Microtones

Library
for Sibelius © 7+

Alexis Baskind
CIRM 2010-2017

Version 2.0.3 – October 2017

http://sourceforge.net/projects/microtones/

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Microtones Library
 License

The Sibelius Microtones Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-

NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, which means that:

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and
indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any
way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute
your contributions under the same license as the original.

No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that
legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or
where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.

No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your
intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how
you use the material.

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 Table of Contents
1 Presentation ......................................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 What does the Microtones library? ....................................................................................................... 4
1.2 What the Microtones library does not do? ......................................................................................... 4
1.3 Important: differences between the versions 1 and 2 of the Microtones library ................. 4
2 Installation ............................................................................................................................................ 6
2.1 Sibelius Plugins ........................................................................................................................................... 6
2.1.1 Sibelius 7+ / Mac OS X .................................................................................................. 6
2.1.2 Sibelius 7+ / Windows ..................................................................................................... 6
2.1.3 For all systems................................................................................................................. 7
2.2 Communication between Sibelius and the synthesizer ................................................................ 7
2.2.1 Synthesizer (like Kontakt) as a VST instance inside Sibelius ......................................... 7
2.2.2 Synthesizer (like Kontakt or Max/MSP) as a Standalone ................................................ 8
3 How microtones are handled for notating music? ............................................................... 10
3.1 Converting a score for the Microtones Library version 2 ........................................................... 10
How microtones are handled for playback? .................................................................................. 11
3.2 Microtonal playback in Kontakt .......................................................................................................... 11
3.2.1 Load the Kontakt script for the first time ....................................................................... 12
3.2.2 Load the Kontakt script after it has been saved as a .nkp file ........................................ 13
3.3 Microtonal Playback with Max/MSP .................................................................................................. 15
4 Operations that may be performed with the library ........................................................... 16
4.1 Transposition ............................................................................................................................................ 16
4.2 Handling of Enharmonics ...................................................................................................................... 16
4.3 Playback ...................................................................................................................................................... 17
4.3.1 Glissando Playback ........................................................................................................ 17
4.4 Force Cautionary Accidentals .............................................................................................................. 17
4.5 Microtonal scales ...................................................................................................................................... 17
4.5.1 Create Scale.................................................................................................................... 18
4.5.2 Show Scale ..................................................................................................................... 18
4.5.3 Check Scale .................................................................................................................... 19
4.5.4 Fit to closest in scale ...................................................................................................... 19
4.5.5 Change Scale .................................................................................................................. 19
5 Known limitations ........................................................................................................................... 22
6 Contact / Feedback .......................................................................................................................... 22
7 Credits ................................................................................................................................................. 22

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1 Presentation
1.1 What does the Microtones library?
This open-source plugin suite aims at extending Sibelius 7+ to allow it to handle microtonal music
and play it back with various synthesizers (currently Kontakt© 5 and Max/MSP©). There are many
microtonal music theories, but in the context of this library, we'll refer always to the usual
microtonal extensions of equal temperament called quarter tones (i.e. 1/24th octave) and eighth
tones (i.e. 1/48th octave).
This library offers among others the following features:
− insertion of microtones in the music
− transposition using microtonal intervals
− precise polyphonic playback of microtonal music with Kontakt and Max/MSP, without
the requirement for pitch bends (the standard playback system of Sibelius is limited to
monodies, and its use of pitch bends entails undesired pitch glitches in the rendering)
− handling of microtonal scales, build scales, check if the music material belongs to a
given scale, warping from one scale to another one, transpose notes to the closest
member of a microtonal scale, etc.
− handling of microtonal artificial harmonics and microtonal glissandi

1.2 What the Microtones library does not do?

The Microtones library aims only at doing one thing: handling microtones. It does not control how
they sound. The type and quality of the synthesis depends on the synthesizer itself, as well as a
correct control of it by Sibelius. For instance with Kontakt:
• As it will be explained below, the Microtones Library allows the playback of microtonal
musical material by detuning the original samples of the Kontakt instruments in a proper
way. Thus it assumes that the original instrument is properly tuned to a 12-note Equal
Temperament.
• The Microtones Library does not tell Sibelius how to select the proper instruments of the
Kontakt Multi. This operation, which implies either sending instrument-specific MIDI
messages manually to Kontakt or having the proper sound set (which do this job
automatically) for your Kontakt library when creating the new playback devices, is outside
the scope of this work.

1.3 Important: differences between the versions 1 and 2 of the

Microtones library
The Microtones Library version 1 handled microtones accidentals as symbols. This had some
advantages but two major drawbacks:
1/ the symbols were not physically bound to the notes to which they refer, and this entailed a
lot of complications on the layout, especially when handling with parts.
2/ microtonal accidentals were not correctly applied in parts for transposing instruments
The new version of the Microtones library handles microtones as real accidentals that remain
attached to the note to which they refer. This makes the layout much simpler: notes can be freely
moved, parts are much simpler to create, etc... It implies however several points that have to be
taken in account:

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 • Creating a new part, or converting an score made with the old version of the Microtones
library, implies modifying the house style, that can be however made automatically thanks
to the Plugin "Prepare score for use with the ""Microtones Library"" (see 3.1)
• The standard transposition tools from Sibelius, as well as the up/down arrow shortcuts,
don't work any more: Transposing notes or group of notes requires the use of the
transposition/moving tools of the Microtones Library (see 2.1.3).
• The playback is not anymore backward compatible with players that are not capable
of understanding special messages from Microtones Library: most of the pitch will
sound wrong!

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2 Installation
IMPORTANT NOTE: if a previous version of Microtones is already installed of your system,
please remove it completely before installing a new version.

2.1 Sibelius Plugins

2.1.1 Sibelius 7+ / Mac OS X
. copy the folder Microtones in:
~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7/Plugins (for Sibelius 7.0)
~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7.5/Plugins (for Sibelius 7.5)
~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius/Plugins (for Sibelius 8)

. copy the folder "Scales" in:

~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7/ (for Sibelius 7.0)
~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7.5/ (for Sibelius 7.5)
~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius/ (for Sibelius 8)

. copy the file "House Styles/Microtones Library.lib" in:

~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7/House Styles (for Sibelius 7.0)
~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7.5/House Styles (for Sibelius 7.5)
~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius/House Styles (for Sibelius 8)

..."~/" being a shortcut to your home folder.

Note: the folder "~/Library/" as well are all its subfolders are invisible on Mac OS >=10.7. In order
to access the Sibelius "Application Support" folder:
• switch to the Finder
• type the shortcut cmd-shift-G
• type "~/Library/Application Support/Avid"

2.1.2 Sibelius 7+ / Windows

. copy the folder Microtones in:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius 7\Plugins (for Sibelius 7.0)
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius 7.5\Plugins (for Sibelius 7.5)
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius\Plugins (for Sibelius 8)

. copy the folder "Scales" in:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius 7\ (for Sibelius 7.0)
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius 7.5\ (for Sibelius 7.5)
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius\ (for Sibelius 8)

. copy the file "House Styles\Microtones Library.lib " in:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius 7\House Styles
(for Sibelius 7.0)
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius 7.5\House Styles
(for Sibelius 7.5)
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius\House Styles
(for Sibelius 8)

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 … C: being your system drive

Note: the folder " C:\Users\username\AppData" as well are all its subfolders are invisible on
Windows 7+. In order to access the Sibelius "Application Data" folder:
• switch to the Explorer
• open a new explorer window
• click on the frame on the top left showing the current location
• type “%appdata%”

2.1.3 For all systems

. Start Sibelius

. For the sake of the readability of the score, do not show the hidden objects (polyphonic
aftertouch messages, hidden accidentals...): in the “View” menu, uncheck “hidden objects”

. Turn off “View”/"Note Colors"/"Notes out of range" (set it to "None").

. Keyboard shortcuts: in the Sibelius menu, click on « Preferences »

=> "Keyboard Shortcuts"
=> click on "Add Feature Set" and create a new one
=> Menu or Category "Plug-Ins"
=> add the keyboard shortcuts for the plugins you'd like to access quickly.
It is highly recommended to customize the standard Sibelius shortcuts according to the Table 1:
Recommended keyboard Shortcuts.

Important Notice
The playback function of the Microtones Library requires the 4th voice of every staff for internal
use. Do not use Voice #4 for your own music material! Voices 1-3 can be used freely though.
Special symbols that were used by the score, and that were overwritten by microtonal accidentals,
can alternatively imported as User-defined symbols ("Notation" tab => Edit Symbols)

2.2 Communication between Sibelius and the synthesizer

Sibelius communicates with any synthesizer with MIDI, either by imbedding a VST Instrument
(like Kontakt©) instance inside Sibelius, or by launching the synthesizer as a standalone program,
and sending explicit MIDI messages to it.
2.2.1 Synthesizer (like Kontakt) as a VST instance inside Sibelius

You need to setup a playback configuration in Sibelius accordingly. Please refer to the Sibelius
user Guide for more information.

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2.2.2 Synthesizer (like Kontakt or Max/MSP) as a Standalone

For this you need to create virtual MIDI ports, i.e. MIDI ports which do not correspond to a
physical MIDI input/output but allow to applications to communicate in MIDI in the same
computer.

2.2.2.1 Mac OS X
Virtual MIDI ports are natively handled in Mac OS X thanks to IAC. To create IAC ports, go to
"Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI setup", then click on "Show MIDI Window" in the "Window'"
Menu. Double-click on "IAC driver", be sure that at least one port has been set, and that "Device is
online" is checked

MICROTONE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS TABLE

Actions in Microtones Plug-ins Section Mac Windows

Default shortcuts to be reassigned

Note Input Tab/ Move up/down chromatically => Plugins / Microtones: Transpose an
Ctrl + up/down Shift + pgUp/pgDown
half-tone up/down

Selection/ Move object up/down => Plugins / Microtones: Move object up/down up/down up/down

Moving/ Move object up/down a lot => Plugins / Microtones: Move object an octave
Cmd + up/down Ctrl + up/down
up/down

New Microtones shortcuts to be added (highly recommended)

Plugins / Microtones: Prepare score for use with the Microtones Library Ctrl + M

Plugins / Microtones: Eight-Tone Playback Ctrl + P, Ctrl + 8

Plugins / Microtones: Transpose a quarter-tone up/down Ctrl + Alt + up/down

Plugins / Microtones: Transpose an eighth-tone up/down Ctrl + Alt + Cmd + up/down

Plugins / Microtones: Remove all Microtone-related Events Ctrl + Backspace

Plugins / Microtones: Next Enharmonic Ctrl + E

Plugins / Microtones: Force Cautionary Accidentals Ctrl + A

Plugins / Microtones: Show / Hide Natural Accidental Ctrl + H

Plugins / Microtones: Microtonal Transposition Ctrl + T

Plugins / Microtones: Fit each note to the closest element in a scale Ctrl + F

Table 1: Recommended keyboard Shortcuts

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2.2.2.2 Windows
There is no native virtual MIDI port, but several 3rd party solutions exist, like:
• LoopMIDI (http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/loopmidi.html)
• LoopBe (http://www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html)

2.2.2.3 Configuring Sibelius & the synthesizer

Inside Sibelius, you need to set up a new playback configuration, that allows MIDI information to
be sent from Sibelius to the virtual MIDI port. Please refer to the Sibelius User Guide for more
information. As shortly explained at the beginning of this document, at this stage a sound set may
have to be selected, which is relevant for the sound library you are using.

The synthesizer (i.e. Kontakt, Max/MSP or another one) needs also to be configured so that it
receives the information coming from this virtual MIDI port. Please refer to the synthesizer User
Guide for more information.

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3 How microtones are handled for notating music?
By default, Sibelius can handle quarter tones, but only in a limited way: quarter tones cannot be
easily transposed (for example with microtonal intervals), and cannot be played back directly: the
main reason of this is that the Playback relies on MIDI, which normally only handles classical equal
temperament. There is indeed a great plugin (that was one of the inspirations for this project), called
« Quarter-Tone Playback », that allows partly to overcome this limitation, « partly » since it only
works with monodies, i.e. it does not allow to playback chords with quarter tones
The present Microtones library works an extension of what already provides Sibelius, allowing to
handle quarter tones as well as eighth tones.

Here are all microtonal symbols used in this library:

3.1 Converting a score for the Microtones Library version 2

A standard Sibelius score, as well as a score that has been created with version 1 of the Microtones
Library needs to be adapted in order to be used with version 2. This can be performed thanks to the
plugin "Microtones: Prepare score for use with the Microtones Library".

Important Notice
Converting a score with the plugin "Microtones: Prepare score for use with the Microtones
Library" imports the custom house style "Microtones Library.lib". This means that all custom
symbols will be replaced! If a score that does not use the standard House Style (for instance
Jazz house styles"), the old style will be lost.

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How microtones are handled for playback?
As written above, MIDI is not meant to play more than 12 notes per scale. To overcome this
limitation, the present plugin suite hijacks polyphonic aftertouch information to extend the
resolution. Polyphonic aftertouch information, which is originally meant to transmit the pressure on
each key of a MIDI keyboard after the key has been pressed, is in fact rarely used by synthesizers.
Polyphonic aftertouch information is therefore not used here as it "should" be, but in practice it
provides all that we need to handle microtones correctly for playback.
In practice, all synthesizers providing a internal scripting language which is flexible enough to
interpret the polyphonic aftertouch messages correctly may be programmed and used to render
microtonal music created with the Microtones library. Kontakt allows that thanks to the simple but
powerful scripting language. Max/MSP, as a visual programming language, allows that as well
without any trouble.
In Sibelius, polyphonic aftertouch messages are text messages looking like "~aXX,YY", where XX
and YY are two numbers. The plugins of the Microtones library automatically hide those messages,
but don't be surprised if you see one of them! If those messages are removed, the playback will not
be correct any more. In this case, the best way to recreate the correct messages is simply to launch
the plugin "Eighth-Tone Playback" again (see 4.3).

More technical information about the protocol used for microtonal playback
If a note is meant to be tuned on a microtonal scale, a polyphonic aftertouch message has to be sent
ideally right before the note on message, or in the worst case right after the note on (in this case, the
note will be played first without microtonal tuning, and its tuning will be right afterwards
corrected). The time tolerance between the polyphonic aftertouch and the note on is to be
configured inside the synthesizer but should be quite small (typically 30-50ms).

Therefore, a microtonal note can be started by transmitting two messages to the synthesizer:
• Note ON with the midipitch between 0 and 127 (example 60 for C3), and the velocity
between 0 and 127
• Polyphonic Aftertouch with the same midipitch between 0 and 127 (example 60 for C3),
and the pitch correction between 0 and 12, that should be interpreted as a midi cent
transposition according to the formula:
TranspositionMidicents = (aftertouch-6)*25
Thus for example, an aftertouch value of 9 corresponds to a transposition of +75 midicents, so
3/8 tones.

If no polyphonic aftertouch is provided with a note on, or if it occurs too early or too late, the note
is played on a 12-note equal scale without microtonal transposition.

Microtonal glissandi are handled similarly to glissandi in Sibelius, i.e. with the help of pitch bends.
The standard glissando playback ability of Sibelius is bypassed and the "Eighth-Tone Playback"
plugin enters custom MIDI pitch-bend messages.

3.2 Microtonal playback in Kontakt

As written above, Kontakt does not interpret by default the polyphonic aftertouch information as a
microtonal correction information. To allow this, you need to insert, for each instrument that is
used for the playback, a special script provided with this library, saved in a text file called
"MicroTones-Kontakt.txt". In order to use this script, the following operations have to be done:

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3.2.1 Load the Kontakt script for the first time
1. Click on the Instrument Edit Icon

2. Click on the "Script Editor" tab

3. Select an empty slot for the script or, if all slots are used, a slot containing a script you wish
to replace, and load the script "- Empty -" (click on "preset=>Factory=>- Empty -"):

4. Click on "Edit"

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 5. Copy the text in the file "Microtones-Kontakt.txt" provided with this library, and paste it in
the empty window

6. Save the script as "Microtones-Kontakt" (click on "preset=>Save Preset")

A new file, called "Microtones-Kontakt.nkp", will be created in the user presets folder (i.e.
"~/Documents/Native Instruments/Kontakt 5/presets/Scripts" for Mac OS X), that can be later used
for all other instruments requiring microtonal correction with this library.

3.2.2 Load the Kontakt script after it has been saved as a .nkp file

1. Click on the Instrument Edit Icon

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 2. Click on the "Script Editor" tab

3. Select an empty slot for the script or, if all slots are used, a slot containing a script you wish
to replace and load the script "MicroTones-Kontakt" (click on "preset=>User=>Microtones-
Kontakt"):

If all slots are being already used, you have to replace one of the preexisting scripts by
"MicroTones-Kontakt". For instance, if you use one of the factory pianos provided with Kontakt,
you could replace the last one "Room, Position, L-R" (in this case the position settings of the
instrument will not work anymore).

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This operation has to be done only once, and as written above, for all used instruments. You can
afterwards save the Kontakt Multi, it will remind all those settings.

Important Notice 1: since polyphonic aftertouch is hijacked by the software suite to handle
microtones, the Kontakt instruments that are used for synthesis cannot take benefit of it for anything
else. In the same way, the Sound Set (i.e. the 3rd-party Library that translates the extra information
on the score, such as notes about the playing technique, the dynamics., etc...) cannot used the
polyphonic aftertouch, as it will interfere with the Microtones Library.
Important Notice 2: for some reason, polyphonic aftertouch is sometimes not handled by the
instrument in Kontakt if the lowest note of its Key Range is higher than F-2. So, if microtonal pitch
correction does not works, please do the following operations
• edit the instrument
• click on the "Instrument Options" tab
• click on the "Instrument" tab
• be sure that the lowest note of the key range is at the most E-2 (in most cases, choosing the
lowest MIDI note, i.e. C-2, as the lowest note of the range, should work smoothly)
Important Notice 3: if the Kontakt script provided by the library changed from one version to
another, all operations described in 3.2.1 and 0 have to be repeated.

3.3 Microtonal Playback with Max/MSP

Max/MSP is not a synthesizer but a programming language, which allows among other to build
your own synthesizers. Thus a unique method to render microtonal music cannot be provided, as it
depends on the synthesizer that has been built in Max/MSP.
An example is provided with a very simple synthesizer (sine wave + ADSR curve), which shows
the principle: open " simpleMicrotonalSynth.maxhelp" and see how it works. It can be easily
adapted to any other waveform generators of course, or more complex synthesizers.

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4 Operations that may be performed with the library

4.1 Transposition
. Select the music to be transposed
. Launch the plugin « Microtonal Transposition »
. Select the transposition in halftones (for instance, « 0.5 » means « a quarter tone up », and
« -1.25 » means « 5 eighth tones down)
. Alternative way: if shortcuts are assigned to plugins "Transpose an eight-tone down",
"Transpose an eight-tone up", "Transpose an quarter-tone down" and "Transpose an quarter-tone
up", this is a convenient way to adjust the microtonal pitch of a note starting from an equally-
tempered note.

4.2 Handling of Enharmonics

The plugin "Microtones: Next Enharmonics" allows to change the notation of a given note (or a set
of notes if several notes are selected) and switch between all possible microtonal enharmonics. For
instance, a "E quarter flat" will be successively replaced by a "F three-quarter flat" and a "D three-
quarter sharp". This allows the notation to fit to the actual harmonic structure.

Important Notice about enharmonics and

parts of transposing instruments
Problems may occur with parts of transposing instruments and some microtonal accidentals: for
instance, the following bar for B-flat-Clarinet:

... looks like that in the corresponding part:

Both notes have an identical but a different enharmonic. The second note cannot be transposed in
the part because there is no accidental sign for "high E sharp plus one tone" (it would need to be
written as an "F sharp + high sharp", which does not exist). The triangle sign is a warning
expressing that the enharmonic is wrong, and has to be replaced using the "Microtones: Next
Enharmonics" plugin.

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4.3 Playback
. Select the music to be played back
. Launch the plugin "Microtones / Eighth-Tone Playback"
. The plugin adds polyphonic aftertouch messages for each note in order to adjust the pitch
to an eighth-tone resolution. If the selection already contains polyphonic aftertouch messages, there
will be removed automatically.

Note on playback: The plugin “Eighth-Tone Playback" has to be run manually after one or several
notes are modified (position, pitch, duration), either with traditional methods from Sibelius or with
one of the plugins from the Microtones Library.
4.3.1 Glissando Playback
Glissando playback in the Microtones Library is similar to native glissando playback in Sibelius,
that it bypasses and hijacks. Like the native glissando playback, it relies on pitch bends, which
means, that non-parallel glissandi are impossible in a single staff (you have to use several staves for
that). It has however two particularities:
1. it handles microtonal glissandi
2. it allows several successive glissandi to be played smoothly, i.e. without a note retrigger
between two glissandi
Glissando playback relies on a specific command of MIDI found in some synthesizers (including
general MIDI) called RPN (for Registered Parameter Number), in order to set the pitch bend range
to a given range in semitones that has been entered by the user in the plugin GUI window. This
means, that the synthesizer needs to understand RPN messages to allow the pitch bend range of the
synthesizer to be changed dynamically by the user. If it's not the case, the pitch bend range has to
correspond to the pitch bend range of the synthesizer.

4.4 Force Cautionary Accidentals

The title is self-explanatory: by default, all operations on microtonal material in this library work
without cautionary accidentals: if a microtonal accidental is not needed (because the same note has
the same accidental before in the bar, or the current note is tied to another one in the previous bar),
then it's not written.
The plugin "Force Cautionary Accidental" allows to explicit mention accidentals for the selected
notes.

4.5 Microtonal scales

The word « scale » refers, in the context of this library, to a more generalized notion than usual
western musical scales. A scale is basically a sequence of notes. Contrary to most western scales,
which are periodic with a 1-octave period (i.e., if a note belongs to the scale, then all transpositions
of this note with an interval of one or several octaves will also belong to it), it does not imply
necessarily that this scale is periodic (i.e. that it repeats itself after each octave). This allows
handling not only traditional musical scales, but also harmonic or inharmonic series, or scales with
a periodicity different than one octave.
Important notice: remember that the microtonal precision here is the eighth-tone! All
microtonal scales used here must be quantized accordingly. The purpose of this plugin is not

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to handle non-equal temperament/tuning (such as Zarlino or pythagorean), which would
require a much greater precision.
As an example, let's take the scale of harmonics based on the C0 key. Let's consider the case of the
composer need the musical material to remain in this scale of harmonics. In “score examples”, there
is a Sibelius score file called “scale of harmonics – C0.sib”:

4.5.1 Create Scale

The first step is to collect the information on this scale to be used further by the library. This was
already done for this distribution, but the process is explained below:
− select all notes from the scale (which can be easily done here by a “select all”
− launch the plugin “Create Scale”: this will prompt a dialog box in which the scale's name
is to be entered. Here we'll entered for instance:
“Scale of Harmonics - C0”
− Hit “OK”
=> This will create a new file called “Scale of Harmonics – C0.txt” in the “Scales”
directory, that will contain a text translation of the selected material.
Periodicity: if the scale is periodic (typically one octave), only one period has to be provided, the
plugin will extend the scale to the whole MIDI range (the checkbox "Extend the scale periodically"
in the pop-up window has to be checked, though). Other periods as octaves are allowed: the plugin
calculates the period simply as the interval between the lowest and the highest selected note. For
instance, entering the whole-tone scale based on C does not require the whole notes of the octave (C
D E F# G# A#), only two are necessary (for instance C and D)

4.5.2 Show Scale

"Show scale" does basically the opposite as "Create Scale": after the user has choosed an already

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created scale, the plugin creates a new score with all the notes of the scale represented. This is
mainly useful to double-check if the entered scale is 100% correct.

4.5.3 Check Scale

Now this newly-created scale can be used to test if some musical material belongs to it. This is the
purpose of the plugin “Check Scale”, which has to be used as follows:

− select all notes that are to be tested

− Launch the plugin “Check Scale”
− Select in the menu the scale in which the all selected notes are supposed to belong to
− decide if the test should be sensitive or not to enharmonics (if checked, a note will be
considered as correct only if the enharmonics fit as well)
− Hit OK
=> The plugin will highlight all notes that do not belong to the choosen scale, and will give
the total number of out-of-scale notes.
The test is done using the pitch resolution of this library, i.e. an eighth tone. It won't make any
difference between enharmonics. For instance, if “low C2” (C2 minus an eighth tone) belongs to the
scale, then a “low sharp B1” (B1 plus a low sharp) will also be considered as belonging to it.

4.5.4 Fit to closest in scale

Given a chosen previously entered scale, the plugin "Fit each note to the closest element in a scale"
rounds the pitches of all selected notes to the closest one on the scale. For instance, microtonal
notation can thus easily be approximated to a 12-tone equal-tempered scale. Please note however
that if there is an ambiguity between two possible pitches (i.e. if the original pitch is equally distant
to two pitches of the target scale), the plugin will round to the lowest.

4.5.5 Change Scale

The "Change Scale" plugin allows a more complex operation: it consists in transforming a music
material from one microtonal scale to another one. In order to be achieved, this transformation
needs four sources of information:
• the "source" scale
• the "destination" scale
• the so-called "source pivot note"
• the so-called "destination pivot note"

"Pivot" notes are the reference degrees on each scale:

• if a selected note has the same microtonal pitch as the source pivot note, its pitch will be
changed to the pitch of the destination pivot note.
• Otherwise, the plugin calculates the distance (in degrees on the scale, not in tones) between
the given note and the source pivot note, and change its pitch so that the destination pitch
has the same distance to the destination pivot note

How to use the plugin:

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The plugin has to be run three times:
1. once to select the source scale and the source pivot: select one note, run the plugin, choose a
source scale and click on the first checkbox, then on "ok"
2. a second time to select the destination scale and the destination pivot: select one note, run
the plugin, choose a destination scale and click on the second checkbox, then on "ok".
3. and a last time to do the transformation itself: select the music to be transformed, run the
plugin, click on the third checkbox and then on "ok"
Note: if the plugin has to be run several times with the same source pivot/scale and destination
pivot/scale, steps 1 and 2 don't have to be repeated each time.

Example 1: the following source music material consists in ten notes in ascending order with an
interval of an eighth-tone between them:

The "change scale" plugin was used with the following settings:

After transformation, the music material is as follows:

The same note (A3) is used as source and destination pivot. Therefore, the A3 of the music excerpt
(the fifth note) remains unchanged, and the other notes are tuned to the destination scale with the
same degree relations as in the source scale, thus leading to a standard chromatic scale.

Example 2: the source music that follows:

... has been transformed with the following settings:

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After transformation, the music material is as follows:

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5 Known limitations
• For reasons which are inherent to MIDI, this library does not allow two notes with the same
approximation on a 12-tone scale to be played back simultaneously with the correct pitch.
For instance, a "C low natural" and a "C high natural" are both approximated by a C on a
12-tone scale. If both notes are played together, one of the pitches will not be correctly
rendered.
• Cautionary microtonal accidentals cannot be put in parentheses (Keypad "Accidental")
• The plugin "Microtones: Eighth-Tone Playback" sometimes does not work on grace notes
and pre-bend notes

6 Contact / Feedback
All bugs reports should be posted with corresponding material (as-minimalistic-as-possible score
example, order of operations to achieve to reproduce the bug) in the discussion page of the project's
website (http://sourceforge.net/projects/microtones/).

Suggestions and collaborations are of course welcome!

7 Credits
This library has been designed by Alexis Baskind for the CIRM studios, Nice. Part of the code
derives from code by Bob Zawalich.
Sibelius© is a product from Avid.
Kontakt© is a product from Native Instruments.
Max/MSP© is a product from Cycling'74.

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