June 12, 2010
I was pleased recently when Tonal Plexus owner Aaron Wolf alerted me to Automat, a free Audio Unit synthesizer for Mac OSX which has implemented full dynamic retuning support for Tonal Plexus TPX keyboards, as well as .tun 1.0 support for compatibility with CSE and conventional keyboards.
Tonal Plexus owners can open Automat as a plugin in any AU host application (GarageBand, Logic, DP, Reaper, etc.) and tune it up dynamically with the Plexus on-the-fly, without loading any tuning tables at all. This is the same GM microtuning functionality implemented in the commercial software Pianoteq which I've been raving about lately.
The same is true for TBX1 owners. You can send MIDI out from your controller to TBX1, and send that TUNED output to Automat (or Pianoteq), for dynamic retuning without tuning tables.
Or, you can retune your conventional keyboard in Automat using tuning tables; just use CSE to create your tunings and export them as .tun files to the following location:
~/Library/Audio/Presets/alphakanal/Automat1/tunings
(where ~ means YourHardDrive/Users/YourUserName)
Then just select your tuning in Automat, and you're good to go.
Note for U-PLEX users: you need to have a serious AU host such as Logic, DP, or Reaper in order to use Automat or Pianoteq as AU plugin synths for dynamic retuning. Apple's entry-level sequencer, GarageBand, does not allow you to select the MIDI input; instead, all MIDI inputs are active. As a result, U-PLEX won't produce tuned output in GB; however, TPX keyboards can be used with GB just fine.
It would be great if the .tun 2.0 standard were implemented in Automat, so that .msf would be supported, allowing U-PLEX to be used with Automat in GarageBand. Until then, Mac U-PLEX users should invest a little more in a professional AU host.
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