Note ID - & Tunelab

Ron Nossaman RNossaman@KSCABLE.com
Wed, 21 Jun 2000 22:32:03 -0500


This has been bugging me for a while, and since Patricia asked about the
scale compass limits on that Wurlitzer, this seems about as bad a time as any. 

Doing my recent unison pitch measurements in Tunelab, I ran into this ---

The note designations in Tunelab are from A-0, to B-0, then from C-1 to
C-8. Ok, being a recovering programmer, I can easily enough accept the
concept of zero offset from an address, but the first instance of C by this
system would have to be C-0, not C-1, followed by C#-0 - G#-0, which don't
even exist in the current setup. With an international standard of pitch
defined and centered on A, where in the heck does this come from? Maybe
it's an archaic music thing, but I'm not a musician, I'm a mechanic. In my
world, it's A-0 - G#-0, followed by A-1, etc., with C-7 being the top end,
marching along in a rational order, unencumbered by tradition and history. 

Robert, what are the chances that you can recompile me a version of Tunelab
with the first instance of any given note from A to G# designated "0", and
progressing upward in a similar fashion from there so a poor old dim hammer
swinger can have some hope of keeping track of what he's doing? Even if it
takes adding another indexed array for the display, it's only about fifteen
minutes work, and it would sure make it easier on my sense of conceptual
order. Then again, if the note designations are in an ascii array already,
I can edit them manually. I'll have to look and see. 

In any/either case, why is it set up this way, and why hasn't anyone
mentioned it to date? Am I the only spook in the bunch? <G>

Ron N


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