Combine tuning offset fields

DE 9 0
Message from Dan Eble on …

It feels unnatural to have to set a value in the "Tuning (cents)" field separately from the "Tuning (semi-tones)" field. It would be simpler to have one field and take the cents from after the decimal point. For example, instead of this:

Tuning (semi-tones) 9
Tuning (cents) 61

this:

Tuning (semi-tones) 9.61

Thank you.
417 0
Message from Davy on …

Hello Dan, welcome on the forum

Thank you for this good suggestion for the editing in the table (for instruments or presets), this would remove one row. The ticket is here (broken link).

But just to make it clear for the sample level: both "root key" and "correction" are needed. In particular cases you may want the sample to match a specific key X and add or remove more than 1 semi-tone with the correction.

Davy
DE 9 0
Message from Dan Eble on …

Would combining those tuning fields reduce the range of things that can be accomplished in presets or modulators? 9.6 could be either 9+0.6 or 10-0.4. Are there any scenarios in which there is a practical difference between those?
417 0
Message from Davy on …
My answer 4 months later

Internally there will still be 2 variables due to the sf2 format, one for the coarse tuning and one for the fine tuning. Graphically this will be merged and the more logical way to split the value is to use the range [-0.5; +0.5[ for the fine tuning and compute the coarse tuning based on this.

If we understand this, I see two problems:
- a modulator modify one variable and we may want the coarse tuning or the fine tuning to be driven
- limits for each variable may have to be taken into account
For example we could use on purpose -100 for a fine tuning and add a modulator whose range will be [+0; +200] for the fine tuning. We could also imagine a weird instrument whose tune is modified semi-tones by semi-tones with a modulator.

My conclusion is thus: merging both fine and coarse tuning would result in less possibilities and would need an update to the format regarding how the modulators work. Such an update would lead to old soundfonts being not compatible anymore (only in very rare cases but the risk exists).
SC 69 0
Message from S. Christian Collins on …
I am not in favor of combining the coarse and fine tuning fields for the following reasons:
1. Let's say a split has no coarse tune set (it is using the value in the global layer), but fine tune is set to +5. A combined tuning value of 0.5 is misleading, because it suggests the coarse tune is set to 0, when in reality it isn't set to anything for that split.
2. There are cases where you might have a negative coarse tune and positive fine tune value for the same split (or vice versa). How would you handle this in a combined value without making the fine tune adjustment really hard to follow?
3. SoundFont authors should be using "root key" to set the pitch of samples, which means that coarse tune shouldn't be getting much use except for e.g. transposing an entire instrument layer. My instruments seldom use coarse tune, but I always fine tune by going through each sample and adjusting as necessary. Having to type 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, etc. instead of 1, 3, 5 as I tune would be really obnoxious.
417 0
Message from Davy on … 1

I completely agree with you. The idea was appealing at first but there is a lot of cases where the editing is impaired. The proposal "Combining tuning offset" is thus not planned and will NOT be implemented in Polyphone.