Hey all, Subhraag, the inventor of the Infinitone, here. A friend of mine just saw this and told me about the thread. I'm happy to answer any questions..... The advantage of the Infinitone is that it can play ANY microtonal scale instantly (with little to no practice). The scale in this composition, posted earlier, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56fLizLEn6Y, is 128 harmonics within an octave. I basically "sight read" it for this recording (though the motors were triggered by MIDI). Try THAT on any other instrument :) We are about to release a software instrument called InfinitoneDMT... which gives instant, inspiring, dynamic access to a multiverse of vibrant new tonal possibilities using notes not available on a standard keyboard (https://infinitone.com). It will be coming out soon, hopefully this summer!
Hrrm. Looking at the electronics apparently it's an array of servos mounted to a tapered rectangular prism base geometry sheet metal chassis held together through welding. Listening to the recording they seem to 'click' audibly when closing off holes. I wonder if it would be feasible to introduce a non-clicky approach and/or a non-servo approach, for example by integrating on-PCB linear actuation and some form of non-metallic seal contact. Non-servo would also have the benefit of greatly reducing instrument weight. On-PCB would also have the benefit of greatly reducing cost, assuming a working mechanism can be found with adequate torque. Happy to offer what assistance I can if there's a contact point.
Subhraag, the inventor of the Infinitone here! A friend of mine just told me about this thread. Please write to me at subhraag (at) infinitone.com. I made this instrument the way I did because it was within my skill set (and budget) to do so. I am absolutely open to collaboration to improve it.
>But you may be surprised to learn that the twelve musical tones that shape our very understanding of Western music today is extremely narrow.
Grammar aside, the twelve musical tones that comprise Western music are, well, the good ones. It's not like there are thousands of notes out there and we randomly picked 12 and didn't think about the rest. We picked the 12 best ones.
I find it a bit reductive to say equal temperament has 'the good [tones]'. I think 'the least bad tones' would probably be more accurate, in the sense that no matter what you are playing (i.e. which note(s)/scale(s) the piece is centered on), it'll sound fairly OK, even though some intervals are not what they should be.
It sounds pleasant to the ear because that's what most people hear all day. Other cultures have developed a slightly different relationship with harmony, leading to them considering other tones 'good'.
For a cheeky example of what I mean with 'the least bad tones', feel free to check this short demo by Jacob Collier[1], about just how out of tune equal temperament is.
Interesting, see also the glissotar (https://glissonic.com/) for a purely analog variation. That one is more analogous to a fretless guitar (if the linked sax is more analogous to a guitar with adjustable frets).
I was running to the comments to post this too. The Ininitone is an impressive mechanical achievement, but I think the glissotar has much more potential to catch on.
If you switch from sine to square or sawtooth the change in volume is jarring.
Waveforms having the same amplitude doesn't mean the ear hears it at the same volume. There's more frequencies contained in different waveforms and the ear is more sensitive to certain ranges.
A smoother representation of the waveforms might contain the first 5 - 10 frequencies of Fourier series but even then you need to compensate with a change in amplitude.
It's not a DAW, it's a web app, and the users will appreciate the favor.
Yep. There are many different ways to tune a piano, none of them perfect. A tuning that is just right for one key will leave real howlers in others. (Literally "howlers"; it's called a "wolf tone")
You have a good ear, you are hearing the small errors inherent in "twelve-tone equal temperament"[1] which is a compromise between numerical ideals and practical instrument-making.
Equal temperament is used to allow playing in arbitrary keys without retuning…for example D and E flat are equally in (and out of tune) with equal temperament. With Pythagorean or Just tuning, instruments are tuned to a specific key (or set of related keys).
Which is to say historically, equal temperament is mostly a result of compositional and performance concerns rather than manufacturing limitations.
There have been a couple types of slide saxes made but for whatever reason they haven't really caught on..
This one has keys that are actuated by the slide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJU9Rm-KviI
(The last third of the video has a narrative in French describing the instrument, photobombed by a set of four serpents hanging on the wall behind the speaker. A serpent is a instrument that is sort of the opposite of a slide sax: it combines a brass-style mouthpiece with woodwind-like fingerholes).
The infinitone appears to be more like a dynamically scaled instrument, unlike the trombone, which is influenced by electronic instruments such as the Kaossilator and Cosmovox.
Partch is a good recommendation -- with a fairly large focus on microtonal percussion -- but you do dismiss the trained trombonists who actually train and perform microtonal works. It isn't necessary to disparage a viable microtonal instrument to make your point.
You can bend notes on a normal sax if you want. Maybe it's just my perception, the tune in the article and those linked here would be better if they just stuck to normal 12 notes.
In general I think microtonal music takes a bit of getting used to, and that most of it isn’t that good anyways because most of the good composers are on other stuff.
You spent your entire childhood getting used to western composition (assuming that’s dominant in your area); even nursery rhymes introduce basic melodic structures and harmony, so you’re acclimated to the 12 tones with slight pitch irregularities away from equal temperament. I’d say good stuff can be made in any medium, it’s down to whether good artists are working with it. When you grow up in a culture that uses a tuning system, its a bad career move to make music outside of it. I think microtones are worth exploring for their novelty and for the exploration of different vibes, to see if there’s something cool in there that could be brought into mainstream music. I’m a musician so I probably find that more interesting than most people do.
12 tones are not arbitrary, and it's no wonder pretty much any other note system mostly fits in. Musicians all over the world mostly made the bad career move and migrated to the western note system.
There seems to be just one sort of vibe in microtonal music for me, the discomfort vibe.
From what I know, it’s about providing for the simplest harmonies between sine waves, but that doesn’t mean non-simple harmonies have no place or utility, and it’s not possible to experiment with them in normal tuning.
