage punk. I'm shocked, since 17-EDO has pretty poor approximations to thirds.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> Wait, what? There is nearly zero information on the interwebz about this. Funny thing is that it doesn't sound that much different from regular garage punk. I'm shocked, since 17-EDO has pretty poor approximations to thirds.



This is a picture from their facebook. One of about 2 in total. You see the guitar in the background. I'm not sure it looks like a 17-EDO instrument, but the double inlay near the body is something I've never seen in that place. 

In any case, this doesn't disprove that they are microtonal, it could as well be someone else's guitar or one that isn't used for their punk project, but still...


----------



## ixlramp

Fairly sure they are 17ET, confirmed by Noah Jordan of Redrick Sultan, a well known microtonal band.
If you can access FB here's a short video https://www.facebook.com/noahjordanoah/videos/10157378645940593/?pnref=story


----------



## The Omega Cluster

That's amazing! I was just being cautious because there's basically nowhere that it's mentioned on their facebook or bandcamp page, and I couldn't tell for certain if they were playing 17 or just badly tuned 12 (in good old punk fashion).


----------



## bostjan

The Omega Cluster said:


> This is a picture from their facebook. One of about 2 in total. You see the guitar in the background. I'm not sure it looks like a 17-EDO instrument, but the double inlay near the body is something I've never seen in that place.
> 
> In any case, this doesn't disprove that they are microtonal, it could as well be someone else's guitar or one that isn't used for their punk project, but still...



That's a standard 22 fret 12-EDO guitar, I'm certain (I can't access facebook, but I googled the photo and I'm 99% sure I'm looking at the same photo).

In other photos, the band is playing in dimly lit clubs where fretboards look grainy or photos are too low resolution to see anything in detail.

Certainly something sounds interesting about the tuning from the audio on bandcamp, and I'll have to make sure to pop over to facebook when I have access to check out the video.

I'm generally excited about 17-EDO. When I first started playing around with tunings, it was one of the only ones that had some good flexibility without having way too many note options, but I ended up settling on 19-EDO, because of the thirds.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> That's a standard 22 fret 12-EDO guitar, I'm certain (I can't access facebook, but I googled the photo and I'm 99% sure I'm looking at the same photo).
> 
> In other photos, the band is playing in dimly lit clubs where fretboards look grainy or photos are too low resolution to see anything in detail.
> 
> Certainly something sounds interesting about the tuning from the audio on bandcamp, and I'll have to make sure to pop over to facebook when I have access to check out the video.
> 
> I'm generally excited about 17-EDO. When I first started playing around with tunings, it was one of the only ones that had some good flexibility without having way too many note options, but I ended up settling on 19-EDO, because of the thirds.



The facebook video doesn't show the fretboards, unfortunately, we see them from behind.


----------



## bostjan

The Omega Cluster said:


> The facebook video doesn't show the fretboards, unfortunately, we see them from behind.



Hmm.

That's kind of weird.


----------



## bostjan

https://bostjanzupancic.bandcamp.com/album/happy-halloween

19-EDO, free download


----------



## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> https://bostjanzupancic.bandcamp.com/album/happy-halloween
> 
> 19-EDO, free download



This is a huge improvement over Vol. I. Congrats!


----------



## bostjan

Thanks!


----------



## ixlramp

Well i'm sure they own 12ET guitars too, and probably in larger numbers.
I like the way they don't publicise their microtonality, nothing wrong with doing that of course, but it's always cool when that's not focussed on. It probably wouldn't be suitable for a punk band.


----------



## bostjan

ixlramp said:


> Well i'm sure they own 12ET guitars too, and probably in larger numbers.
> I like the way they don't publicise their microtonality, nothing wrong with doing that of course, but it's always cool when that's not focussed on. It probably wouldn't be suitable for a punk band.



I had a quick chat with their guitar player on facebook last night. I'm not sure how they ended up deciding to go microtonal, but they confirmed that it is 17-EDO, and that they would be going on tour soon, likely coming to the east coast.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> I had a quick chat with their guitar player on facebook last night. I'm not sure how they ended up deciding to go microtonal, but they confirmed that it is 17-EDO, and that they would be going on tour soon, likely coming to the east coast.



I saw they have a show scheduled for late October in Vancouver. I'm in Quebec so I won't go, but if they come near I'll try to make it.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I just wrote an article introducing microtonal music on Heavy Blog Is Heavy. Please read and I'm open to criticism/suggestions.


----------



## bostjan

I like the approach you took - a lot of articles on microtonal music delve too quickly into specific information that general readers might find daunting or too dense, but your article is pretty easy to read.

The flip side of that, though, is that there is a lot to add.

Some nitpicks - don't take these too negatively, since nothing here is a big deal: There are a large number of JI tuning systems, even though there are a finite number of intervals, determined by the imposed limit, but, even though most JI systems discussed online are limited, there are other systems using limits for step sizes, other systems based off of the harmonic series with different limits in each octave, and also unlimited systems with purely aesthetic definitions.

You pointed out a number of microtonalists, but I'm not sure I see the criteria with which you came up with examples. I would have mentioned some more pioneers, like Harry Parch, Paul Erlich, Dave Keenan, Neil Haverstick, Jon Catler, etc. Or the fact that Page and Plant actually had a microtonal song on mainstream radio for a short time. But the fact that you mentioned any examples is definitely positive.

There are a couple grammar things, which maybe no one notable will notice anyway, so I'll leave you with that.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Thanks. I really tried my best to make microtonality digestible for the greater number of at least musically literate people. I also discussed EDOs and JIs and NOSs, but nothing is forbidding you to mix them all up together. Also, I didn't talk about a lot of the pioneers because 1: I don't know them and 2: I think people will be more interested in contemporary, modern artists rather than historically important ones. I'm sure they can look for them on their own if they're interested in that. Thanks for taking a read, and maybe my French origins might excuse some of my grammatical mistakes?


----------



## coffeeflush

Enjoyed reading the article. As has been mentioned, it was much easier to digest for a musical retard like me. So I think lot of people are going to like this.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

https://vodmusic.bandcamp.com/album/m-sica-incognita

A song with no metric or melodic limitations. No constant tempo and no defined musical scales (not even microtonal ones). It's as free as free is, but it's a crippling freedom.


----------



## bostjan

The Omega Cluster said:


> https://vodmusic.bandcamp.com/album/m-sica-incognita
> 
> A song with no metric or melodic limitations. No constant tempo and no defined musical scales (not even microtonal ones). It's as free as free is, but it's a crippling freedom.



Holy crap! That was awesome! So chaotic, yet instruments all in synch.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> Holy crap! That was awesome! So chaotic, yet instruments all in synch.



Yes, that's not something that could be feasible with a live band, I'm afraid. But the studio environment allows such experiments to be done.


----------



## ixlramp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-i1XZc8ZwA
4 microtonal guitars with partial quartertone fretting.
From forthcoming album 'Flying Microtonal Banana'
Band website http://kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com/
From the store description:
"Earlier this year we started experimenting with a custom microtonal guitar our friend Zak made for Stu. The guitar was modified to play in 24-TET tuning and could only be played with other microtonal instruments. We ended up giving everyone a budget of $200 to buy instruments and turn them microtonal. The record features the modified electric guitars, basses, keyboards and harmonica as well as a Turkish horn called a Zurna."


----------



## ixlramp

Quartertone frets at 150 350 450 650 850 1050 cents.
Neutral 2nd, neutral 3rd, sub-4th, sub-5th, neutral 6th, neutral 7th.

Just now realising this band is well known, good exposure for microtonal guitar as Aphex Twin was for microtonal synth.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Amazing!


----------



## ixlramp

A demo version, quartertone metal.
https://soundcloud.com/streamofconsciousness/plague-crushing-worlds-demo


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Sounds interesting! I'm eager to listen to a more polished version of that, maybe on an EP or something!


----------



## ixlramp

New album from Cryptic Ruse
https://cryptic-ruse.bandcamp.com/album/pineal-algebra
"An instrumental xenharmonic prog-metal odyssey using refretted guitars in four different equal divisions of the octave: 14edo, 15edo, 17edo, and 23edo (see track notes to see which tuning the track is in). Stylistically, this album draws influences from a broad spectrum of metal subgenres; djent, prog-metal, post-metal, and stoner metal all find representation within these tracks. This album is the follow-up to 2014's mind-warping "Chains of Smoke", and expands on that album's sound by adding synthesized elements, faster tempos, lower open-string tunings, crazier time changes, and more expansive song structures.

For fans of: the ....ing Champs, Meshuggah, Dysrhythmia, and Pelican."


----------



## ixlramp

The 'Flying Microtonal Banana' was posted here in the forum.
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/showthread.php?t=303862


----------



## Lobselvith

I've been a long-time lurker of this thread, so I made an account to post my quartertonal blackened cybergrind thing here, if anyone's interested. I'm too much of a lurker to interact much more than this, so I apologize if it seems like I'm spamming it and leaving. I'll still be peaking in for micrometal links of course. And thanks to the people who update this thread.

https://antipsychocircumseptemsomam.../album/from-it-pours-what-some-call-emptiness


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Lobselvith said:


> I've been a long-time lurker of this thread, so I made an account to post my quartertonal blackened cybergrind thing here, if anyone's interested. I'm too much of a lurker to interact much more than this, so I apologize if it seems like I'm spamming it and leaving. I'll still be peaking in for micrometal links of course. And thanks to the people who update this thread.
> 
> https://antipsychocircumseptemsomam.../album/from-it-pours-what-some-call-emptiness



This is amazing, thanks for sharing!


----------



## BangandBreach

The Omega Cluster said:


> Sorry to hear that, man. Sword's got quite the [bad] reputation. Mainly because of this guy (to me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNYhigb6aS4
> 
> The production is horrible but the lyrics are hilarious!



what exactly did i just watch


----------



## The Omega Cluster

BangandBreach said:


> what exactly did i just watch



Yes.


----------



## Eptaceros

Just for the record, Ron Sword has a bad reputation because he's genuinely an asshole. He bootlegs band merch, makes ....ty guitars, and threatens people all the time on the internet. He's kind of like an Alex Gregory of sorts.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Apparently, Jute Gyte released a new album in December.

https://bluetapes.bandcamp.com/album/x-ray-five-the-sparrow-12


----------



## ixlramp

Another track from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, seems more microtonal than the first 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XW8yofuGao

As for Ron Sword, i'm a FB friend of his.

If you're referring to the alledged bootleg incident i'm thinking of which has been talked of a lot in other forums, he stopped immediately on request, but i'm not saying he did no wrong.

Some of his early guitars may have been rough but he's young and has improved, i know of an experienced musician who owns high-end guitars who bought a custom 9 string guitar and is very happy with the quality, also Stephen James Taylor bought a custom 9 string from him. Ron has made or converted more microtonal guitars in a larger variety of tonal systems than anyone else. He is far more accomplished than Jon Catler who seems to get a lot of reverence.

Ron has been very aggressive in the past yes, but regrets it and seems to have been improving over the last couple of years, i'm sceptical about 'threatens people all the time'. You may not like his personality or social behaviour but Ron is very much worthy of respect for his work and knowledge, and is a genuine pioneer and innovator, he is incomparibly far beyond Alex Gregory.


----------



## bostjan

I've done business with Ron before. TBH, I was nervous about getting involved, after everything I had heard around the internet, but figured it might well be all old news. He was very professional, on par with most US luthiers (he's busy at times, so contact goes in spurts, but I assure you this is typical for lots of one-man businesses). The work he did for me was not flawless, but was well worth the money and time I had into it. As almost always, YMMV.

The guitar I obtained from Jon Catler was super fast and the fretwork was damn near perfect, though, but Catler costs more than twice as much and is a lot pickier about which projects he chooses to work on these days.

For example, if you wanted a 31-EDO Strat copy, you could get one from Jon or you could get one from Ron, but if you want a seven string, or an extended scale length, or a more "out" tuning, Ron is pretty much the only guy around doing that regularly.

There's also a dude out west who charges about 3x what Jon charges. I've never used him, but he comes either highly recommended or with tons of warnings, depending on who's talking.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Maybe I've shared it here already, but I want to share it again.

https://melopoeia.bandcamp.com/album/tolkiens-ainulindal

Here's more than 80 minutes of symphonic black metal procedurally generated and then arranged by me.


----------



## ixlramp

^ Check out the beautiful new cassette format and packaging.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

^ But wait, there's more!


----------



## nicomortem

I'm sorry that it took me about a year to make any microtonal metal, and at times I feel I should apologize for my latest efforts as well  

I have gone through some major changes in my life, none of which have been for the better. I still play guitar, but I have had some serious writers block, lack of inspiration and the time spent defeating law enforcement's attempts to deprive me of liberty, justice, and the right to personal choice.
At any rate, I have some new music for everybody. I used my Agile Interceptor 727 Custom 7-string and an Agile Septor 5-string bass that was modified and painted appear similar to the Interceptor. This song is mostly made of 3/4 step intervals, kind of a microtonal version of the old, "cannibal corpse" tri-tone scale (which interestingly enough, is contained within this 24-EDO approach) Basically it uses every three frets, only now is every three microtonal frets instead. I like it because it allows me to use familiar shapes and finger positioning of the tritone minor third scale, yet sounds totally new to me and nothing like cannibal corpse's signature sound, at least not blatantly.

I don't know guys, I mean, I always played in death metal bands, I grew up on Deicide, Sinister, Cannibal, Swedish DM, and for a while I was even in a moderately successful death metal band, Neomortem. There may even be 2 or 3 people here on the forum that remember us.

It all fell apart over the years and eventually I started playing other genres of metal...but the current state of popular metal, and even of the local metal scene has me feeling alienated and disenfranchised with it all, and I don't belong. I just don't fit in, and now I am returning to my roots, to the underground, where I am most comfortable and where I can just be myself.....So more rockstar dreams for me, but at least now I can play fast again


----------



## ixlramp

Nicomortem, your new material is excellent, thanks and best wishes.

Brendan Byrnes' new album 'Neutral Paradise'. Lots of 22TET. Some excellent avantgarde pop, there is guitar but often heavily processed.
http://split-notes.com/brendan-byrnes-neutral-paradise/
https://brendanbyrnes.bandcamp.com/album/neutral-paradise


----------



## ixlramp

Flying Microtonal Banana by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is released.
A very popular band that will probably give microtonal guitar it's largest publicity yet.
https://kinggizzard.bandcamp.com/album/flying-microtonal-banana


----------



## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> Flying Microtonal Banana by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is released.
> A very popular band that will probably give microtonal guitar it's largest publicity yet.
> https://kinggizzard.bandcamp.com/album/flying-microtonal-banana



I applaud them for the microtonal publicity, but I can't say I'm a fan.


----------



## ixlramp

Sons Of Belial have a soundcloud page, just 2 microtonal uploads so far (the most recent 2), quartertone black metal https://soundcloud.com/sons-of-belial-1

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard in studio video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=170Z9qBjfkI


----------



## bostjan

nicomortem said:


> I'm sorry that it took me about a year to make any microtonal metal, and at times I feel I should apologize for my latest efforts as well
> 
> I have gone through some major changes in my life, none of which have been for the better. I still play guitar, but I have had some serious writers block, lack of inspiration and the time spent defeating law enforcement's attempts to deprive me of liberty, justice, and the right to personal choice.
> At any rate, I have some new music for everybody. I used my Agile Interceptor 727 Custom 7-string and an Agile Septor 5-string bass that was modified and painted appear similar to the Interceptor. This song is mostly made of 3/4 step intervals, kind of a microtonal version of the old, "cannibal corpse" tri-tone scale (which interestingly enough, is contained within this 24-EDO approach) Basically it uses every three frets, only now is every three microtonal frets instead. I like it because it allows me to use familiar shapes and finger positioning of the tritone minor third scale, yet sounds totally new to me and nothing like cannibal corpse's signature sound, at least not blatantly.
> 
> I don't know guys, I mean, I always played in death metal bands, I grew up on Deicide, Sinister, Cannibal, Swedish DM, and for a while I was even in a moderately successful death metal band, Neomortem. There may even be 2 or 3 people here on the forum that remember us.
> 
> It all fell apart over the years and eventually I started playing other genres of metal...but the current state of popular metal, and even of the local metal scene has me feeling alienated and disenfranchised with it all, and I don't belong. I just don't fit in, and now I am returning to my roots, to the underground, where I am most comfortable and where I can just be myself.....So more rockstar dreams for me, but at least now I can play fast again




 Awesome!


----------



## ixlramp

Prototype ultralong scale by Rewarrp https://www.facebook.com/RewarrpTechnoPage

"ultra sub contra vs alto guitar.
Its a 18 edo vs the second octave little unequal going in to 19, 5.
6 + 3 reverse + 1 extra reverse."
Look like 3 reversed strings stop at the 'headless nut' halfway along and another stops another 11 frets closer to the bridge.
Seems to be about 6ft. long.
18EDO = 18 equally spaced pitches per octave.


----------



## bostjan

ixlramp said:


> Prototype ultralong scale by Rewarrp https://www.facebook.com/RewarrpTechnoPage
> 
> "ultra sub contra vs alto guitar.
> Its a 18 edo vs the second octave little unequal going in to 19, 5.
> 6 + 3 reverse + 1 extra reverse."
> Look like 3 reversed strings stop at the 'headless nut' halfway along and another stops another 11 frets closer to the bridge.
> Seems to be about 6ft. long.




That looks huge and daunting!

I would have no idea what to do with a tuning that far out.


----------



## ixlramp

http://www.roks-instruments.com/svmicro/

http://www.sanneverbogt.nl/?p=2975

Quartertone bass (24 frets per octave), tuned E to C, 32" scale, alternating silver and gold colour frets.


----------



## bostjan

ixlramp said:


> Quartertone bass (24 frets per octave), tuned E to C, 32" scale, alternating silver and gold colour frets.



There are quite a few things I find nifty about your post. 

The alternating frets are a nifty idea for sure, especially if you are going to play with other instruments in standard tuning.

The seven bolt neck joint looks pretty crazy! I don't think I've ever seen a bolt pattern like that, either.

I headed over to this musician's website, hoping to find audio of the bass, but I guess I'll have to give it a little time. Track #1 on the site gives me the impression of a sort of post-modern smooth jazz with a hint of bossa nova. The first almost 90 seconds of the track were almost all on the same note on the bass, but once it starts ripping, it gets a lot more interesting. 

Not really much metal going on here, but super interesting nonetheless.


----------



## ixlramp

Stumbled upon this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJAsNmf6Z8
"(demo) microtonal technical progressive atmospheric blackened death metal ? #2"
"An original song using a guitar with certain frets divided into quarter tones (aka microtonal). Hope you enjoy!"


----------



## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> Stumbled upon this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJAsNmf6Z8
> "(demo) microtonal technical progressive atmospheric blackened death metal ? #2"
> "An original song using a guitar with certain frets divided into quarter tones (aka microtonal). Hope you enjoy!"



This sounds super nice! Thanks.


----------



## guitar_noir

Lobselvith said:


> I've been a long-time lurker of this thread, so I made an account to post my quartertonal blackened cybergrind thing here, if anyone's interested. I'm too much of a lurker to interact much more than this, so I apologize if it seems like I'm spamming it and leaving. I'll still be peaking in for micrometal links of course. And thanks to the people who update this thread.
> 
> https://antipsychocircumseptemsomam.../album/from-it-pours-what-some-call-emptiness



jesus...your album just annihilated me beyond nonexistence. .......


----------



## guitar_noir

jonajon91 said:


> Can someone recommend some software that I can use to write 24-TET piano music? I just tried Mus2 but the trial does not let you save or export your work and I don't have 60 dollars to drop on this software right now.
> 
> ---edit---
> 
> I only need it for a few days for this project, but Ill be investing properly in the future. Perhaps one that has a few days free trial.



you can actually use Sibelius to put it in standard notation (used for quartertones), which is great notation/playback software for composing and transcribing, etc


----------



## ixlramp

A 'Just Intonation' fretting self conversion by Jack.


Quartertone Ibanez RG8, Maqam Rast, by Wael Dao.
"Maqam Rast is one of the most popular Maqams used in arabic music, it is similar to the Ionian Mode but with the 3rd and 7th degree lowered by a 1/4tone."


Distorted Bohlen-Pierce bass, by Zibethicus.
Bohlen-Pierce is 13 equal divisions of the tritave (3rd harmonic, 19.02 semitones). It uses scales that repeat at the tritave (a tripling of frequency) instead of at the octave. While our conventional system of tones is derived from the natural harmonics, Bohlen-Pierce is derived from odd harmonics only.

Also, new album out from Jute Gyte on July 10th.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

New Jute Gyte is out!
https://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/album/oviri


----------



## ixlramp

First of a series of videos by Wael Daou.
The RG8 looks so good with quartertone frets.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I think it would look better with quartertones up to the 24th (regular) fret. And, on another personal note, I'm not a huge fan of his compositions.


----------



## ixlramp

Interesting stuff, just-intonation-fretted guitar and bass and microtonal saxophone techniques, African rhythms, gamelan-like, polyrhythms:
https://horselords.bandcamp.com/album/interventions
Also see their other releases.

Another album by Cryptic Ruse with microtonal guitars, "Deeply immersive xenharmonic drone metal/doom.":
https://cryptic-ruse.bandcamp.com/album/asmr


----------



## Winspear

ixlramp said:


> Interesting stuff, just-intonation-fretted guitar and bass and microtonal saxophone techniques, African rhythms, gamelan-like, polyrhythms:
> https://horselords.bandcamp.com/album/interventions
> Also see their other releases.
> 
> Another album by Cryptic Ruse with microtonal guitars, "Deeply immersive xenharmonic drone metal/doom.":
> https://cryptic-ruse.bandcamp.com/album/asmr



Thanks for sharing! Great sounds. I've been wanting to try microtonal drone metal for a while, as I've never played a microtonal electric guitar yet and think drone would be incredibly manageable on even the wildest of JI fretboards. The genre much solves the limited transposition problem too


----------



## bostjan

ixlramp said:


> Interesting stuff, just-intonation-fretted guitar and bass and microtonal saxophone techniques, African rhythms, gamelan-like, polyrhythms:
> https://horselords.bandcamp.com/album/interventions
> Also see their other releases.
> 
> Another album by Cryptic Ruse with microtonal guitars, "Deeply immersive xenharmonic drone metal/doom.":
> https://cryptic-ruse.bandcamp.com/album/asmr



Horse Lords is a good find. I had never heard of them before. It looks like the microtonal thing that is going to come closest to catching on is the 12-EDO with some extra 24-EDO quarter tone frets here and there. That's how I started with different tunings.

Here's me in 2008:


12-EDO with 24-EDO hybrid tuning.

My biggest gripe with Horse Lords is that I hear a lot of the same note, and once the faster parts are going, while rhythmically interesting, they seem to be a kind of repetition of 3-4 notes in a round with different overlapping rhythms, which is cool, but I'm ready for something to change after about 20 seconds...yet I sometimes have to wait more than two minutes for a different riff, which isn't a whole lot different.

I've been following Cryptic Ruse for a while now...I think I first heard of them here as well. I think they are getting better each release.


----------



## bostjan

Is there, like, a list of microtonal bands kept anywhere? It's been quiet in this thread lately, and I want to try to fins something new. The microtonal tag on bandcamp left me unimpressed. It doesn't have to be metal, although that'd be a plus.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

There is none to my knowledge, unfortunately.


----------



## ixlramp

This thread is the most complete list of microtonal guitar bands i know of.
For non-guitar bands the FB group 'Xenharmonic Alliance II' has lots of links and music posted.

/////////////

King Gizzard live in studio 4 track set:


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Band showcase - The Mercury Tree
https://themercurytree.bandcamp.com/

The once alternative metal band who evolved to become one of the most forward thinking progressive rock outfits. They now frequently use microtones in their music, amidst regular 12-edo even! I think their quality as a band reached a breakthrough at their album Countenance, and only keeps getting better with their most recent album, Permutations.


----------



## bostjan

^ Pretty interesting soundscapes there.

Wow, that "Unintelligible" track is amazingly tight! I'm going to have to follow this band.


----------



## coffeeflush

The Omega Cluster said:


> Band showcase - The Mercury Tree
> https://themercurytree.bandcamp.com/
> 
> The once alternative metal band who evolved to become one of the most forward thinking progressive rock outfits. They now frequently use microtones in their music, amidst regular 12-edo even! I think their quality as a band reached a breakthrough at their album Countenance, and only keeps getting better with their most recent album, Permutations.




Good stuff, I can't pin why I am enjoying it, but really good stuff.


----------



## bostjan

Definitely not metal, and not really musical, but this was me this weekend playing with different quarter inch cables plugged into my audio interface and subjected to different LED light bulb drivers as a sort of inoperable analog synthesizer.

https://bostjanzupancic.bandcamp.com/track/literally-only-buzzing

It's a very slow-paced track, so kudos to anyone who makes it through all almost twelve minutes of it.


----------



## bostjan

Definitely not metal, and not really musical, but this was me this weekend playing with different quarter inch cables plugged into my audio interface and subjected to different LED light bulb drivers as a sort of inoperable analog synthesizer.

https://bostjanzupancic.bandcamp.com/track/literally-only-buzzing

It's a very slow-paced track, so kudos to anyone who makes it through all almost twelve minutes of it.


----------



## The Omega Cluster




----------



## coffeeflush

bostjan said:


> Definitely not metal, and not really musical, but this was me this weekend playing with different quarter inch cables plugged into my audio interface and subjected to different LED light bulb drivers as a sort of inoperable analog synthesizer.
> 
> https://bostjanzupancic.bandcamp.com/track/literally-only-buzzing
> 
> It's a very slow-paced track, so kudos to anyone who makes it through all almost twelve minutes of it.



I think this was a fun idea, if you can develop it, it will be fun for sure.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Not metal, but here's my article about the microtonal jazz album Mikrojazz!, and the new expressionist music (NXM) movement.

http://canthisevenbecalledmusic.com...adze-mikrojazz-neue-expressionistische-musik/


----------



## coffeeflush

In response to post above, micro jazz has been growing slowly but surely


----------



## bostjan

Good job on the article! 

Just for discussion's sake, though, there have been at least a couple of microtonal jazz albums to have been produced before, although nothing quite like this, so I don't think it's accurate to call this the first all microtonal jazz album.


----------



## ixlramp

An impressive 17EDO/12EDO polytonality track including microtonal guitar and vocals, good video.
From album https://feedingfingers.bandcamp.com/album/do-owe-harm
https://www.feedingfingers.net/
"Justin Curfman returns with his 6th Feeding Fingers studio album, 'Do Owe Harm'. An exploration of polytonal / microtonal / xenharmonic music facilitated by the utilization of tunable analog synthesizers, quarter-tone guitars, fretless instruments, acoustic / electronic hybrid percussion, micro-intervallic wind instruments & vocals abiding cautiously within the notes between the notes.

Each song on 'Do Owe Harm' was written upon a foundation of microtonality and superimposed with a surface layer of familiar equal temperament in an effort to synthesize the two into a natural state of polytonality. Curfman hopes that you won't even notice."


----------



## ixlramp

Interview and guitar demonstrations by Neil Haverstick, Just Intonation electric guitar and Oud.


----------



## bostjan

I've been following Stickman for nearly 20 years - he was a big inspiration for me picking up microtones in the first place.

You guys probably know this stuff, but...
I believe the "Brain" to whom he refers is Brian Deckebach, a luthier, and you guys probably know "Starrett" is Professor John Starrett. Stickman played with John Starrett's band early on. They did a couple 19-EDO blues/rock songs together in the late 1990's.

Definitely a cool video.


----------



## coffeeflush

ixlramp said:


> An impressive 17EDO/12EDO polytonality track including microtonal guitar and vocals, good video.
> From album https://feedingfingers.bandcamp.com/album/do-owe-harm
> https://www.feedingfingers.net/
> "Justin Curfman returns with his 6th Feeding Fingers studio album, 'Do Owe Harm'. An exploration of polytonal / microtonal / xenharmonic music facilitated by the utilization of tunable analog synthesizers, quarter-tone guitars, fretless instruments, acoustic / electronic hybrid percussion, micro-intervallic wind instruments & vocals abiding cautiously within the notes between the notes.
> 
> Each song on 'Do Owe Harm' was written upon a foundation of microtonality and superimposed with a surface layer of familiar equal temperament in an effort to synthesize the two into a natural state of polytonality. Curfman hopes that you won't even notice."




This was enjoyable

Lot of micro tonal music seems to be weird for the sake of being weird. 
While the micro tonality was quiet noticeable, I enjoyed it musically. 
Apart from Sevish and very few , I can't say that for most microtonal artists.


----------



## ixlramp

First album from Brendan Byrne's live 22EDO electro pop rock project Ilevens.
http://canthisevenbecalledmusic.com/exclusive-premiere-ilevens-transmitter/
https://ilevens.bandcamp.com/album/transmitter

The Milk Marketing Board, quartertone metal.
https://soundcloud.com/themilkmarketingboard
I'm impressed.


----------



## ixlramp

Jan Wouter Oostenrijk. 'Electric Quartertone Guitar Trio'.
https://www.youtube.com/user/janwouteroostenrijk/videos


----------



## ixlramp

Surprise, cheap Gizzard-fretted guitars selling in the UK for £229
https://www.revelationguitars.co.uk/guitar/marrakesh-quarter-tone/
https://www.gearnews.com/revelation-marrakesh-quarter-note-guitar-microtonal-fun-budget/


----------



## ixlramp

https://darknoiz.bandcamp.com/album/plague
A varying mix of normal and quartertone guitars. One of the more quartertonal tracks is https://darknoiz.bandcamp.com/track/cleansing-through-fire-purity-through-suffering
'Black / doom / sludge metal'.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Thanks! I listened to a few minutes of this already, but not enough to notice the quartertone instruments, it seems! I'll give it another shot.


----------



## HerbalDude420

Can not say I have heard anything like these before very interesting music indeed.


----------



## ixlramp

The Omega Cluster, i overstated how microtonal that album is, the artist told me there isn't much, only a few solos, but that track i linked is fairly microtonal.

Latest by our own Bostjan https://bostjanzupancic.bandcamp.com/album/nothing-special
All in 19EDO, metal and other genres.

The Feeding Fingers album has been released in full, details in http://sevenstring.org/threads/microtonal-metal.202859/page-22#post-4801437
http://sevenstring.org/threads/microtonal-metal.202859/page-22#post-4801437
Raga on a electric fretless bass / sitar hybrid instrument


----------



## bostjan

Thanks so much for the mention!

That fretless bass veena thing sounds really interesting. I think it works well in the raga context. Also that's some quite nice tabla playing!

I love microtonal stuff that uses a variety of tunings, and that Feeding Fingers album is a different tuning on almost every track. He does sound like a darker, more industrial Brendan Byrnes at times. I might have to add that one to my collection.


----------



## Necris

https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/gate
https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/nether
https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/nothingi

They're just experiments, but they're Metal at least.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Necris said:


> https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/gate
> https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/nether
> https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/nothingi
> 
> They're just experiments, but they're Metal at least.



That's cool, what temperaments did you use for the tracks? Do you plan anything regarding a better produced release? Perhaps an EP of sorts with real drums and vocals (I'm dreaming).


----------



## Winspear

Necris said:


> https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/gate
> https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/nether
> https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/nothingi
> 
> They're just experiments, but they're Metal at least.



Neat demos! I wasn't sure if you were still posting here. I sent a message probably a year or so regarding a comment you had made about microtonal guitar tab playback. I figured out one method that works in all tab software this week but I'm curious to hear what you are doing, if I did understand you correctly regarding that. 

Does anyone here have experience with 31EDO? I've been messing about electronically for a while trying to decide which route I'd like to go down and I'm pretty sure I'm going to commission a 31EDO baritone, with a carefully selected 12 note subset for the 2nd half of the fretboard (to make fret sizes more manageable)


----------



## bostjan

Winspear said:


> Neat demos! I wasn't sure if you were still posting here. I sent a message probably a year or so regarding a comment you had made about microtonal guitar tab playback. I figured out one method that works in all tab software this week but I'm curious to hear what you are doing, if I did understand you correctly regarding that.
> 
> Does anyone here have experience with 31EDO? I've been messing about electronically for a while trying to decide which route I'd like to go down and I'm pretty sure I'm going to commission a 31EDO baritone, with a carefully selected 12 note subset for the 2nd half of the fretboard (to make fret sizes more manageable)


I've messed around with 31-EDO.
It's a lot of intervals. Most of them sound pretty good. It's definitely a great diatonic tuning. It fits into the fibonacci sequence of scales 5, 7, 12, 19, 31, 50, ..., all of which, when divided into the octave, yield useful tunings.
But, it's still a lot of intervals. I struggled to get the hang of it, at first, because there were so many frets and they were so close together. It's not overwhelming, but it is certainly an adjustment. I think stepping up from 12-EDO right into 31-EDO is doable, but is going to take some time for sure. Well, maybe...if you just close your eyes and play, your fingers will probably find the right spot 95% of the time anyway.


----------



## Winspear

bostjan said:


> I've messed around with 31-EDO.
> It's a lot of intervals. Most of them sound pretty good. It's definitely a great diatonic tuning. It fits into the fibonacci sequence of scales 5, 7, 12, 19, 31, 50, ..., all of which, when divided into the octave, yield useful tunings.
> But, it's still a lot of intervals. I struggled to get the hang of it, at first, because there were so many frets and they were so close together. It's not overwhelming, but it is certainly an adjustment. I think stepping up from 12-EDO right into 31-EDO is doable, but is going to take some time for sure. Well, maybe...if you just close your eyes and play, your fingers will probably find the right spot 95% of the time anyway.



That's what I'm hoping  I've been coming up with some inlay ideas to help. How did it feel from a physical standpoint having the frets so close? It's something I've never experienced without them also being at the top end of the fretboard (i.e. a regular guitar at the 24th fret) and thus suffering from stiff sustainless strings anyway. I'll use mandolin wire and certainly test it out before doing anything expensive!


----------



## bostjan

Once the frets get closer together than the width of a fingertip, I just mash my finger into the frets themselves. It's not as painful as it sounds  and I can get a decent clear stop that way, but my main problem up there is getting disoriented. If you have inlays, you have to make them really small or else have them bisected by fret slots. Beyond that, I believe it's a real pain for whomever levels off all of those frets.

Do you mind if I ask who you had in mind to do the work? We have a guy here in the USA (you're probably familiar with him) who does work like this super cheap, and I've worked with him a couple times, and I've personally had good luck with him, but he's had a few very vocal critics in the past. There's another older guy up north who, I guess, does the work through some sort of proxy, but I've ordered from him before as well, and he's done excellent work fast, and is fairly priced, and then there's a guy out west here who charges and arm and a leg, and also doesn't respond to phone calls or emails very well, so I cut my contacts with him. I can also recommend *not* to use Carruthers Guitar Works in California. My business with them was not at all a pleasurable experience, but, oddly, they seem to have a good reputation; I'd say maybe I was unlucky, but my dealings with them were very thorough and lasted several years of headache, so I really don't think it was a fluke. But I'm sure you'd much rather stick with someone in the UK.


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## Winspear

bostjan said:


> Once the frets get closer together than the width of a fingertip, I just mash my finger into the frets themselves. It's not as painful as it sounds  and I can get a decent clear stop that way, but my main problem up there is getting disoriented. If you have inlays, you have to make them really small or else have them bisected by fret slots. Beyond that, I believe it's a real pain for whomever levels off all of those frets.
> 
> Do you mind if I ask who you had in mind to do the work? We have a guy here in the USA (you're probably familiar with him) who does work like this super cheap, and I've worked with him a couple times, and I've personally had good luck with him, but he's had a few very vocal critics in the past. There's another older guy up north who, I guess, does the work through some sort of proxy, but I've ordered from him before as well, and he's done excellent work fast, and is fairly priced, and then there's a guy out west here who charges and arm and a leg, and also doesn't respond to phone calls or emails very well, so I cut my contacts with him. I can also recommend *not* to use Carruthers Guitar Works in California. My business with them was not at all a pleasurable experience, but, oddly, they seem to have a good reputation; I'd say maybe I was unlucky, but my dealings with them were very thorough and lasted several years of headache, so I really don't think it was a fluke. But I'm sure you'd much rather stick with someone in the UK.



I know what you mean about mashing the finger haha, I refretted a harmonic series board with a few very close frets but it was a very amateur job at the time. I am aware of whom you speak, had some chats with him previously. He definitely has quite an attitude but seems a reputable businessman for sure. If I wasn't dabbling in luthiery myself I'd probably go that way with a Strat or something. I'm inclined to get more practice in and do a cheap build myself, though with how busy I am a conversion of an existing cheap guitar may be a better idea to get something in my hands to experiment with faster. If I like it, I do have in mind a full build from a high end UK builder who hasn't previously dabbled in microtonal fretting but I'm sure could do a great job !

I've really fallen in love with 31 EDO on the computer. I avoided it for a long time due to its size but in the end it's just so fantastic for retaining a potentially completely normal sound with excellent buzzy tuning whilst also of course opening up more extreme microtonal gestures and a rich palette of intervals


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## Winspear

By the way - I listened to your most recent release last week Bostjan and very much enjoyed it! Very entertaining lyrics too haha


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## bostjan

Winspear said:


> I know what you mean about mashing the finger haha, I refretted a harmonic series board with a few very close frets but it was a very amateur job at the time. I am aware of whom you speak, had some chats with him previously. He definitely has quite an attitude but seems a reputable businessman for sure. If I wasn't dabbling in luthiery myself I'd probably go that way with a Strat or something. I'm inclined to get more practice in and do a cheap build myself, though with how busy I am a conversion of an existing cheap guitar may be a better idea to get something in my hands to experiment with faster. If I like it, I do have in mind a full build from a high end UK builder who hasn't previously dabbled in microtonal fretting but I'm sure could do a great job !
> 
> I've really fallen in love with 31 EDO on the computer. I avoided it for a long time due to its size but in the end it's just so fantastic for retaining a potentially completely normal sound with excellent buzzy tuning whilst also of course opening up more extreme microtonal gestures and a rich palette of intervals



I know exactly what you mean. I started out on the computer as well, with the harmonic series, 17-EDO, 19-EDO, 22-EDO, and some different JI tuning sets. I bought my first micro guitar from Jon Catler, was blown away by how good it sounded IRL compared to the computer. After that, my dad helped me build some three string guitar prototypes with different tunings, and I comissioned Thomas Knath to build me a bigger, more customized microtonal guitar with a longer scale length and extended range, but he passed away, and then I commissioned Carruthers and they never started my project, then I found a local guy who said he'd do it and I ended up with an unplayable mess, then I was moments away from commissioning a Strictly 7, when the company started falling apart... phew, it was a long painful ride, but "you know who" came through for me with a guitar and a bass, and honestly, he didn't do everything flawlessly, but everything that really mattered was done very well, so I was really happy with how it turned out, and the price was right, too.

My own work has been thrilling to do, but less thrilling to play. I think I can do fretless pretty well, but fretting a 31-EDO or 34-EDO or anything around that level takes a great deal of patience to get it done properly. I think I'd draw the limit of utility not much beyond that. 36-EDO is something I've wanted to mess with on a "real" instrument (as opposed to a synth), since it cuts 12 into thirds, or 38-EDO, cutting 19 into halves, but the law of diminishing returns always stops me.



Winspear said:


> By the way - I listened to your most recent release last week Bostjan and very much enjoyed it! Very entertaining lyrics too haha



Hey, thanks so much Tom! I'm really flattered.


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## Necris

The Omega Cluster said:


> That's cool, what temperaments did you use for the tracks? Do you plan anything regarding a better produced release? Perhaps an EP of sorts with real drums and vocals (I'm dreaming).


Most likely not, I lost all interest in compiling tracks into an Album/EP/Demo/etc. years ago; the last time I did was in late 2014 (non-microtonal) and I've since removed that from the internet along with the majority of my "completed" music.
If I produced something I felt was worth fleshing out then when it was complete I'd record the guitar and bass properly (mic'd amplifiers - which I find much easier to work with) and put in the work to make the programmed drums sound natural (unlike in those clips), but I'd probably end up with the wall of noise production anyway since I've always gravitated towards that. Unfortunately, I no longer play drums since playing was aggravating my tendonitis terribly even with significant technique work so it's unlikely that anything I record will have real drums in the future - vocals will also most likely be absent on anything I record in the future because I don't feel I have anything of value to say and therefore vocals would only be a detriment to the music; but I was having fun playing with the microtonal choir oohs. 




Winspear said:


> Neat demos! I wasn't sure if you were still posting here. I sent a message probably a year or so regarding a comment you had made about microtonal guitar tab playback. I figured out one method that works in all tab software this week but I'm curious to hear what you are doing, if I did understand you correctly regarding that.
> 
> Does anyone here have experience with 31EDO? I've been messing about electronically for a while trying to decide which route I'd like to go down and I'm pretty sure I'm going to commission a 31EDO baritone, with a carefully selected 12 note subset for the 2nd half of the fretboard (to make fret sizes more manageable)


I wasn't posting here actively for quite a while. I was using loopbe and scala to retune guitar pro, but it was inconsistent at best - sometimes it just refused to work. So I'm back to just hand writing things out.
Not 31EDO, but my Guitar and Bass are in 33EDO, so what I did is mark off 11EDO on the side of my fingerboards and use that for reference.Not really useful to you but the general idea of finding an MOS or another subset and marking that for reference is probably your best bet.



bostjan said:


> Do you mind if I ask who you had in mind to do the work? We have a guy here in the USA (you're probably familiar with him) who does work like this super cheap, and I've worked with him a couple times, and I've personally had good luck with him, but he's had a few very vocal critics in the past. There's another older guy up north who, I guess, does the work through some sort of proxy, but I've ordered from him before as well, and he's done excellent work fast, and is fairly priced, and then there's a guy out west here who charges and arm and a leg, and also doesn't respond to phone calls or emails very well, so I cut my contacts with him. I can also recommend *not* to use Carruthers Guitar Works in California. My business with them was not at all a pleasurable experience, but, oddly, they seem to have a good reputation; I'd say maybe I was unlucky, but my dealings with them were very thorough and lasted several years of headache, so I really don't think it was a fluke. But I'm sure you'd much rather stick with someone in the UK.



Aside from some attitude issues (that got him banned from this site) the guy you're talking about guy in the USA is nice enough, but his luthiery skills are a bit lacking and you get what you pay for - the instrument will probably function; although not always, such as was the case another poster in this thread and a guy on facebook I was in contact with, but even if it works it will almost certainly be rough around the edges in a very literal sense - he doesn't bevel or round off his fret ends. For the money you could buy the tools to do it yourself.


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## InHiding

I just listened to a few songs from vol II. It's sort of hypnotizing at moments. Very interesting. I got a bit of a Buckethead feel sometimes too.


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## bostjan

InHiding said:


> I just listened to a few songs from vol II. It's sort of hypnotizing at moments. Very interesting. I got a bit of a Buckethead feel sometimes too.


Thank so much for taking the time to check it out, and thanks for the kind words!
I listen to a lot of Buckethead. I'd like to imagine what he'd do with a few different tunings.


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## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> It fits into the fibonacci sequence of scales 5, 7, 12, 19, 31, 50, ...



Except this is not the Fibonacci sequence.


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## bostjan

The Omega Cluster said:


> Except this is not the Fibonacci sequence.



*Linear recurrence sequence seeded by 5 and 7.


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## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> *Linear recurrence sequence seeded by 5 and 7.



Oh, then it has to be a G series. Fibonacci only starts as 1 and 1 or 0 and 1. The G series takes the general concept of adding the two prior numbers to form the next one, but any number can be chosen.


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## bostjan

I picked up the bad habit of referring to any binary linear recurrence sequence as a "Fibonacci" sequence from two professors I had who made the same generalization.

But anyway, the most popular Indonesian gamelan tuning is "slendro" or 5-EDO. It's the smallest widely used equal temperament. Other gamelan tunings are typically unequal, so, really, it's the smallest equal temperament that is culturally meaningful. Some different cultures tune xylophones to 7-EDO, and 7-EDO is really the smallest equal temperament which can effectively construct a pentatonic scale. 12-EDO, obviously, is the most widely accepted tuning by far. 19 and 31 were the only two number of notes to compete with the standardization of 12 per octave during the Renaissance, and, incidentally, 19-EDO and 31-EDO are meantone tunings with a third comma and quarter comma, respectively. The next meantone approximates are 43-EDO and 50-EDO with 1/5th comma and 2/7th comma. All of this gobbledigook means that, historically, the equal temperaments that have the most significance and also been best approximates to pentatonic and diatonic scales from the idiom of Western music are 12-EDO, 19-EDO, 5-EDO, 7-EDO, and 31-EDO. 

I just thought it was interesting that those fit into the form F1=5 F2=7 Fn>2 = Fn-1 + Fn-2

Maybe it means nothing, yet 50-EDO predicted as the next number in the pattern also behaves the same way.

And that's not to discount that you can get some very consonant intervals from 17-EDO, 22-EDO, 24-EDO, 27-EDO, 29-EDO, 34-EDO, etc. - but - if you play with these tunings enough you can run into some characteristic limitations in certain applications, plus 34-EDO is a subdivision of 17-EDO, and 24-EDO is a subdivision of 12-EDO, and neither of them offer improvements on the intonation of the fifth. The intervals in 34-EDO are not really a significant improvement over 31-EDO, except that being an even number, 34 offers a better tritone.

They're really all just different palettes for painting different types of pictures, though.

*TL;DR 31-EDO is pretty cool and bostjan has a bad habit of misspeaking.*


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## ixlramp

Some quartertone metal by Aaron Myers Brooks https://soundcloud.com/aaronalone/flora-fauna-with-vocals/s-uRKBE


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## ixlramp

Fun video, Star Wars Cantina band in various tonal systems.


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## NateFalcon

Here’s a 24 tone equal temperament (1/4 note) “straight” microtonal bass that MonoNeon had custom made with a stretched 2:1 octave scale with 12 frets added...not metal by any means (funk, R&B, experimental) but my PREDICTION is that a guitar crossover “take” on a straight fretted microtonal scale similar to this will be the first to catch on in metal


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## NateFalcon

BTW...this guy plays his basses upside down, strung backward...truly unique dude...


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## NateFalcon

+1 on F-F...Flora-Fauna is about the best “metal” example...


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## bostjan

NateFalcon said:


> View attachment 60337
> Here’s a 24 tone equal temperament (1/4 note) “straight” microtonal bass that MonoNeon had custom made with a stretched 2:1 octave scale with 12 frets added...not metal by any means (funk, R&B, experimental) but my PREDICTION is that a guitar crossover “take” on a straight fretted microtonal scale similar to this will be the first to catch on in metal


What is a "stretched 2:1 octave scale?" What does "straight" mean in this context?
I'm part of several microtonal groups online, and I read them quite often, yet I still find myself confused by the jargon to the point where I feel I don't understand the gist of a post from time to time.

Anyway, 24-EDO, or whatever you wish to call quarter tone tuning, is quite obviously the most common microtonal tuning worldwide. The Arabs have been using it for hundreds of years, and the Persians maybe even longer. Ibanez even built some standard production electric guitars with quarter tones to market in the middle east.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard has been using a guitar with some quarter tones for a year or two, and I've had a guitar with a few quarter tone notes for over ten years now. I think it's probably the best way to stick your toe into microtones without having to commit anything. You can play along with any standard 12-equal instrument without having to adjust anything, and then you can hit a maqam or off-note or extra-blue note here or there without really having to change gears.

My main approach, with 19 notes equally divided per octave is also not new. That one goes back almost to the Renaissance, around the time the keyboard layout was standardized. Some people didn't want to allow the enharmonic equivalences we now have, i.e. C#=Db D#=Eb etc., and instead wanted to divide the octave into 19 tones, such that C# and Db would be one tone apart from each other. Those wanting such were in a small minority, though, so we ended up with 12-equal and not 19-equal as a standard tuning. My focus on 19 was to play with the idea of "what if...," and I think the result is that music done that way sounds pretty normal, for the most part, with a few new exciting things here and there to throw into the fray.

My hats go off to people doing music in non-meantone and non-subdivided tunings, though. 17-EDO (17 notes per perfect octave divided equally) sounds pretty great, but you have to either play by feel rather well or else keep better accounting of where you are in your head. I really love the sound of 22-EDO, but I'm one tiny step above being completely clueless as to how to implement it. Tuning choices like those are unforgiving, in that, you can't universally play "normal" stuff, like you get with 24-EDO or, to an extent, 19-EDO or 31-EDO.

The context of funk rock, IMO, is fertile ground for microtonal experimentation. A lot of funk rock bass lines walk up or down (usually down) chromatically, and to drag out this sort of progression with a few quarter steps or whatever analogous idea, can make for some really nifty sounds, at least to my ears. Guitar soloing over a typical funk rock progression, it's nice to throw in a b5, whether you start with a Dorian mode or minor pentatonic or whatever. With an extra note, there are some fun things you can do in between the 5 and b5, and also going up to the major sixth, if you are going with dorian, to make a micro-chromatic run from b5 - d5 (half flat) - 5 - t5 (half sharp) - #5 - bd6 (flat and a half) - b6 - d6 - 6. I'd encourage anyone with a fret saw and a cheap guitar they hardly play and a piece of fretwire to give it a shot.

So, here's the above bass in question in action:


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## NateFalcon

Straight meaning straight fretted...as opposed to micro-fretted (seen here)


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## The Omega Cluster

Yes, you ARE going to have straight frets when you play in equal temperament, unless your guitar has fanned frets (still straight though, but not parallel) or true temperament (made to account for the strings' mass, tension, and playing length).


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## NateFalcon

Yes...you are


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## bostjan

Ahh, Tolgahan Çoğulu, a true pioneer! He's got those moveable fret pieces, because he likes to play around with a lot of different temperaments that are unequal, like various Werkmeister tunings, Just Intonation tunings, etc.

I think that, as @The Omega Cluster pointed out, there should be no reason to have any sort of fancy fretwork on an equal-temperament fretboard, unless you wish to exclude certain tones, or if the scale length of the instrument is nonlinear. But, if I were to explain my 12/24-EDO guitars to people, I wouldn't just say that they were 24-EDO, I would say that they are 12-EDO (standard) with some 24-EDO (quartertone) frets added.

I'm still totally foggy about "stretched 2:1 octave scale." Again, because, to me, it seems that a lot of folks learn the terminology differently. I, too, learned different terminology than the rest, since my introduction to microtonality was through a mentor who introduced me to world music many many years ago. I then developed my own terminology when I started experimenting on my own, unaware that others had already been developing more academic terminology for the same things.

@The Omega Cluster : I thought True Temperament was just another sort of well-tempered tuning, to sweeten certain intervals in certain keys. The string's mass, tension, and vibrating length should only account for the typical perfect-string equation f = (1/2L) * (T/µ)^(1/2). Not knocking the idea, since I prefer the sound of TT over 12-EDO myself, but I do think that it does get oversold for what it is.


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## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> @The Omega Cluster : I thought True Temperament was just another sort of well-tempered tuning, to sweeten certain intervals in certain keys. The string's mass, tension, and vibrating length should only account for the typical perfect-string equation f = (1/2L) * (T/µ)^(1/2). Not knocking the idea, since I prefer the sound of TT over 12-EDO myself, but I do think that it does get oversold for what it is.



I'm no user of TT instruments either, but it's not something like a well-tempered tuning or a just intonation tuning. TT works in all keys, and the position of the frets is not given by mathematical equations but by finding it by hand on every instrument. Since every instrument is different this will vary slightly, and also depending on the string gauge and tension you're playing with.

It's just that when you hit a fret on your string and you see it on your tuner, it's usually way out of tune. We're all used to that sound now and I don't think it makes a huge different in the end whether or not your instrument is true-tempered, but I think it's a cool concept.

Edit: just to be clear, True Temperament is NOT a microtonal tuning. It's in fact the opposite, as it was made so that each fret on every string sounds exactly like it's supposed to in the given tuning system – usually 12EDO.


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## bostjan

The Omega Cluster said:


> I'm no user of TT instruments either, but it's not something like a well-tempered tuning or a just intonation tuning. TT works in all keys, and the position of the frets is not given by mathematical equations but by finding it by hand on every instrument. Since every instrument is different this will vary slightly, and also depending on the string gauge and tension you're playing with.
> 
> It's just that when you hit a fret on your string and you see it on your tuner, it's usually way out of tune. We're all used to that sound now and I don't think it makes a huge different in the end whether or not your instrument is true-tempered, but I think it's a cool concept.
> 
> Edit: just to be clear, True Temperament is NOT a microtonal tuning. It's in fact the opposite, as it was made so that each fret on every string sounds exactly like it's supposed to in the given tuning system – usually 12EDO.


I respectfully disagree. If it was perfect 12-EDO, then they would not have you temper-tune the open strings ( see http://www.truetemperament.com/how-to-tune/ ). There is a lot of confusion online about this, but I am fairly certain that the idea is an adaptation of the ideas started by the Buzz Feiten tuning system and so forth. The TT FAQ page mentions string gauge and how the bent frets address the tension of the third string, among other issues, but, honestly, the third string issue is solved at the nut (string relief), not at the frets. Moving the frets about to solve an issue with the position of the nut would be like replacing the engine of an automobile when you only need to replace the oil. I'm not 100% certain that they *wouldn't* do this, but they seem like a reasonable company, so I simply highly doubt it. Plus there is the fact of adjusting the temperament of the open strings.


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## The Omega Cluster

I did a bit of research and there is nothing too explicit but this video (after he finishes playing the song at the start) explains that true temperament is just that your notes are well intonate (according to 12EDO) all around the fretboard.


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## bostjan

The Omega Cluster said:


> I did a bit of research and there is nothing too explicit but this video (after he finishes playing the song at the start) explains that true temperament is just that your notes are well intonate (according to 12EDO) all around the fretboard.




I'm afraid my position simply contradicts yours in this case. I don't take this lightly, since you are very knowledgeable about stuff like this.

Here's the tuning according to the TT website:



http://www.truetemperament.com/how-to-tune/ said:


> E -2, F 0, F” -4, G +4, G” -4, A 0, Bb -4, B -1, C +2, C”-4, D +2, Eb -4.









The G 4 cents high and G# 4 cents low means that the first fret on the third string should be 8 cents flat, which explains exactly the position of that fret. Same for the fourth fret, because Bb is also 4 cents flat. The twelfth fret is the only one that is perfectly straight, reinforcing that it has nothing to do with string tension and everything to do with the temperament used.

There was a bloke in Australia who made a fretboard with Werkmeister III temperament, which looked very similar to this. He ended up facing some legal threats from whoever owned the fretwave system (which was shortly associated with Frank Gambale) at that time. If you pardon the colloquialism, if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck...

In addition, there is no logical reason whatsoever that correcting for changes in tension up and down the fretboard would have some fret positions moved one way and others moved the other way. It's simply impossible to explain with any sort of classical nor modern physics, so I have to assume that the claims I've heard that it is such are stemming from some sort of misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the actual idea here (of which I am 99% certain) is that the True Temperament system is just a well temperament, just like Fretwave or Buzz Feiten or Werkmeister, but with a fresh coat of snake oil.


----------



## NateFalcon

I think by “stretched” 2:1 they meant taking the 2:1 octave, stretching it to add 12 notes (48 frets total) thus doubling the notes within each octave from 2 to 4, breaking it into (half or) semitones...I’m learning here lol


----------



## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> I'm afraid my position simply contradicts yours in this case. I don't take this lightly, since you are very knowledgeable about stuff like this.
> 
> Here's the tuning according to the TT website:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The G 4 cents high and G# 4 cents low means that the first fret on the third string should be 8 cents flat, which explains exactly the position of that fret. Same for the fourth fret, because Bb is also 4 cents flat. The twelfth fret is the only one that is perfectly straight, reinforcing that it has nothing to do with string tension and everything to do with the temperament used.
> 
> There was a bloke in Australia who made a fretboard with Werkmeister III temperament, which looked very similar to this. He ended up facing some legal threats from whoever owned the fretwave system (which was shortly associated with Frank Gambale) at that time. If you pardon the colloquialism, if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck...
> 
> In addition, there is no logical reason whatsoever that correcting for changes in tension up and down the fretboard would have some fret positions moved one way and others moved the other way. It's simply impossible to explain with any sort of classical nor modern physics, so I have to assume that the claims I've heard that it is such are stemming from some sort of misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the actual idea here (of which I am 99% certain) is that the True Temperament system is just a well temperament, just like Fretwave or Buzz Feiten or Werkmeister, but with a fresh coat of snake oil.



I just want to point out that in your picture the 12th fret is wobbly. Obviously it is less so than most other frets but there is a slight curve to it I'm sure you can notice. 

I'm also not sure what you want to defend. Do you think TT is a microtonal fretting system or just that it doesn't do what it claims?


----------



## bostjan

NateFalcon said:


> I think by “stretched” 2:1 they meant taking the 2:1 octave, stretching it to add 12 notes (48 frets total) thus doubling the notes within each octave from 2 to 4, breaking it into (half or) semitones...I’m learning here lol


Oh, ok. I suppose that makes sense. I think the term "stretched" might be a little confusing in the context of stringed instruments, since you are taking the same amount of length and just chopping it up into smaller pieces.
I think most people would say that the chromatic scale is played (normally) with half steps (semitones), so, a scale played with 24 equal notes in one octave would be played with quarter steps or quarter tones.
I still see different sets of terminology out there and different sets of notation. Especially when it comes to groups where people talk about many different microtonal tunings. Some of the diagrams involved look like Feynmann Diagrams, almost. It can be very confusing.


The Omega Cluster said:


> I just want to point out that in your picture the 12th fret is wobbly. Obviously it is less so than most other frets but there is a slight curve to it I'm sure you can notice.
> 
> I'm also not sure what you want to defend. Do you think TT is a microtonal fretting system or just that it doesn't do what it claims?


I have a little bit of the same trouble here that I have been having with trying to carry on conversations with different groups of people with different lexical meanings. By "microtonal" do you mean "not 12-EDO", or do you mean something more specific than that?
I'm 100% certain that the TT system is not the same as 12-EDO. It says so multiple times on their own webpage, which I've linked to in a previous post.
I also contend that some of the claims made about TT by folks on forums and in videos simply don't make sense.
So, in general, I put forth that TT is simply a tempered tuning. It's not some magical method for correcting problems introduced by the increase in tension when you fret a string. That increase in tension is dependent upon the player, and in most cases, is negligible anyway - less then what almost any listener would be able to note.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> I have a little bit of the same trouble here that I have been having with trying to carry on conversations with different groups of people with different lexical meanings. By "microtonal" do you mean "not 12-EDO", or do you mean something more specific than that?
> I'm 100% certain that the TT system is not the same as 12-EDO. It says so multiple times on their own webpage, which I've linked to in a previous post.
> I also contend that some of the claims made about TT by folks on forums and in videos simply don't make sense.
> So, in general, I put forth that TT is simply a tempered tuning. It's not some magical method for correcting problems introduced by the increase in tension when you fret a string. That increase in tension is dependent upon the player, and in most cases, is negligible anyway - less then what almost any listener would be able to note.



Yes, I believe this system is meant to be a better approximation to 12-EDO than regular, straight-fretted guitars. I agree however that these improvements are negligible, as you can probably tell with the +/- a few cents the site mentions. If I remember correctly the human pitch resolution is about 5 ¢, although it varies from person to person and between high and low pitches. I also agree that the pressure with which you fret the string varies from person to person, but if, say, fretting the 1st fret always gives a slightly sharp note, then moving that fret back a bit will help. Of course, not everyone will hit the exact same pitch with 100.00 % accuracy, but on average it will be a better approximation.

Now I think well tempered tunings are meant to work better in certain keys and poorly in certain others, which it is not the case here. I think the frets are only tailor made so that a certain string tuned to a certain note with a certain gauge and a certain length will produce exactly the note it is supposed to on all the frets. I think that it would sound much worse if you tuned your guitar differently or used different gauges of strings. In that way it is similar to the well-tempered systems, since it's made to sound better according to certain prerequisites, and will behave poorly if these prerequisites change.

But again I want to repeat that I've never played such instrument and I know very little about how they make it and why, so there's a lot of assumption. The main assumption is that I believe this is not a scam. Of course, the improvements are probably unnoticeable to the human ear – maybe not –, but I think they do what they say, which is to provide a better approximation of the 12EDO system on guitars. If you assume this is true, then that's what I've come up with. It's a sort of mental reverse engineering I guess.


----------



## bostjan

You and I agree that it's not a scam.

I do disagree with the notion:


The Omega Cluster said:


> Now I think well tempered tunings are meant to work better in certain keys and poorly in certain others, which it is not the case here.



I don't think well-temperament really sounds "bad" in any particular key, just that it has some characteristics that some intervals sound better than others, and that which interval sounds which way is dependent upon which key. I believe that the TT system has exactly this same characteristic.

I'm just saying that if the instructions are to tune your open strings as much as 4 cents off (some sharp, some flat) from 12-EDO, using an electronic tuner, then it cannot possibly be a better approximation of 12-EDO, right off the bat.

Look at Werkmeister III tuning:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werckmeister_temperament
It's the most commonly referenced "well tempered tuning," and other than one note that is 8 cents off from 12-EDO, the notes are generally 2-4 cents off, very much the same general idea of TT, according to the table I posted from the TT website.

note / TT adjustment from 12-EDO / WM3 adjustment from 12-EDO
E -2 -4
F 0 +4
F# -4 0
G +4 +2
G# -4 -8
A 0 0
A# -4 +2
B -1 -2
C +2 0
C# -4 -4
D +2 +4
D# -4 0

Certainly not identical, but it's the same idea, just with interval errors moved around.

If you ever set up a guitar with a strobe tuner, you can note how many cents off the fretted notes are versus the open string. I'd say that 4 cents is pretty wide compared to what you would typically see on any decent properly-adjusted electric guitar.

I mean, I guess there's not much more I can say. The website gives all of the deviations from 12-EDO, those listed deviations are on par with other well temperaments, and the fret plot matches pretty perfectly the tuning shift given. Conventional knowledge of how fretted instruments work is that if more string relief is necessary for proper intonation of fretted notes, it's solved by chipping back the nut a little. I conclude with a small margain of uncertainty that the TT system perfectly fit the description of well temperament. You disagree for some reason I may not be 100% clear about, but possibly because of an Ola Englund video. I might be wrong.


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## Winspear

Indeed it's definitely a temperament intending to hit different notes than 12EDO, the website shows this and even says it will be slightly out of tune with a keyboard, though not to any practical negative effect. My image below also shows adjustment in the correct directions closer to Just Intonation ratios for major and minor thirds in popular keys, as is usually the goal with temperaments.

Yeah @bostjan I mocked up TT tuning offsets with a synth and the difference is so subtle, and just on the popular chords of course. The TT guys are certainly into microtonal temperaments, and it seems like TT was their most subtle offering which works for the masses. I do wonder how good they really think it is, versus how much they see it as just a marketable business idea. Certainly it's about as good as you can get for a tuning that works in all 12 keys without bringing a noticeable weirdness to the more distant keys (like Well Temperament does for example). But as a result, it's so incredibly subtle it's almost pointless, especially on an instrument like the guitar where the strings sway out of pitch and such too.
The TT guys do indeed say they have compensated for some gauge behaviors and such with the fret patterns too, so I wont draw my final conclusion with a synthesizer. I intend to try them. But I've always been quite firmly of the opinion that contrary to popular belief the guitar does not have to be such an imperfect instrument as people say. Maybe that's just because I run fairly high tension strings and low action and relief, but I've never found any intonation issues on regular 12EDO frettings. I put most of that stuff down to things such as peoples nuts being too high (resulting in the "zero frets intonate better" thing), high relief, and such. Indeed if you prefer high action then of course a fix for intonation is very valid.
It is a temperament that does change the more outside keys for the worse, in favour of the most popular ones. But yeah, it's incredibly subtle.

I've attached an image of the triad chords resulting from the chromatic offsets listed on the TT website. Alongside are my initial thoughts when comparing the 12EDO to the TT triads side by side. I do not have an audio file as I was just doing it live on keyboard and didn't save anything yet. Improvements are in green, worse notes in orange. I didn't colour the 5ths for some reason.
Perhaps these adjustments would become more significant adding in the gauge and action compensations that TT speak of, but like I said, I reserve judgement on that for now and never had any issue hitting 0 cents on every fret with a good setup (to within any measurable tolerance that a human hitting a string could expect, of course, there is some movement, as would be the case in TT too).

And certainly Bostjan I agree, absolutely zero people using TT have offered any insight online or in videos on what TT is actually doing or given any indication that they understand it. From videos I've seen and things they've said, I feel like they would say the same when blindfolded with a well set up 12EDO guitar. Not to say they usually have bad setups of course.

This thing needs proper analysis and a demonstration with proper back to back blind comparisons to 12EDO. I do intend to provide this video as soon as I finish my first build (which will have interchangeable fretboards). Alas, my business is not allowing me time for luthiery, as has been the case for some time


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## bostjan

Wow, that's an interesting take on how things sounded.

Tolgahan Çoğulu had a video not too long ago (few months, maybe), in which he compared some different well temperaments with 12-EDO by playing the same piece with different fretboard configurations (classical guitar). I thought the differences were subtle yet clearly noticeable, if you focused on the way each tuning sounded. In the youtube comments, most people who left feedback seemed to prefer 12-EDO over any of the other options presented. 

I have an ap for my android tablet which allows me to play with different tunings, but has the added ability to follow along with you - it's difficult to explain succinctly, but every time you play a note, it centers on that note. So if I play a C, it will start with regular old 12-EDO C. If I set it to JI, then play a G, it will play the G as a perfect 3:2 just interval. If I then play a D, it will go 3:2 from G, but, if I had instead started with C and played D right afterward, it would play it as 9:8 from the C, so the tonal center is always recalculating with each note... 

Anyway, I'm absolutely useless on a tablet keyboard, so I usually just upload midi files and listen to how it interprets them. It's very nice how the JI sounds, but going back to different well temperaments, I can always tell the difference between each of those and 12-EDO if I know I need to listen for it. If I just relax, though, or I just hear music playing, then it really doesn't matter at all, IMO.

The TT is very slightly toned down from Werkmeister III, which was already the closest well temperament to equal anyway, so I doubt anyone listening to a TT guitar would really notice it was a TT guitar, honestly, but I'd still bet that whoever is playing it would be able to tell the difference with certain chords and whatnot.

What I would be much more interested in trying, would be a fretboard, TT or otherwise, with a more aggressive character to its well temperament, maybe Werkmeister IV or Werkmeister I. These are the tunings I believe people are vaguely referencing when they say stuff like "D minor is the saddest key." Obviously in equal, this makes no sense, but when you play a Dm chord in WM4, with the slightly sweeter minor third and the slightly more sour fifth, it does seem to give just a subtle boost to the emotion in a sad song.


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## The Omega Cluster

Yeah, I'm far from being sure I understand how this thing works. If it really is like you say then it's not what they are claiming at all is it?


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## Winspear

@bostjan I know exactly what you mean. Adaptive Just Intonation. Like this: https://www.retuner.net/ Wouldn't it be great if that was possible on a guitar? Maybe as we enter the digital age. Tends to result in a colossal amount of pitches throughout an entire piece of music haha. This is largely how I come to settle on 31EDO, as it completely nails most of the 12edo ratios and allows you to move around for example modulation in perfect thirds eventually spanning all 31 notes.

Yeah, Adam Neely has a nice video called "Which is the saddest key?" that goes over that stuff.

@The Omega Cluster Not really, they aren't lying anywhere. They market it as "making the guitar more in tune". The nerdery of what's actually going on wouldn't be marketable. Most customers do seem to believe "making the guitar more in tune" means to a 12EDO tuner though, which is not the case. But it is _slightly more in tune to the ear in common keys_ (and nothing to complain about in the others). I would say it's an improvement overall on the synth experiment I did, but so subtle it's hardly worth the trouble I found. Then of course there are the gauge offsets and such they speak about which are presumably implemented to help with slightly higher action setups. So both the things they say they are doing are true.


"The TRUE TEMPERAMENT™ Fretting System is a revolutionary new way to construct guitar fingerboards which tune accurately along the whole neck.

TRUE TEMPERAMENT™ does not imply Just Intonation. It is physically impossible to implement Just Intonation in more than one specific key (and its relative minor) on any instrument with only 12 intervals in the octave. (Except perhaps for computer-controlled instruments using electronically generated sounds.)

What we mean by TRUE TEMPERAMENT™ is that our fretting system will give you super-accurate intonation over the whole fingerboard _*in the temperament it is constructed for.*_"

They know that temperament microtonality will be over the heads of most customers and offputting, so they don't expand on this any more than giving the tuning offsets which people with knowledge can then analyse. For everyone else, they just need to know that their guitar will sound slightly better. The fact that it sounds slightly worse in some keys could be the only misleading thing about their marketing really, but I don't think it matters too much given how slight we are talking. Their approach certainly does leave most people with no real idea what TT actually does, but I can see why they do it the way they do and I don't think it really matters too much that users don't understand fully what's going on. I'd still like to cover, analyse, compare, and explain it though, just so that resource is out there.


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## The Omega Cluster

If that's not lying, then that's really misleading.


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## ixlramp

Yes i agree with bostjan and Winspear, TT is several different versions of 'Well Temperament', see sections 3 and 4 here http://www.kylegann.com/histune.html
Their site 10 years ago used to be more detailed and technical, now it is fairly hard to find out exactly what is going on. It's really dumbed-down and more commercial now, which is reflected by TT becoming more well-known and the guitarists not understanding it and making wild claims about it. The misunderstanding of it makes it sound much better than it actually is.

I agree that most proponents of TT don't seem to understand it and just say 'the guitar is more perfectly tuned', when what is happening is that they are playing major / minor triads in a few of the more commonly used keys and noticing they are slightly closer to Just Intonation (perfect natural tuning).
As soon as you free yourself from the common keys it's not so good as the triads of less common keys are now less well tuned. Also of course the system is designed only for the conventional major / minor triads and scales.
Also, you can't use any alternative tuning.
Overall i believe it's not worth using and the misleading hype is annoying 

Those who study Just Intonation know that a JI guitar that can play in all keys is impossible, our current equal-temperament is the result of that impossibility leading to the choosing of a poorly-tuned tonal system for the sake of being able to instantly change to any key. Nothing wrong with 12ET though i love it and almost all of my favourite music is iin it.


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## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> Those who study Just Intonation know that a JI guitar that can play in all keys is impossible, [...]



Well, yes, it's possible, look up those 31-tone pianos they made back in the days. They were especially made so that JI was possible in every key, or something like that. So you have 31 notes in your octave, but most of them are really close due to being there for different tonalities.

Other than that, thanks for the detailed answer. It's really strange that they are so opaque about their system, and it seems that my assumption that they were genuine was wrong. Oh, well, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and the presumption of innocence, but all they're left with now is my contempt and disdain.


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## Winspear

31-ET isn't JI though, it's an equal temperament. But yes it does estimate the majority of the popular JI ratios with very good accuracy. We settled on 12 for a simpler system with slightly less accuracy.


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## bostjan

It gets pretty complicated if you get into a lot of notes. JI even starts having different people saying some intervals should be one thing and other people disagreeing. The best example of this is how the sixth is approached in classical Indian music, where some ragas specify 27:16 and others 5:3. In fact, if you dig really deep into Indian classical music, you can find 4-5 variations for each note in the scale other than the root and fifth. If you set up your sitar to have 23 or 24 notes, you can cover all of them. With equal tuning, particularly on a guitar, I get the feeling that anything more than 34-EDO is going to start being "not worth it." From a notation standpoint, that also seems to be about the tipping point where things start getting a little too complex.


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## ixlramp

Yes 31EDO is fairly close but it's not Just Intonation, same with 72EDO.

I don't mean to imply TT are misleading people, they aren't, they're just not particularly technical upfront on their site, which is understandable for their recent more commercial and mainstream approach. Only other people are doing the misleading through misunderstanding, not maliciously. So i don't think TT deserve contempt, they sell genuine Well-Temperament frettings that few people understand.


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## ixlramp

That video by Ola Englund is funny 'perfect intonation all over the fretboard' is not what TT is about, and can be done on a normal guitar by setting saddle offsets correctly. Maybe he was just hearing common-key triads being closer to JI and mistaking that for 'good intonation'?

Guitarists have good ears for tuning and hear the inherently out-of-tune intervals of 12ET. Distortion makes the mistuning more obvious. Some guitarists will bend individual notes to make the chord perfectly tuned.
The irony is that what they think of as out of tune is actually perfectly tuned 12ET, while the perfectly tuned chords they are after is actually out of tune with 12ET and other instruments. No surprise many are confused.


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## Winspear

ixlramp said:


> That video by Ola Englund is funny 'perfect intonation all over the fretboard' is not what TT is about, and can be done on a normal guitar by setting saddle offsets correctly. Maybe he was just hearing common-key triads being closer to JI and mistaking that for 'good intonation'?
> 
> Guitarists have good ears for tuning and hear the inherently out-of-tune intervals of 12ET. Distortion makes the mistuning more obvious. Some guitarists will bend individual notes to make the chord perfectly tuned.
> The irony is that what they think of as out of tune is actually perfectly tuned 12ET, while the perfectly tuned chords they are after is actually out of tune with 12ET and other instruments. No surprise many are confused.



Couldn't have put it better, that's exactly what I think is going on. It's hard to know when people talk about "guitars being an imperfect instrument and not intonating right" whether they are talking about not being able to get a good setup that hits 12EDO properly, or whether they are using their ears and wanting to deviate from 12EDO.


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## ixlramp

Just looked through their site again, especially the FAQ.

"What we mean by TRUE TEMPERAMENT™ is that our fretting system will give you super-accurate intonation over the whole fingerboard in the temperament it is constructed for."

They then explain how they are using per-fret fret offsets to improve intonation for whatever temperament is intended, which sounds like they have systems for 12ET and Well-Temperaments (such as Thidell Formula 1). A few years ago the site did actually detail mutliple well-temperament systems, now they only mention Thidell formula 1 and a 'low tune' version of that, maybe more details are given when you contact them, they do say to contact by email to order.

They present per-fret offsets as the main feature of TT, and don't go into much detail about Thidell Formual 1 being a Well-Temperament, the only detail is in the 'How to tune Thidell formula 1' section.

I do agree with Winspear that per-fret offsets seem somewhat overkill to perfect a certain tonal system, it will be more accurate yes but i feel that saddle offset gets close enough considering the inherent pitch variation of a guitar in use. A compensated nut (Earvana etc.) also helps. Also of course ironically 12ET is inherently out of tune anyway.
The expense and loss of ability to use different tunings and different gauges makes it seem not worth it to me.

I guess it may be possible that some guitarists are using a Well Temperament version, hearing the chords being closer to JI, and misunderstanding that as the guitar being more perfectly intonated to 12ET.


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## The Omega Cluster

Since TT is a form of JI/WT, what is its tonal centre? Is it made to sound good on E, A?


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## bostjan

Gmajor, Amajor and Dmajor are the best major scales and triads, and Em, F#m, and C#m are the best minor scales and triads.
Bbmajor, Ebmajor, and Abmajor are the worst major scales and triads, and Gm, Cm, and Dm are the worst minor scales and triads.
The rest are somewhere in between.

It works well, because, really, how often do we play rock and roll/metal songs on guitar in Bb, Eb, or Ab, unless you are tuned down a half step? In jazz, though, it'd be a nightmare, since, well, those are the three most comfortable keys for brass to play.


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## ixlramp

Jack Tickner.



https://jacktickner.bandcamp.com/

"Interested in Just Intonation and 22 tone scales, Jack made his own scale which he named ‘Whirlwind’. Based on the 1-3-7-11 harmonics."


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## ixlramp

Quartertone metal, enjoying this. Skip to track 2 for the guitar stuff.
https://monochromaticresidua.bandcamp.com/releases


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## Winspear

The Omega Cluster said:


> Since TT is a form of JI/WT, what is its tonal centre? Is it made to sound good on E, A?


Check out the chart I posted on the previous page


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## ixlramp

Relevant to the discussion on guitar intonation and temperament, here 2 videos by someone who really knows what they are talking about, very informative:


And his opinion on TT in the comments is:

"Without getting in to a chapter of specifics, I would say that on the surface it appears more or less based on reasonable concepts of practical (yet unequal) temperaments specific for common guitar chords. Unfortunately, it seems to have sourced it's offsets on data from less than ideal setups. I recognize many of the errors they are trying to correct for, but I recognize them as common results of common setup errors. In a properly setup instrument, their corrections would be far overshooting what I would consider beneficial.

It is also by nature a broad generalization of offsets based on averages. In reality, a set of D'Addario, vs Thomastik, vs DR, vs Cleartone, would each require significantly different offsets, not to mention nuances to the rest of the guitar chassis resonances, setup, the player's style, etc. A generic set of averaged offsets means it will be perfect for none.

Again though, I see the whole effort as completely unnecessary, and from a historical context is no different from what others have "discovered" or "invented" every few decades over the last few hundred years. The more you learn about the compromises within 12TET and its embodiment in the guitar, the more you can see why these systems never really took off before.

But I'm sure some love it, and it works for their needs, and it's great that they're making this available for them. By and large though, I see it as being a bandaid for symptoms rather than a solution for problems, and trying to sweep the unsolvable problems under the rug."


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## Winspear

Thanks for sharing all that! I've been wanting to see videos this detailed for a long time. Very useful. Nice to see somebody somewhat debunking compensated nuts with the same logic as I have felt


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## ixlramp

After our discussion i watched some TT videos to reassess. Found one by Mattias Eklundh, another high-profile proponent of TT which is again misleading, as is the one by Steve Vai and almost every one i can find.

If the intent is to have a Well Temperament guitar then TT can provide a few different systems (according to their old website), this makes sense and the fret offsets are necessary.

If the intent is to get closer to 12ET, as i suspect is the wish of most users of TT, then TT seems overkill and restrictive. It will be effective but only with a certain height of nut, a particular string type, a certain set of gauges and a certain tuning. A low-cut nut and good setup will be almost as effective but much cheaper and with no restrictions on nut height, string type, gauges or tuning.

The 'Thidell Formula 1' Well Temperament seems to have the noticeably offset frets, and the users of TT seem to have the same system, could be wrong but visually it looks that way. I expect the TT fretting for perfect 12ET would have less extreme offsets since it no longer has the +-4 cent Well Temperament offsets and only needs to correct very small (1-2 cent) errors.
So i wonder if the proponents are using the WT version or the 12ET version? none seem to explain this but hint that the guitar is 'perfectly intonated' which suggests they think it is perfect 12ET, when it may be possible they chose the WT version through playing it and liking it without understanding it.

I also notice videos combining TT with Evertune, calling it the ultimate combination. I also consider Evertune somewhat effective but problematic, over-hyped ("the guitar never goes out of tune" .. erm ok), expensive and somewhat overkill.


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## bostjan

Can anyone explain how offsets based on string manufacture techniques are corrected fret by fret by seemingly randomly varying amounts and *not *by nut compensation?


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## The Omega Cluster

I just premiered an amazing new song from Russian microtonal experimental rockers uSSSy. Check it out here!


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## bostjan

That was fantastic!


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## The Omega Cluster

bostjan said:


> That was fantastic!



The whole album is absolutely wonderful! Their best, if you ask me.


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## Winspear

bostjan said:


> Can anyone explain how offsets based on string manufacture techniques are corrected fret by fret by seemingly randomly varying amounts and *not *by nut compensation?


I imagine it's because nut compensation is focused on the extreme depressions occurring at the nut when the nut is cut too high as explain in the video, and that is a non perfect solution that doesn't work for higher up the fretboard. I guess if the nut is cut too high, the displacement and tension/pitch changes at various parts of the fretboard will all be different?

That song was great indeed!


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## InHiding

I'm sort of glad my ears aren't as picky as some people's seem to be. Is it even possible to enjoy music at all when basically everything you hear is always partially out of tune or "wrong". I mean even fingering force alters the tuning. Would be hell to constantly hear every little aspect that is "off". I guess to solution is to listen to midi music... (P.S. Not trying to pick a fight).


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## ixlramp

bostjan said:


> corrected fret by fret by seemingly randomly varying amounts


If the fret offsets look random it may be because you're looking at Well Tempered TT frets that do have note-to-note varying offsets from 12ET?
I expect that even for 'perfect 12ET' TT fretting a compensated nut would not be good enough for TT's standards.
I also agree that saddle and nut offsets alone are not absolutely perfectionist for correcting each note according to string gauge and type.
InHiding i agree.


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## Winspear

InHiding said:


> I'm sort of glad my ears aren't as picky as some people's seem to be. Is it even possible to enjoy music at all when basically everything you hear is always partially out of tune or "wrong". I mean even fingering force alters the tuning. Would be hell to constantly hear every little aspect that is "off". I guess to solution is to listen to midi music... (P.S. Not trying to pick a fight).



I definitely face the issue more as a creator than a consumer. I enjoy how beautiful pure intervals are when I hear them, but no, I'm not at all dissatisfied listening to 12EDO music so long as the intonation is good to 12EDO. Bare in mind however the efforts some artists go to to record, that you may not know about. Tuning the guitar differently for various chords and various parts of the song. Pitch correcting in post production. Stuff like that. Wanting Evertune bridges and TT frets (even if they don't understand them) and such. But yeah, for the most part the difference isn't huge.

As a creator though, I most definitely am aware. I play lots of minor and major third chords on high gain, often in quite low tunings. That ~12 cents adjustment to the thirds can be the difference between mud and something beautiful. It's an audible but not huge difference to an individual note, but together, especially with distortion, it's huge. I played happily for years normally, but it's one of those things that is really hard to _unhear, _as mentioned in the video above. Damn right I'm putting effort into my music now to get it as close to 'midi music' as possible haha (even MIDI is 12EDO usually though!). I look forward to actually being able to explore these tunings physically on a guitar with more ease though, rather than it being more of a post-production thing. That's most of the excitement for me. There is the desire to seek a more perfect sound, but the fun part lies in realising that 12EDO is just one incredibly limited and not particularly exciting option for making music.


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## ixlramp

In case anyone wants to experience Just Intonation major and minor thirds, you can do it easily on any standard guitar or bass.

First learn where the 4th, 5th and 6th harmonic points are on a string and practice touch-and-release at these points to get clear, long-ringing harmonics. Use a clean and bright guitar tone and use a pick with above average force. You can websearch for more detailed help with the technique needed to do this.

Warning: there are a lot of misleading, confusing, overcomplex and inaccurate diagrams on the internet for these positions, i'm looking for a good one. But roughly:
4th harmonic: fret 5
5th harmonic: fret 3.9
6th harmonic fret 3.2
(7th harmonic: fret 2.7)

JI major third:

> Tune a pair of adjacent open strings to a standard major third interval, best to tune up the lower by a semitone.
> With your fretting hand, hold one finger at the 5th harmonic point and another finger at the 4th harmonic point and hold this position while you touch-and-release, this will help you play the harmonics quickly in succession.
> Play the 5th harmonic of the lower string then immediately after play the 4th harmonic of the higher, let these ring together and listen, you will hear 2 almost identical pitches.
> Do the same again several times while slightly detuning the higher string to get these 2 harmonics precisely in tune with each other.
> Then play both open strings to play the JI major third.

JI minor third:

> Tune a pair of adjacent open strings to a standard minor third interval, best to tune up the lower by a semitone and detune the higher by a semitone.
> Then continue as before but tune the 5th harmonic of the higher string to the 6th harmonic of the lower by slightly uptuning the higher string.

Being used to 12ET you may find these sound slightly 'out of tune' due to conditioning but also certainly 'more in tune'.


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## ixlramp

The JI major third is 3.86 semitones, so the 12ET version is 14 cents (roughly 1/6th of a semitone) sharp.
The JI minor third is 3.16 semitones, so the 12ET version is 16 cents (roughly 1/6th of a semitone) flat.


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## ixlramp

The Mercury Tree, avantgarde / math / post-prog / prog / psychedelic rock.
I'm impressed.
Live video in 17EDO:


Upcoming release in 17EDO:


Possibly some microtonal stuff on this album https://themercurytree.bandcamp.com/album/permutations
Quite hard to tell since the 12ET stuff is so far out tonally.


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## The Omega Cluster

I've loved TMT for years and I can't wait to hear their new album!!


----------



## coffeeflush

The Mercury Tree are really good, looking forward to the rest of this collab.


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## ixlramp

Mr.Toad (Redrick Sultan) 'Batman Jesus':

From https://redricksultanband.bandcamp.com/album/fly-as-a-kite


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## bostjan

ixlramp said:


> Mr.Toad (Redrick Sultan) 'Batman Jesus':
> 
> From https://redricksultanband.bandcamp.com/album/fly-as-a-kite



It's like a slightly less microtonal version of the Greatful Dead  JK
That was a neat video.


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## Ancestor

Brutal microtonal metal! LOL! IDK. Feels like people are reaching. This is kinda interesting:



Microtonal to me sounds out of tunal. But why the hell not? Do something with your music! wonder how this stuff is notated. hhm.


----------



## Frosty the Snowperson

I know some microtonal music. I like the different sounds as I think it is exciting in the frontier.


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## bostjan

Ancestor said:


> Brutal microtonal metal! LOL! IDK. Feels like people are reaching. This is kinda interesting:
> 
> 
> 
> Microtonal to me sounds out of tunal. But why the hell not? Do something with your music! wonder how this stuff is notated. hhm.




Sounds very nice to me...  I've been following Tolgahan for some time, though.

What I don't understand, though, is...well, metal music is supposed to always be reaching, isn't it? A lot of reviews I've received in press mention this idea that microtonal + metal = incompatible. I don't understand that logic. Oh well.



Frosty the Snowperson said:


> I know some microtonal music. I like the different sounds as I think it is exciting in the frontier.



Like what? Please share.


----------



## Ancestor

bostjan said:


> Sounds very nice to me...  I've been following Tolgahan for some time, though.
> 
> What I don't understand, though, is...well, metal music is supposed to always be reaching, isn't it? A lot of reviews I've received in press mention this idea that microtonal + metal = incompatible. I don't understand that logic. Oh well.



Well, I said, "...why the hell not? Do something with your music!" I thought I was being encouraging there.


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## Frosty the Snowperson

Last Sacrament, The Mercury Tree, Jute Gyte, Bostjan Zupancic, Cryptic Ruse...


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## bostjan

Frosty the Snowperson said:


> Last Sacrament, The Mercury Tree, Jute Gyte, *Bostjan Zupancic*, Cryptic Ruse...



Thanks for the shout!


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## Frosty the Snowperson

bostjan said:


> Thanks for the shout!



Are you the one doing microtonal music?

Nice to meet you again. I saw you in Zürich around two years ago, I think.


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## bostjan

Frosty the Snowperson said:


> Are you the one doing microtonal music?
> 
> Nice to meet you again. I saw you in Zürich around two years ago, I think.



That's me! I haven't been to Zürich for at least four years. I sent you a PM.


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## ixlramp

Monsoon Trio.
Raga Marwa using modified Just Intonation / microtonal saxophones and a fretless bass with sympathetic strings, the 'Bass Veena'.


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## coffeeflush

ixlramp said:


> Monsoon Trio.
> Raga Marwa using modified Just Intonation / microtonal saxophones and a fretless bass with sympathetic strings, the 'Bass Veena'.




Man this is inanely good rendition, thanks for the share.


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## ixlramp

Brendan Byrnes, 22 tones per octave guitar.


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## The Omega Cluster

I truly love some of the chords of 22EDO. And Brendan is really good at exploring this system, his first Etude was awesome, and this one is great too, and his band Ilevens play some really cool psych rock!


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## bostjan

I bought Brendan Byrnes's solo CD a while back. Really cool stuff - my kind of Indy music.


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## ixlramp

Jon Bap!
One to watch, owns 22EDO guitar and bass. Already released music has microtonal elements.
Try this single as a good introduction https://jonbap.bandcamp.com/track/you-be-you-single
From the album https://jonbap.bandcamp.com/album/yesterdays-homily


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## The Omega Cluster

Jon Bap is amazing! Didn't think of sharing it here but thanks for doing so! I guess I could also add that a collaboration between The Mercury Tree and Cryptic Ruse, two well-known microtonal experimenters is coming out pretty soon!

https://themercurytree.bandcamp.com/album/cryptic-tree


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## The Omega Cluster

Check this out! The Mercury Tree * Cryptic Ruse collaboration! This is MAD!


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## The Omega Cluster

And another one via Heavy Blog Is Heavy!


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## The Omega Cluster

And... the entire album stream! I swear this EP is mind-blowing!


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## coffeeflush

^^ FAAAAK. 
This is so good and challening to listen to. Loving it.


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## ixlramp

Huntress is really good, that is played live in the video i posted earlier.
By the way The Omega Cluster your blog post reads: "Igliashon Jones of *Cryptic Tree*.", should be "... Ruse".

So we have all these microtonal metal artists using EDOs, but Just Intonation has huge potential for distorted guitar since it is perfect harmony, the reason behind the root-fifth power chord.


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## The Omega Cluster

ixlramp said:


> Huntress is really good, that is played live in the video i posted earlier.
> By the way The Omega Cluster your blog post reads: "Igliashon Jones of *Cryptic Tree*.", should be "... Ruse".
> 
> So we have all these microtonal metal artists using EDOs, but Just Intonation has huge potential for distorted guitar since it is perfect harmony, the reason behind the root-fifth power chord.



Oops haha Will correct it!

And yeah just intonation is pretty cool too but it's not nearly as versatile as EDO. When you make a JI scale, it's based on a starting pitch, say E, and if you play on any other tonal centre it will sound off by a varying amount (see "wolf intervals"). There are some JI artists out there but they are few. 

Recently there's that thing "True Temperament" on guitars that is increasingly popular, and while it's just a not very good compromise between JI and EDO where you will sound maybe better (very very slightly better?) solo, but slightly out of tune when playing with other non-true instruments. In any case, the difference is so minimal that it is barely noticeable.

Also there are non-octavian scales like Bohlen-Pierce which are very promising too but very unused.


----------



## bostjan

EDO's, or, generally speaking equal temperaments, are easier to implement in rock-oriented music, because you can have infinite number of key changes in a song without painting yourself into a corner, and the fretwork is a lot easier to do with conventional tooling.

I think the reason you don't see as much wild stuff like Bohlen-Pierce used very often is because there is still a large amount of commitment needed to go microtonal on guitar, versus, say, synthesizer. Also, as we are now seeing more interest in microtonal music than ever before, newcomers are almost entirely focusing their interest on 24-EDO and subsets of it. If you use a fretboard that is a subset of 24-EDO, it's easy to stick to chord structures out of standard 12-EDO, and then you can still jam with other people who only play standard instruments.

In my mind, there's "standard" tuning in 12-EDO (or whatever closely approximates that), then there is quartertone tuning, where all of the most emphasized notes are standard, but there are some passing tones, then there is standard 24-EDO to accommodate Arabic and Persian playing, and then there is this whole world of JI interpretations, and then there are your nonstandard meantone tunings that can serve as alternate interpretations of those different takes of JI, and then there is "everything else."

That first flavour of quartertone tuning opens up some doors of expression, but nothing below surface level. For example, with my Oni CF8, I have access to just a handful of notes that fall outside of 12-EDO, so when I write a chord structure, the root notes are all exclusively 12-EDO, then I add some colour with microtonal intervals in the upper registers. So there is nothing microtonal in the structure of the song.

Bohlen-Pierce, for me, fits into that last category of "everything else," because the nonstandard notes in the scale all fall into that bin of intervals that I can't even name. At least if I play a neutral third or a harmonic seventh or a diminished sixth, I can come up with a non-spontaneous reason to use the note. I mean, listening to someone play Bohlen-Pierce is really cool, but I honestly don't know if their playing is based on theory or trial and error.


----------



## bostjan

double post


----------



## The Omega Cluster

You can look up each of the notes in ¢ value and compare with a 12-tone or 24-tone system to make some approximations, or to JI intervals as well. For example that new 17-EDO Mercury Tree/Cryptic Ruse EP, Ben told me it has good approximations for fifths and thirds and so he was able to build an impressive arrangement and harmonization based on standard theory. Some other systems like 18-EDO are more challenging to work with because they don't offer the same kind of analogy. However I believe you can get acquainted with one system and get interesting things out of it even if it's very far from 12-EDO or JI intervals. I like to say I did something interesting in 26-EDO, which is often viewed as a challenging system, but then it was also procedural in nature so I hardly have any merit save for the idea behind it.

Bohlen-Pierce is challenging on another level because the octave doesn't exist, and it's actually the tritave, which is 3x the starting frequency instead of 2x. It's weird because that p12 interval is supposed to be seen and used the same as a p8 octave. This is weird because of how we're used to octaves, but it's not inherently weird or bad, it's just arbitrary. I also went on and came up with a decimal music system based on a 10x octave. But more than this it's infinitely recursive in steps of ten, and the rhythm part is based on 10s too. Read more here. It has some weird implications, but should be interesting to play with in electronic music. I can imagine a physical instrument playing that, but it would be quite complex and convoluted. The best I can think of is selecting a subset of notes on any decimal level and make frets out of them, like 0, 1.25, 2.3, 4.01, etc. So that you don't end up with an unplayable thing like 1000 frets per octave.


----------



## mguilherme87

Embarassed to say Ive never heard of microtonal metal. Ive heard of microtonal music, but my knowledge is very limited. Excited to look down this rabbit hole! If anyone has suggestions im all ears!


----------



## The Omega Cluster

mguilherme87 said:


> Embarassed to say Ive never heard of microtonal metal. Ive heard of microtonal music, but my knowledge is very limited. Excited to look down this rabbit hole! If anyone has suggestions im all ears!



This whole thread.


----------



## bostjan

The Omega Cluster said:


> You can look up each of the notes in ¢ value and compare with a 12-tone or 24-tone system to make some approximations, or to JI intervals as well. For example that new 17-EDO Mercury Tree/Cryptic Ruse EP, Ben told me it has good approximations for fifths and thirds and so he was able to build an impressive arrangement and harmonization based on standard theory. Some other systems like 18-EDO are more challenging to work with because they don't offer the same kind of analogy. However I believe you can get acquainted with one system and get interesting things out of it even if it's very far from 12-EDO or JI intervals. I like to say I did something interesting in 26-EDO, which is often viewed as a challenging system, but then it was also procedural in nature so I hardly have any merit save for the idea behind it.
> 
> Bohlen-Pierce is challenging on another level because the octave doesn't exist, and it's actually the tritave, which is 3x the starting frequency instead of 2x. It's weird because that p12 interval is supposed to be seen and used the same as a p8 octave. This is weird because of how we're used to octaves, but it's not inherently weird or bad, it's just arbitrary. I also went on and came up with a decimal music system based on a 10x octave. But more than this it's infinitely recursive in steps of ten, and the rhythm part is based on 10s too. Read more here. It has some weird implications, but should be interesting to play with in electronic music. I can imagine a physical instrument playing that, but it would be quite complex and convoluted. The best I can think of is selecting a subset of notes on any decimal level and make frets out of them, like 0, 1.25, 2.3, 4.01, etc. So that you don't end up with an unplayable thing like 1000 frets per octave.


17-EDO has very good fifths, but I'm not so sure the same can be said about the thirds. It's definitely a system that I find myself doesn't jive with standard notation. 18-EDO is like you took the whole tone scale and cut each interval into threes instead of twos - at least that's the way I look at it. 26-EDO is completely nuts. I loved the Tolkien stuff, but I'd never be able to compose anything in that system without some serious time spend figuring out my own notation and theory around it.
I'd love to try Bohlen-Pierce scale on guitar, because it is such a nifty idea, but I wouldn't even know where to begin with composition and theory.
I think JI would be much easier, in general, than some of the more experimental equal temperaments. Every not in JI represents something deliberate, whereas notes in equal are just equal slices of a chosen interval, and fall wherever they fall. So, if I pick up an instrument tuned to JI and I just bang on notes around the proper tonal centre, it should sound like something musical. If I took the same approach in equal, I might end up with something interesting, but it would most likely sound less deliberate, because the intervals themselves are less musically deliberate.
It's all very interesting conversation, but would probably be best served with some musical examples around it for context...



mguilherme87 said:


> Embarassed to say Ive never heard of microtonal metal. Ive heard of microtonal music, but my knowledge is very limited. Excited to look down this rabbit hole! If anyone has suggestions im all ears!


Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to take in in this thread. I think that the Mercury Tree collaboration most recently mentioned is a particularly great example of how metal and microtonality can sound together. Last Sacrament, Cryptic Ruse, and Jute Gyte are other examples. Unfortunately, there isn't like a "Metallica of Microtonal Metal" sort of band, otherwise, I think more people would be talking about it than the half dozen or so in this thread. Sort of what I was going for was striking my own balance between weirdness and accessibility with this: Bostjan Zupancic: MicroMetal (particularly Vol I) , but then I said f*** that, and went for all-out whatever-I-felt-like on this: Naegleria Fowleri - Life Cycle.
@The Omega Cluster has his own projects, and if you are at all a fan of Tolkien or of weird music, definitely check out Melopoeia.
@Necris has some cool stuff here too: https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/gate
https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/nether
https://soundcloud.com/submergingloweringress/nothingi


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## ixlramp

Some gentle microtonality, standard guitar plus added fretlets, apparently the scale is 'Huseyni Makam' or 'Husseini Maqam' which seems to be close to 0 1.5 3 5 7 8.5 10 12 semitones (Minor with neutral 2nd and neutral 6th).


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## ixlramp

"Official video for the song Diffractions & Halos, from the album CRYPTIC TREE by The Mercury Tree + Cryptic Ruse. Live footage from SeaProg 2018, Seattle, Washington. Video edited by Igliashon Jones, with help from Acid Cam."
17 tones per octave.


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## ixlramp

Jon Catler's wordpress blog at Freenote Music disappeared a while ago, but luckily i found it archived at Wayback Machine here https://web.archive.org/web/20180107220434/http://www.freenotemusic.com/wordpress/. It has a useful post explaining his '12-Tone Ultra Plus' fretting system, which i copy-paste here:

////////////////////////

12-Tone Ultra Plus tuning explained
April 18th, 2012 Jon

I originally designed the 12-Tone Ultra Plus fretting system to give guitarists access to pure Harmonic Series pitches without having to abandon the standard 12 pitches they already knew. It took me 20 years of playing microtonal guitar to come up with a way to combine tempered and Harmonic pitches. Although originally designed for other players, I have found myself using this system more and more, including 3 songs on the 3rd Willie McBlind CD and all the songs on the Fretless Brothers ‘Footsteps’ CD. 12-Tone Ultra Plus has become the most popular alternative tuning system. Here I will explain the basic concept behind the system.

As stated in my book, The Nature Of Music, I believe that the first complete scale found in Nature, the 8th - 16th Harmonics, is the place to start when building a Just Intonation system. The basic concept of the 12-Tone Ultra Pus system is to use each of the 12 standard pitches as a potential tonic on which to build a Harmonic Series to give, in effect, a modulating 13-limit Harmonic system.

The standard 12-Tone Equal Tempered system approximates the 8th - 16th Harmonics in some ways. The perfect fifth of 3/2 is approximated within about 2 cents, and the 9th within about 4 cents. The major third is further off, being 14 cents sharp. However, changing this interval everywhere on the guitar would require replacing all the frets, as it is impractical and unplayable to put frets 14 cents apart.
So, the major third on the 12-Tone Ultra Plus is not changed. In practice, this note can be left out of a chord voicing so as not to interfere with the Harmonic notes, or it can be played by another instrument, or can be sung, or played on guitar using bends, harmonics, etc. Or, something I have been doing lately is to tune the guitar to an open chord, such as G or D, and tune the major third string to a pure 5/4 Just major third. There are also many other types of Harmonic thirds to explore, and most of these have rarely been heard.

So, using the standard pitches for the tonic, 9th, perfect fifth, and major third/major seventh, we can add the Harmonic pitches that are not even approximated in standard tuning, the 7th, 11th, and 13th Harmonics. The 7th Harmonic, 7/4, is over 31 cents flatter than the standard version, (which really approximates the minor seventh, 16/9). The pure 7th is a beautiful consonant interval, and the Ultra Plus guitar has this interval available on 11 out of the 12 standard pitches (the 7th of Eb is left out).
The next interval added is the 11th Harmonic, 11/8. At 551 cents, this interval is almost exactly in between two standard pitches, so it is not approximated by standard tuning and is about as different as you can get. Although it can be alien sounding at first, this interval also has a consonance to it that is revealed by deeper listening. There are 3 frets on the Ultra Plus guitar that give pure Harmonic 11ths of various 12-Tone notes.
The other interval added to complete the 8 - 16 scale is the 13th Harmonic, 13/8. At 840.5 cents, this interval is also very different from any standard interval. I believe this interval is a consonance, and I have used it throughout my music. There are two frets on the Ultra Plus guitar that give Harmonic 13ths of various fundamentals.

So, combined with the 12-Tone pitches, this gives us an 8 - 16th Harmonics scale from many different starting places. Also, these new pitches can be used in endless ways to give many other Harmonic intervals. For example, we can use the 7th Harmonic of A, G half flat, on an E tonic to give the half minor third, 7/6. Or, the G half flat can itself be used as a tonic, to give a Super Major chord, or an Underone chord. 11ths and 13th can also be used as neutral thirds, or tonics, or in a huge number of different ways.

Other microtonal tuning systems, such as 19-tone and 31-tone equal temperaments, have been around for a long time. They provide unique sounds, moods, and feelings not otherwise available. But these tuning systems have not gotten large numbers of musicians to switch from standard tuning. It seems clear that in order for tuning to evolve, musicians need to be able to agree on certain pitches to be able to play together. It also seems clear that standard tuning is so entrenched that is is difficult to get people to change. Why not, then, keep the standard pitches and add more pitches, straight from Nature’s first complete scale. This is the concept behind the 12-Tone Ultra Plus tuning system.


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## ixlramp

Here i copy some of a post http://xenguitarist.com/index.php?topic=418.msg1175#msg1175 from the somewhat dead xenguitarist forum, which with the post above can be used to understand the 12-tone Ultra Plus system. I post a photo of a bass as the size more clearly shows the fret positions:

//////////////////////




The microtonal frets seem to have 3 variations: 4/10ths of the distance between standard frets, 1/2 of the distance, and 2/3rds of the distance.
If the standard frets are numbered 1 2 3 4 5 etc as normal, then the microtonal frets could be numbered as decimal numbers, where .4 is 4/10ths, .5 is 1/2 and .7 is roughly 2/3rds:
0.7
1.4
2.7
3.5
4.7
5.5
6.7
7.7
8.4
9.7
10.5
11.7

The 3 variations correspond to the following Just Intonation intervals which are also the 13th, 11th and 7th harmonics:
13/8 13th harmonic / tridecimal neutral sixth 8.41
11/8 11th harmonic / undecimal superfourth 5.51
7/4 7th harmonic / septimal subminor seventh 9.69


----------



## ixlramp

A 12TET guitar with open strings tuned to Just major thirds https://aaronmyersbrooks.bandcamp.com/track/procedural-telepathy

Partial 24EDO refret guitar and fretless bass.


More 16EDO metal and video madness from FFFF.


----------



## ElRay

ixlramp said:


> A 12TET guitar with open strings tuned to Just major thirds...


Is everything of theirs done like that? Or just that one song?

Just M3rds is 1/3 of my plan for my 92528. Once I get some “me” time, the plan is to string it up in M3rds, but tune it so strings 9,6,3 are octaves, 8,5,2 are just thirds and the 5ths on 7,4,1 are just to the 3rds and the octaves.

This way, I’ll essentially have three different temperaments, and the same chord played on different sets of strings will have different colors. I just hope that things aren’t too far off and everything that’s not “just” sounds like crap.

If it doesn’t work, then I could try all Just M3rds, or go back to the regular 12EDO All M3rds tuning.


----------



## Aaron Myers-Brooks

ElRay said:


> Is everything of theirs done like that? Or just that one song?



Thanks for checking out my stuff! At the moment, that's the only song I've recorded with that tuning, but I plan to do more. It's exceptionally easy to tune to by ear as far as microtonal retunings go, although the high strings end up kind of floppy with a standard set of strings.

I did use a similar concept on the second half of this piece, where every other string is tuned to a just minor 7th. (D string is 7/4 of E string, G string is 7/4 of A string, etc) Start at 8:10.


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## ixlramp

Hi Aaron, i'm 'Menokefug Sonataris' on Facebook.

Some quartertone guitar tracks by Aaron:
https://aaronmyersbrooks.bandcamp.com/track/polyhedron
https://aaronmyersbrooks.bandcamp.com/track/radialflex-ii
https://aaronmyersbrooks.bandcamp.com/track/photonic-ritual-3


----------



## The Omega Cluster

https://jocktears.bandcamp.com/album/bad-boys

New microtonal (17edo) punk EP from Jock Tears!


----------



## Winspear

#notmetalbut orchestral textures like this are more metal than metal anyway 

19edo orchestra , and an organ version.


As a sidenote, an incredibly beautiful 31edo exploration of the harmonic series for organ and choir;


When listening to something like that 19edo piece, I can't help imagining how insane it would sound covered in a metal style similar to say Portal meets Gorguts.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Very cool! 19 and 31 tone were very (relatively) popular in earlier classical music when the idea of 12-tone wasn't as solidified and standardized as it is today. Both 19 and 31 have pros and cons: 31 basically being 12-tone just intonation for all keys instead of just one, but it means a lot of notes (31!) and pretty unpractical for guitar instruments, where frets would be much too close to one another, 19 I don't know as much but I think it was just an alternative to 12 as it has good approximations of JI but more notes.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

https://aaronmyersbrooks.bandcamp.com/album/start-end

Newest Aaron Myers-Brooks album. One of his best yet in my opinion!


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Not metal but cool ambient/post rock in 22ed2

https://richarddaskas.bandcamp.com/album/eons


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Certainly one of the most interesting things to come out of microtonal metal lately and in the near future.


----------



## ixlramp

Quartertone 8 string.
I'm already very impressed by Coma Cluster Void's guitarist, and know he has been interested in microtonality for many years, so it's excellent to see this finally happening.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

I like to think I have something to do with that (but probably not), as I've bothered him several times about using microtonality, although he always replied negatively, saying this wasn't for him or for CCV. I'm glad he changed his mind, though.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Not metal, but I've programmed a microtonal text-to-music process on Python. Here's one of the first tracks I made via text input, it's a short and simple piece for horns, double bass, and harp.

https://soundcloud.com/user-78104662/fox-dog

If you want midi files from one of your text just send it to me stripped (text only with spaces, no punctuation or diacritics or return).


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## coffeeflush

This is a cool idea, I wanna see how it goes forward


----------



## The Omega Cluster

coffeeflush said:


> This is a cool idea, I wanna see how it goes forward



To best see how the program operates, listen to the following link. It is more than 2 hours and a half of piano playing unaltered MIDI files (from text), so it is purely procedural.

https://melopoeia.bandcamp.com/album/the-entire-bee-movie-script-turned-into-music


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## ixlramp

Yossi Tamim 41EDO baritone 8 string guitar. I've asked him what the open intervals are and will report back.
The major and minor chords he plays are very in-tune due to the ability of 41EDO to closely approximate Just Intonation intervals.


Hildebrand Rewarrp usually creates electronic industrial music. Here is his first industrial metal track, using a bass scale length extended range guitar in 18EDO (results in amazing tone). Plus synths in 27EDO.


'Infinite Nomad' is a side project of Coma Cluster Void. Uses an 8 string quartertone guitar with a similar open tuning approach to the 10 string of CCV.


----------



## crisaborn

Yeah I konw


----------



## ixlramp

Infinite Nomad's quartertone 8 string.


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## The Omega Cluster

I like the half–half-flat—half–half-sharp symbol.


----------



## ixlramp

My web acquaintance Jacky Ligon has released some new deep atmospheric beats electronica tracks.
His rhythmic music is some of the very best electronic music i have discovered, it just happens to also be microtonal.
"Four Dub infused drums-and-scapes tracks in just intonation."
https://scapescircle.bandcamp.com/releases


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## ixlramp

"John Schneider discusses microtonal music and the experimental 1976 Daniel Friederich meantone guitar with David Collett, president of Guitar Salon International. Part 1 of 3, with performances by Mak Grgic. Recorded at the Guitar Salon International showroom in Santa Monica, CA."
Nice introductory explanation to Just Intonation and some beautifully tuned Meantone tuned guitar recordings on a movable-fret guitar. Continues into parts 2 and 3.

'Meantone' allows playing in several keys, but not all 12, the benefit being many intervals are much closer to Just Intonation. It was a very popular tuning that was one stage of the movement through history from Just Intonation to Equal Temperament.


----------



## The Omega Cluster

To this post I once wrote on Toilet ov Hell, an update.

I noted that the process of manually translating text into MIDI was very laborious, and it is also prone to dumb human errors. Some of you might already know that I've worked on and created an automated text-to-MIDI program (from which stems that abhorrent bee-themed track). While it's still open to improvements—e.g. I haven't implemented punctuation-based rests yet—I'm quite content with it now and it will greatly help any future scriptophonic work. If you plan to work on text-to-MIDI music, please reach out to me, I've written this program using Python3 and am willing to share the code or process texts for you.

I've also come to the realization, when working on it, that my previous album was flawed and incomplete. While my translation wasn't the problem, the program I used (Mus2) was ill-equipped for the challenge and the realities of MIDI. The thing is that with MIDI, you only have the 12 notes (per octave), and that's it. For microtonal music, it's possible to use pitch bends to have a ludicrously precise note (down to 0.46¢ if I recall). That's what the program used.

However, an additional challenge comes when you use a system with more than 12 notes per octave. With a 13-note system, that means that 2 different notes must be assigned to the same MIDI note, with 2 different pitch bend values. In 26-EDO, every 12-tone note is mapped to at least 2 microtonal notes. There's no problem when they are played next to one another. However, a MIDI track cannot play the same note twice on the same track, even if they're on two different channels with two different pitch-bend values. That would be like getting two different voices out of pressing the same key twice at the same time on a piano; it doesn't work.

For most of the time, the program and the music worked and played just fine, but, when 2 letters in a word that are tied to the same MIDI note had to be played at the same time, one of them would be muted because the same note couldn't duplicate itself. To solve this problem, I had to split the "chord" track into three, pushing the initial 3-track program to a 5-track one (along with melody and bass). This way, when 2 notes tied to the same MIDI note need to be played together, they are played on 2 different tracks, therefore solving the issue.

Another, smaller problem arose when using different pitch-bend values on the same note or channel. When the happens, you can here the ending note slide up or down out of tune in preparation for the upcoming note. To resolve this, I decided to assign each pitch-bend value to a channel and never change it. When a note is played, it is played in its respective MIDI channel, instead of using the same channel and altering the pitch-bend values (which lead to unwanted slides). In 26-EDO, since it's an even number of divisions, you have a tritone (600¢). That means that, relative to the 12-tone system, the pitch-bend values cycle back at every tritone, not every octave. This means that, in total, we need 13 different pitch-bend values, therefore 13 assigned channels. It would be easy to bring that number down, because I use 3 tracks for chord notes, but I didn't find it necessary since MIDI allows for 16 channels.

So, what you get in the end are pure, always in-tune notes in 26-EDO. The program can now play up to 26 notes at the same time (for one chord), instead of a previous number of 12. Soon enough, the program will probably be able to handle simple punctuation like commas and periods, for silences.

Right now, I still don't have the money to afford a microtonal guitar, but I am eying that Metatonal 26-tone 7-string guitar for when I will. While pure translation doesn't require artistic input on my end, arranging the MIDI output to make something different, like on that Tolkien album, requires a lot of energy too. Having a physical instrument that I can play with can certainly help with that process, by visualizing and in a way "feeling" the notes a bit more.

Right now, I have in mind the project of realizing a collection of orchestral compositions for scriptophonic 26-EDO based off of an as-of-yet undecided source text. When I'm certain on the text to use, I will start working on the arrangement. In the meantime, if you want scriptophonic MIDI files, or access to the program, just send a message to this page and I'll gladly help!


----------



## The Omega Cluster

New instrumental electro album from Zia!

https://ziaspace.bandcamp.com/album/four-momentum


----------



## coffeeflush

The pitch bend idea makes lot more sense than assigning different notes to same key. 
That being said, is it worth investing in something like a Roli seaboard ?


----------



## The Omega Cluster

New album from CRYPTIC RUSE! Progressive metal on one side and doom on the other!

https://cryptic-ruse.bandcamp.com/album/dual-spaces-exercises-diagrams


----------



## The Omega Cluster

Can we get a microtonal AOTY trend going on here?

My microtonal AOTY has got to be that Cryptic Ruse x Mercury Tree EP. Cryptic Tree was just so good!!!



Close second is the new Zia material!

https://ziaspace.bandcamp.com/album/four-momentum

Also honourable mentions to
Jock Tears - Bad Boys (punk)
Cryptic Ruse - Dual Spaces (prog metal/doom)
Richard Daskas - Eons (post-rock)

What are yours?


----------



## bostjan

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LFJGM1V/?tag=sevenstringorg-20

Not all new nor metal, but it has some exclusive tracks from Brendan Byrnes (prog rock/synth rock), Neema V (rap), Naegleria Fowleri (my band with Luna), and others. ...and all of the proceeds go to support Lyn Ulbrecht's travel and legal costs. Check out the sample clips!


----------



## ixlramp

Microtonal synthesised metal https://zadarpadov.bandcamp.com/album/plasma-storm

New 17EDO track from the microtonal progressive rock supergroup Mercury Tree, now with Cryptic Ruse as a permanent member https://themercurytree.bandcamp.com/track/ill-pay


----------



## bostjan

https://www.radionomy.com/en/radio/bizarradio/

They do a couple microtonal shows. One at noon eastern and one at 4 PM. Seems to be some harder stuff in there.


----------



## BananaDemocracy

Evil Weasel said:


> The only band I know of using microtones are Massive Audio Nerve. Not really tech but at least it vaguely fits the critieria.
> BLABBERMOUTH.NET - M.A.N Claims To Be First Metal Band Ever To Incorporate 'Full Scale Quarter Tone System'



That’s adorable ! Classical Indian musicians would be amused.

I like it though, minus the claim to fame


----------



## ixlramp

'Sons Of Belial' (includes Sebastian Baum) posted this 24EDO death metal track which i find impressive.
https://soundcloud.com/sons-of-belial-1/symbiotic

New release from Brendan Byrnes in 22EDO, including guitars.
https://brendanbyrnes.bandcamp.com/album/room-tapes


----------



## The Omega Cluster

The new Byrnes album is so good!

By the way if anyone is interested in doing a microtonal + microrhythmic pop-ish band, hit me up I'm highly interested in starting something.


----------



## ixlramp

The Mercury Tree (avantgarde / math / prog / post-prog / psychedelic rock) has released a new album, all in 17 tones per octave https://themercurytree.bandcamp.com/album/spidermilk
Touring soon in the USA:



///////

Some beautiful deep electronic beats music in 22EDO:


----------



## ixlramp

2 microtonal guitar themed interview podcasts by Now&Xen, with Brendan Byrnes and The Mercury Tree.
Some of the earlier episodes may also be of interest.
http://nowandxen.libsyn.com/


----------



## ixlramp

Amazing live performance by The Mercury Tree, in 17 equal divisions of the octave.


----------



## coffeeflush

ixlramp said:


> 2 microtonal guitar themed interview podcasts by Now&Xen, with Brendan Byrnes and The Mercury Tree.
> Some of the earlier episodes may also be of interest.
> http://nowandxen.libsyn.com/



This podcast is pretty awesome. thanks for posting


----------



## ixlramp

New Jute Gyte album, quartertone avant-garde black metal.
https://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/album/birefringence
Most of his more recent music i find ... 'difficult' ... due to increasing use of atonality, serialism etc. But try this one:
https://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/track/dissected-grace


----------



## ixlramp

Math metal instrumentals in 17 equal divisions of the octave https://aaronmyersbrooks.bandcamp.com/album/energetic-bursts-music-for-17-tone-guitar


----------



## Winspear

Not metal , and not really up my alley either - but very cool to see:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Dsilton-403952869956016/videos/?ref=page_internal
I've been wanting to see a 31EDO guitar being played forever. It's nice to have some clips of more thorough playing. Makes me more confident about the playability of mine when I finish building it. (previously I could only find Stephen James Taylors slideyslidey video)


----------



## ixlramp

https://traumatriad.bandcamp.com/album/visceral-defects

Metal (not by me) using a 'neutral thirds' tuning (3.5 semitones between strings) that allows quartertones to be played on a normally fretted guitar.
I have a thread about this approach here https://www.sevenstring.org/threads...one-scales-microtonal-beginners-guide.161530/
Album download contains explanation of the tuning system and even guitar tablature.


----------



## bostjan

Winspear said:


> Not metal , and not really up my alley either - but very cool to see:
> https://www.facebook.com/pg/Dsilton-403952869956016/videos/?ref=page_internal
> I've been wanting to see a 31EDO guitar being played forever. It's nice to have some clips of more thorough playing. Makes me more confident about the playability of mine when I finish building it. (previously I could only find Stephen James Taylors slideyslidey video)


I thought that Neil Haverstick had done some of his older stuff in 31edo, and his website lists it as a tuning that he uses, but I can't find any songs in 31edo now.

Not metal, but 19edo https://bostjanzupancic.bandcamp.com/album/kaleidotoxin


----------



## ixlramp

I found a short video performance of this now famous Just Intonation guitar.


----------



## ixlramp

The gutarist from Cipher has a website where the original EP and some later unreleased tracks can be streamed/downloaded.
Guitar and bass use a Just Intonation tonal system.
'7-limit' means the intervals are constructed from the prime number harmonics up to the 7th harmonic. The 7th harmonic results in intervals such as the 'septimal subminor third 7/6' at 2.67 semitones and the 'septimal subminor seventh 7/4' at 9.69 semitones.
https://www.cipher.band/

Information found elsewhere:

"The band Cipher (Los Angeles-late 70s to mid 80s) played in a 7-limit 22-tone scale of Erv Wilson. The intonation was done under the guidance of Jose Garcia who refretted all the guitars and bass. Co-composer, Marsha Mann, who was the lead singer and lyricist for the band, also sang in the same tuning. They appeared on New Wave Theater. Cipher is listed and pictured (above The Clash) in the 1985 illustrated encyclopedia, 'Who's New Wave in Music', by David Blanco, who refers to them as a 'microtonal dance band'."


----------



## ixlramp

Aaron Myers-Brooks playthrough of math metal in 17EDO.
Track is from album https://aaronmyersbrooks.bandcamp.com/album/energetic-bursts-music-for-17-tone-guitar


----------



## ixlramp

You are probably familiar with the 'adjustable microtonal guitar' of Tolgahan Cogulu, with its individual moveable sliding fretlets. 2 electric versions exist, this one is 7 string, headless, ergonomic, semi-hollowbody.


----------



## Winspear

Great links! Thanks for keeping them coming. I thought I had exhausted my microtonal guitar Youtube searches but apparently not  The adjustable system fretboards really are incredible. 

I was thinking of making a dedicated thread for discussion of microtonal tunings, I don't think there is one?


----------



## bostjan

Winspear said:


> Great links! Thanks for keeping them coming. I thought I had exhausted my microtonal guitar Youtube searches but apparently not  The adjustable system fretboards really are incredible.
> 
> I was thinking of making a dedicated thread for discussion of microtonal tunings, I don't think there is one?



I had tried two or three times long ago, but I think only one thread managed to go on past one page.

There is so much depth to the encompassing idea of microtuning, that there could be an entire forum website on it. Years ago, there was the yahoo tuning group, then there was the microguitarist forum, and now there are a bunch of facebook groups. The interest in this has exploded, merely in reference to how small it started (a handful of ameteur musician professors and two pro musicians), but if you drill down into a specific tuning, you generally only find a couple of people actually using it. Sometimes, if you ask a question on facebook, you get an answer that looks like it was copied out of a graduate level maths course. It's because the guy answering you is so far down the rabbit hole that it is completely natural for him to talk that way (and he likely made up some of his own jargon). Same with online resources like the xenharmonic wiki- there is an article there about whatever you are curious about, but you have to read 9 other articles to grasp what that one is talking about, and it gets worse when you need to read 9 articles for each of those 9, and so on. Before you know it, you've read 28 articles and still don't know what half of the jargon means. And you have these guys who just love making up new (unintuitive) terminologies for things that already have terminologies, meaning that you have to wade through two or three unintelligible explanations of the same thing... anyway, I'm just ranting now.

I'd obviously love to have a dedicated thread for this!

There is so much that I don't understand about the basics...


----------



## Winspear

bostjan said:


> Stuff
> 
> There is so much that I don't understand about the basics...



I fully understand where you are coming from with all that! It's such a deep subject. 

Let's give it a go. Go ahead and ask any specifics about the basics in the thread  https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/general-microtuning-thread.340098/


----------



## bostjan

Back to microtonal metal... Ralph Jarzombek: https://www.freewebs.com/ralphjarzombek/103119.mp3


----------



## bostjan

Listening to that Aaron Myers-Brooks album and I'm liking it more every time!


----------



## ixlramp

Alan Malcolm has a 32" scale quartertone 8 string made by NS Guitars, called the 'TQ8'.
Not sure yet what tuning, but possibly very low, judging from the stated tunings of his other 8 string guitars. Possibly BF#BEADGB, as in drop B0.

He has released a lot of music that (apparently) features it, i have not checked all of these but here is the full list of what he has documented as being microtonal and/or 24EDO, in order from newest to oldest:

https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/stained-ep-2019
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/breached-ep-2019
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/hatred-ep-2019
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/just-wviii-lp-2019
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/message-lp-2019
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/abominations-ep-2019
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/scorched-ep-2019
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/nstq8-demo-2018
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/entre-le-ep-2018
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/ambi-ep-2018
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/list-its-yours-ep-2018
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/no-more-blessings-ep-2018
https://alanmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/shape-of-waste-single-2018


----------



## Aaron Myers-Brooks

Glad y'all are digging my record!  I'm hoping to make more playthrough vids soon. I've been practicing up 6 of the tracks from the album for an upcoming performance at the Beyond 2020 Microtonal Fest in Pittsburgh.

In regards to non-math-major descriptions of tunings, here's my attempt to describe 17EDO, or at least what I've learned of it so far:

1. Creates a relatively convincing major/minor scale by treating one step as the minor 2nd and 3 steps as the major 2nd.
2. Major chords are noticeably messier sounding than in 12EDO.
3. Major 2nds and minor 7ths sound a little sweeter to my ear, which can make for some neat sounding 7th and 9th chords.
4. The perfect 4th and 5th sound almost the same as 12EDO.
5. You can get nice "neutral" intervals (2nds, 3rds, 6ths, and 7ths) which tend to sound pretty gnarly in a fun way.
6. You get two different tritones, i.e. augmented 4ths and diminished 5ths sound different. Both are quite dissonant.
7. I'm sure plenty of other stuff I haven't discovered??


----------



## bostjan

Aaron Myers-Brooks said:


> Glad y'all are digging my record!  I'm hoping to make more playthrough vids soon. I've been practicing up 6 of the tracks from the album for an upcoming performance at the Beyond 2020 Microtonal Fest in Pittsburgh.
> 
> In regards to non-math-major descriptions of tunings, here's my attempt to describe 17EDO, or at least what I've learned of it so far:
> 
> 1. Creates a relatively convincing major/minor scale by treating one step as the minor 2nd and 3 steps as the major 2nd.
> 2. Major chords are noticeably messier sounding than in 12EDO.
> 3. Major 2nds and minor 7ths sound a little sweeter to my ear, which can make for some neat sounding 7th and 9th chords.
> 4. The perfect 4th and 5th sound almost the same as 12EDO.
> 5. You can get nice "neutral" intervals (2nds, 3rds, 6ths, and 7ths) which tend to sound pretty gnarly in a fun way.
> 6. You get two different tritones, i.e. augmented 4ths and diminished 5ths sound different. Both are quite dissonant.
> 7. I'm sure plenty of other stuff I haven't discovered??



When I went for 19edo, 17edo was my second choice. Now I see that it's super popular in hard rock/metal (i.e., there are like more than 3 people using it).

Back in 2003-4-ish, I downloaded an audio file of a shred guitar song in 17edo. No idea who it was, but it digs at me every day trying to remember it or track it down. Do you know anything about that?

What got you into 17edo in the first place?

In my mind, 17edo is kind of a nice compromise between arabic sounding and western sounding without too many notes.


----------



## Aaron Myers-Brooks

bostjan said:


> When I went for 19edo, 17edo was my second choice. Now I see that it's super popular in hard rock/metal (i.e., there are like more than 3 people using it).
> 
> Back in 2003-4-ish, I downloaded an audio file of a shred guitar song in 17edo. No idea who it was, but it digs at me every day trying to remember it or track it down. Do you know anything about that?
> 
> What got you into 17edo in the first place?
> 
> In my mind, 17edo is kind of a nice compromise between arabic sounding and western sounding without too many notes.



Basically I just knew I wanted a lower EDO guitar other than 12, as my experience playing a quarter tone guitar is that it was kind of a beast, particularly in the higher range. When metatonal music posted that guitar for sale on their Instagram at a very affordable price, I decided to pull the trigger.


----------



## Winspear

Some more 17edo metal riffing: https://twitter.com/bastard__wing/status/1246572842193305600?s=20

Also, the new Brendan Byrnes album just dropped - not metal but extremely good catchy synth rock  
I really enjoy his music. It actually serves me emotionally too rather than just in terms of musical curiosity (which is usually the case with most micro I've heard so far). Very catchy and nostalgic tunes here


----------



## ElRay

I know Ivor Darreg has been mentioned here before, but I just found that the "Detwelvulate!" album is on BandCamp as a free download: Detwelvulate | Ivor Darreg


----------



## bostjan

Dusty bump.

https://transylvaniantapes.bandcamp...gJacu6JGfU9xLCy-h9JWkgrUx1FVjCVsEmhEv9PTclzSs

17edo black metal


----------



## ixlramp

Just posting this quartertone guitar here due to it being so impressive.


----------



## bostjan

Is that yours?!


----------



## ixlramp

Ha ... no =)
I am less interested in microtonally fretted guitars now. I oddly actually prefer my own system (detailed elsewhere in the forum) of a conventionally fretted guitar with a microtonal open string tuning.


----------



## Winspear

ixlramp said:


> Ha ... no =)
> I am less interested in microtonally fretted guitars now. I oddly actually prefer my own system (detailed elsewhere in the forum) of a conventionally fretted guitar with a microtonal open string tuning.



I'd like to try combining both methods to unlock higher EDOs, like the Kite guitar if you've heard of it. 41 and 34 EDO work really well tuned in m or M 3rds with 20.5 or 17 frets per octave


----------



## bostjan

ixlramp said:


> Ha ... no =)
> I am less interested in microtonally fretted guitars now. I oddly actually prefer my own system (detailed elsewhere in the forum) of a conventionally fretted guitar with a microtonal open string tuning.


I'd kind of like to know whose guitar that is. If you're at liberty to say...



Winspear said:


> I'd like to try combining both methods to unlock higher EDOs, like the Kite guitar if you've heard of it. 41 and 34 EDO work really well tuned in m or M 3rds with 20.5 or 17 frets per octave



I think this is the only practical way to approach EDO's higher in order than about 27ish. Even full 24edo, to me, is too much a handfull. It's what keeps me shying away from 31, as much as it sounds good to my ears.


----------



## Winspear

bostjan said:


> I'd kind of like to know whose guitar that is. If you're at liberty to say...
> 
> 
> 
> I think this is the only practical way to approach EDO's higher in order than about 27ish. Even full 24edo, to me, is too much a handfull. It's what keeps me shying away from 31, as much as it sounds good to my ears.



I absolutely agree. I am very happy with my 31 subset fretting and would recommend it if you like the idea, but whilst the small frets on it are by no means problematic, having a bunch of them would _suck _


----------



## bostjan

I'm still frustrated that I can't find the artist or record of 17-edo metal that I happened across circa 2005.

Around the time, I was listening to a lot of Dan Stearns, Ralph Jarzombek, William Sethares, John Starett, and Neil Haverstick. I was excited to come across a recording that was of actual guitar and in a style that was more aggressive. I downloaded the file off of a website that I don't remember and listened to it maybe a dozen times before my hard drive crashed and I haven't been able to find it since then. I want to say that the artist was from some place that spoke Spanish or Portuguese, but I might be way off.

Or maybe I just imagined the entire thing.

I wonder how 31edo would work on a kite-type setup with 15.5 notes/octave. It does seem like a somewhat complicated way to compromise between too many notes and good tuning possibilities.

With the number of guitarists opting for 17-edo, it seems like maybe I went the oddball direction myself with 19-edo.


----------



## ixlramp

I have no idea who owns that Agile 10 string quartertone guitar, i just saw it in this forum's 'weird guitar' thread, perhaps you could ask the poster where they found the image.

Yes, i read up on the Kite guitar system, clever.


----------



## bostjan

Seems to belong to someone in the band "Atemporal Causality" - I will be checking them out later.


----------



## bostjan

Here's the owner playing the guitar [NSFW: explicit lyrics]



Edit: Seems to a one man band. Pretty brootal stuff. Lyrics seem to be intended to be as shocking as possible: heavy anti-semitism (probably third person, implying Islam is anti-semitic), ...either way... . Imagery is full of gore and naked genitals. Probably 100% NSFW at all to dive into this one. Not safe for anyone with any decency, either- just a warning!


----------



## ixlramp

Ahhh, good stuff (ignoring the lyrics, luckily lyrics in extreme metal are usually not clear).
I am listening to the music while not looking at the silly videos.
Impressive use of the guitar and quartertones, sounds really Maqam-like.
Thanks for researching this, makes me feel i should have done so. I will be following this project.


----------



## cwhitey2

bostjan said:


> Here's the owner playing the guitar [NSFW: explicit lyrics]
> 
> 
> 
> Edit: Seems to a one man band. Pretty brootal stuff. Lyrics seem to be intended to be as shocking as possible: heavy anti-semitism (probably third person, implying Islam is anti-semitic), ...either way... . Imagery is full of gore and naked genitals. Probably 100% NSFW at all to dive into this one. Not safe for anyone with any decency, either- just a warning!



That was actually awesome!


----------



## ixlramp

I released a mini-album of generative microtonal electronic music.
https://menokefug.bandcamp.com/album/iayx

There are no guitars but it has metal style percussion. I decided to post it here as the thread author is interested in generative and microtonal music.

The synthesiser and drum machine were controlled by a program i wrote that uses 4- and 8-dimensional fractal mathematics to generate MIDI signals.
The album cover image was generated using a generative art system i created. The system occasionally generates structures that look like letters or numbers, in this case 'IAYX' which was used as the album name.


----------



## ResistentialAssultSquadron

Has anyone tried tying on extra "frets" to their guitars? Like, how the frets were placed on baroque guitars?

Sure, not great for shredding, but it works.


----------



## bostjan

ResistentialAssultSquadron said:


> Has anyone tried tying on extra "frets" to their guitars? Like, how the frets were placed on baroque guitars?
> 
> Sure, not great for shredding, but it works.


Zip ties will work in a pinch, but you have to get them pretty tight.

Tolgahan uses tangless pieces (short enough to only cover one string) and double sided tape. He seems to make it work well, and I'm going to try it myself soon, but I've been afraid any vibrato would just pop them off.



ixlramp said:


> I released a mini-album of generative microtonal electronic music.
> https://menokefug.bandcamp.com/album/iayx
> 
> There are no guitars but it has metal style percussion. I decided to post it here as the thread author is interested in generative and microtonal music.
> 
> The synthesiser and drum machine were controlled by a program i wrote that uses 4- and 8-dimensional fractal mathematics to generate MIDI signals.
> The album cover image was generated using a generative art system i created. The system occasionally generates structures that look like letters or numbers, in this case 'IAYX' which was used as the album name.



Now play those parts on guitar!


----------



## ResistentialAssultSquadron

bostjan said:


> Zip ties will work in a pinch, but you have to get them pretty tight.
> 
> Tolgahan uses tangless pieces (short enough to only cover one string) and double sided tape. He seems to make it work well, and I'm going to try it myself soon, but I've been afraid any vibrato would just pop them off.
> 
> 
> 
> Now play those parts on guitar!



Zip ties indeed!


----------



## Winspear

Madness in 17edo https://votsband.bandcamp.com/?fbclid=IwAR0EV-YfhqOOlflIXGzigRcW04hnr1Px75J1bi5hkkbi9KiBYq2hP-eMFlw , and a cool playthrough https://www.facebook.com/victoryoverthesunband/posts/2655442771382978


----------



## ixlramp

Yes i love that playthrough video, the looks given to the camera are legendary =D

More 17 tone metal:
https://monochromaticresidua.bandcamp.com/album/repurposed-behemoth-single
https://monochromaticresidua.bandcamp.com/album/eternal-mountain-ep


----------



## ixlramp

The electric version now exists.


----------



## ixlramp

Posting a new link to Infinite Nomad (the guitarist is Jeanne Strieder from Coma Cluster Void) as some of their other sites are now unavailable https://drooble.com/infinite.nomad1
A photo of the quartertone 8 string guitar is earlier in this thread https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/microtonal-metal.202859/page-28#post-4944829


----------



## Winspear

It's probably somewhere in the thread already, but this is very good.  Has me enjoying a handful of low/teen EDOs whereas I previously thought sub-17 had nothing to offer me aside from 12.


----------



## bostjan

Winspear said:


> It's probably somewhere in the thread already, but this is very good.  Has me enjoying a handful of low/teen EDOs whereas I previously thought sub-17 had nothing to offer me aside from 12.



Interesting. I've been recently fooling around with 14edo, of which 7edo is a subset. Of course Last Sacrament was heavy on 16edo, which sounded very atonal, and a lot of folks in the facebook micro groups are big proponents of 15edo.

It's tough recording in so many different tunings. If only somebody would make a run of guitars where you could pop the fretboard off and slap another on quickly. Then again, I'm not sure how anybody can get proficient at so many different tunings (not doubting that they do, just how anybody can divide their brainpower so efficiently).

Anyway, cool link- I will have to check it out at my earliest opportunity.


----------



## Winspear

bostjan said:


> Interesting. I've been recently fooling around with 14edo, of which 7edo is a subset. Of course Last Sacrament was heavy on 16edo, which sounded very atonal, and a lot of folks in the facebook micro groups are big proponents of 15edo.
> 
> It's tough recording in so many different tunings. If only somebody would make a run of guitars where you could pop the fretboard off and slap another on quickly. Then again, I'm not sure how anybody can get proficient at so many different tunings (not doubting that they do, just how anybody can divide their brainpower so efficiently).
> 
> Anyway, cool link- I will have to check it out at my earliest opportunity.



https://microtoneguitars.com/ has recently launched and is making classicals, super cool! I do hope I can be first to the table with an affordable electric  I'll definitely have to put some time into these smaller tunings. I've settled my focus squarely on 31/19 of 31 on guitar, 46(its 17 and 29 subsets, I'll be doing that 17 for guitar next), and 53/JI tunings so far. Definitely need to dabble with a small bad-fifth EDO and see what I can do with it.


----------



## bostjan

Are they selling those?!


----------



## Winspear

bostjan said:


> Are they selling those?!


Yes, I've seen them say so a few times though there is no direct info/shop anywhere it seems - pretty new website. Good youtube channel! I did see something just yesterday that implied there are some classicals for sale right now if you contact them, fretboards made to choice.


----------



## ixlramp

Quoted from https://www.microtoneguitars.com/:
"... they all have frets positioned in 12-tone Equal Temperament. This is a pitch system adopted for its convenience in manufacturing,"

Completely ignoring the actual primary musical reasons for its adoption.


----------



## bostjan

My latest attempt and my first release in 14edo: https://bostjanzupancic.bandcamp.com/track/groove-metal-14


----------



## ElRay

bostjan said:


> My latest attempt and my first release in 14edo: https://bostjanzupancic.bandcamp.com/track/groove-metal-14


Nice, in a not-so-nice way.

Appologies if I missed it or forgot, but how are changing your temperament so easily/often? Sliding frets? Tied-gut/zipties?


----------



## bostjan

ElRay said:


> Nice, in a not-so-nice way.
> 
> Appologies if I missed it or forgot, but how are changing your temperament so easily/often? Sliding frets? Tied-gut/zipties?


Thanks so much!

No, much to my wife's chagrin, I bought another guitar. For bass, I'm using a fretless bass with a fabric pencil to mark cheater lines (it comes off with a wet rag) for anything other than 19 (i have a dedicated 19edo bass). I'd like to get something with a removable fretboard someday, though. At least I can always say Jason (city of the asleep, cryptic ruse, mercury tree) is way ahead of me on guitars with different temperaments.


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## Winspear

VERY promising. Love this. As far as I'm aware, working in a 72 edo base (a somewhat established 'scene' going back quite some years from what I gather). Presumably using 12edo guitars and just offsetting strings with edosteps necessary to suit a given composition. This track is pretty much straight harmonic series on B worship. Love it, those opening harmonic sevenths are delicious


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## bostjan

Winspear said:


> VERY promising. Love this. As far as I'm aware, working in a 72 edo base (a somewhat established 'scene' going back quite some years from what I gather). Presumably using 12edo guitars and just offsetting strings with edosteps necessary to suit a given composition. This track is pretty much straight harmonic series on B worship. Love it, those opening harmonic sevenths are delicious




Picking up some Jute Gyte vibes here and there. Nice thing about 72edo is that it'd be compatible with 12edo, 24edo, or even 36edo.


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## terriandralph

bostjan said:


> Back to microtonal metal... Ralph Jarzombek: https://www.freewebs.com/ralphjarzombek/103119.mp3


Many thanks for posting my piece! I put together another piece shortly after this one - here is the link:

https://ralphjarzombek.webs.com/120420.mp3

I would say it's not quite as heavy as 103119, but I decided to use Bohlen-Pierce temperament (rather than 14edo that I used in 103119) and a time signature of 7/4 (rather than 4/4 that I used in 103119).

Both of these pieces incorporate pitch sets that I had learned about in college, and that my brother Ron uses a lot in his pieces.


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## KailM

Try this on for size:


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## afterzaar

These are the Turkish style guys:


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## Winspear

It's out! Utterly awesome 72 tone black metal


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## bostjan

About six months late, but here is an EP/demo of 14-edo metal.



...and yes, Ralph Jarzombek got me into the idea of doing 14edo next.

The guitar is a Yahama Pacifica with a 14edo fretboard and everything else stock. Bass is a Dean Edge 6F (fretless) missing the high string (whoops). Drums are MT Power Kit (I started out recording live drums for this one, but the MT Power Kit just sounded better). No vocals this time. If anybody is interested, hit me up.


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