Free Software Friday is our regular Friday feature here at the dBs blog. We dig the depths of the music production and media webosphere and discover what downloadable plugin freebies are worth double clicking each week.
Ableton's newest MIDI device, Microtuner, opens up the world microtonal music for Live users.
As a quick overview for those of you reading unfamiliar with microtonal music, it's a term commonly used to refer to intervals within music that are smaller than a semitone. Western tuning is made up of twelve equal intervals per octave - A to G# - or equal temperament. Microtonal music does not obey these standards and can therefore create a huge range of interesting and nuanced scales. We highly recommend reading our story with MA graduate Regina about her plugin to decolonise music production.
With Microtuner, you'll be able to import, edit and generate microtonal scales for your productions. Microtonal music has been present in modern music for decades now, and its prevalence continues to grow, particularly within electronic music, yet the tools have been somewhat lacking, leaving a lot of enthusiasts stuck for support.
Microtuner effectively removes the barrier to entry - for Live users, at least - and opens up a world of new and exciting creative possibilities. Scales can be drag and dropped into Microtuner, then edited live. Two individual scales can be morphed together to create complex and unique scales. Best of all, these scales can be synced across all instruments in your track.
Microtuner is available for Ableton Live 11 Standard (v.11.1 or higher) and is available to download for free on Ableton's website.
FIND OUT MORE
https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/microtuner/
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