[fluid-dev] MTS and Single Note Tuning Change

[David Bellows]

Hello all,

I'm currently working on a massive music-generating program that
allows the user to do a huge variety of things including using any
tuning imaginable from standard 12-TET to Just Intonation to 256-EDO
to infinity. It's crazy.

Right now I'm using Timidity and generating Timidity tuning tables
(instead of using pitch bend which has its own set of problems). This
works perfectly as long as there are 12 divisions of the octave or
fewer. Because the tuning table assigns new frequencies to each of
MIDI's 128 notes if I create a tuning table for, say, 256-EDO that
means that there will only be a half an octave available (128/256 vs
128/12 for a standard tuning).

Reading up on the MIDI tuning specification (MTS)
(http://www.midi.org/techspecs/midituning.php) I see this thing called
"Single Note Tuning Change" which, if I'm reading it correctly, would
allow me to enter the audio frequency of each note as I generate my
MIDI file using a "sysex" command. Does this look accurate to everyone
else? This would solve my problem though create a few minor headaches.

Now my question, if I do manage to create a MIDI file that inserts all
of these sysex commands for each MIDI note, will Fluidsynth play the
file correctly?

Thanks,
Dave