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Conference napalm::commusic_v1

Title:* * Computer Music, MIDI, and Related Topics * *
Notice:Conference has been write-locked. Use new version.
Moderator:DYPSS1::SCHAFER
Created:Thu Feb 20 1986
Last Modified:Mon Aug 29 1994
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:2852
Total number of notes:33157

1441.0. "Gamelan Tunings and Patches for DX/TXes" by AQUA::ROST (Lizard King or Bozo Dionysius?) Thu Jun 09 1988 03:07

For you DX/TX users who are interested in Javanese music, this came over 
the USENET....seems to be quite authoritative...

***************************************************************************

Newsgroups: rec.music.synth
Path: decwrl!ucbvax!agate!ig!uwmcsd1!dogie!uwvax!heurikon!gtaylor
Subject: Doing Gamelan Noises
Posted: 8 Jun 88 16:17:57 GMT
Organization: Culture Bunkers R Us
 
In article <30946@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> lisper-bjorn@CS.YALE.EDU (Bjorn Lisper) writes:
>In article <3274@whutt.UUCP> mls@whutt.UUCP (SIEMON) writes:
>>My query is then, are there good 4-op
>>(or for that matter, REALLY good 6-op) emulations of Javanese instruments/
>>tunings available (commerically or PD)?  I am especially interested in
>>bonang (knobbed "gong" metallophones) and gender (plate-style metallophones)
>>synthesis.  But I'd like to know if there is any hope at all of good
>>emulation of the lower-pitched gongs as well.
 
Every single commercial version that's crossed my bithorizon is el
monsto suckerooski, so I do my own when possible. Since my/our
primary interest in here is the business of the journey of discovery,
I'd prefer to give you a few general pointers about doing it rather
than patches. Hope that's okay.
 
First-if you're going to be looking into Indonesian timbres, *do it
with their tunings*. Does this suggest that there may be some connection
between the timbral profile of a nice old demung used for gamelan
sekaten and the scale the thing plays in this writer's experience?
YES. If you want the scale, you might try hunting up a copy of Jaap
Kunst's "Music in Java" or Colin MacPhee's "Music in Bali". Both of
the books are reasonably available and both of them have *real*
tunings in them. Lots of ah....not so successful books on "that wacky
and trendoid Indonesian music that floats like a butterfly" give you
some kind of idealized tuning and claim wonderful things like a 5-tone
scale that's really trying to be 5 240-cent intervals. Wrong. Go 
with what's recorded as examples. Secondly, remember that the octaves
are stretched-up to about 2.1/1 in some cases. In the case of the
Javanese musicians who have single octave instruments, it may sound
a little odd when you try to knock it off over 6 octaves and play it
like a piano. If you're really ambitious, you might wish to take
the full tuning for an extended range instrument (the gambang, perhaps)
and try hosing around with *that*.
 
Patches: For the sarons use the six-op patches that give you ops 1
and 2 stacked and 4,5,6 stacked over 3. 1 and 2 give you the "clack",
6 (with the feedback set high) gives you the buzz (fractional scalings
to simulate buzzy saron keys!) and 4,5 into 3 handles the general
timbral stuff. Remember that as you go down in pitch (down to the 
slenthem and demung), you might want to think about the pitch
separations between the enharmonic stuff (the high whine) and the
lower tones....that's where what you becomes important in terms of 
the illusion. I think that it's best to think of the bonang as having
2 distinct sounds-one with a rapid attack that serves as the strike
tone and first section, and the second on a slower envelope. The
trick on bonang patches is setting the envelope generators to simulate
damping (actually, this doesn't hurt for saron, either). Although I've
not made up my mind yet, it's possible that the EG stuff will more 
than cover for goofing around with the velocity-sensing stuff with
a little judicious messing around, genders are easily derived from
celestes (again, the EG for damping is really what ices the cake).
Gambangs use the basic scheme for log drums and marimbas, except that
they don't "boom" as much on the fundamental tone and the fractional
scaling should be set for a little variety from not to note. If you
want to build your confidence, start with simulating a kempul, move
to a kenong, make your bonang from that. Gongs don't tend to have
the pitch changes over time that FM weenies love to build into their
gong patches, and the degree of enharmonicity is lower. For the big
gong, you want more to  give the sense of the low boom (ops at .5,
a little EQ and some major cranking on the acoustic room simulator)
and you can add as much Amplitude Mod to the LFO to get it to
waffle as you think you need.
 
Finally, don't forget that it's as much the room simulation that you
use that'll give it that little patina as anything else. Think globally
and act locally. And you *might* want to think about the playing
technique as well here (none of those wide intervals, attention to
pathet, en zo fort. The learned Mr. Scholz polices that kind of thing
better than I, so I defer to him on this matter).
 
I'd just like to point out at this point that you'll have a chance
to hear a little real bonang when the net tape finally gets done and
out-a contribution from one of our net denizens that has enough space
in it for you to really hear the sound of the instrument. Perhaps a
little bit of some of my stuff as well. 
 
I hope this gets you thinking. The act of approaching your ideal is
always the best education.
 
Selamat Pagi,
Greg
-- 
When poets dreamed of angels/what did they see?/History lined up/in a flash
at their backs.../Gregory Taylor/Heurikon/Madison, WI/608-271-8700 ext. 448
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