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~Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. microtonal Technique

How to adjust Kontakt instruments to any EDO

Joey from the Make Micro Music Yahoo email list asked for some specific instructions on how to adjust the number of notes per octave in Kontakt. This method works for Kontakt 3 and above and is built in right out of the box and works with every instrument I’ve tried so far. The only down side is that you will lose absolute range – that means that while a flute spans four octaves in 12 notes per octaves (as an example) when you use 24 notes per octave the samples will now be spread out across only 2 octaves. A little annoying but when you work with lower number of notes per octave (like 17 for instance) it is a reasonable compromise to have the ability to compose micro-tonally.

What follows are a number of screen shots giving a step by step example of accessing the Kontakt note per octave adjustment. Click on the picture for the full size version so you can read the text instructions I typed in.

Now you can play in your new temperament!

6 replies on “How to adjust Kontakt instruments to any EDO”

Fantastic Juhani that you have a copy of Kontakt. I am sure you will be very happy with it and I am looking forward to hearing your new microtonal music for it. I recommend Sonic Couture http://www.soniccouture.com/en/ for expanding your Kontakt instrument collection. They create very high quality samples at a fair price.

Thanks Chris, this was very helpful and clear! I just got Kontakt from a special 50% sale and thanks to this page I could start playing and re-tuning it right out of the box.

Hi Dan, my investments in your sample sets have been quite a good one. I’ve enjoyed using them and found them inspiring. If I could have a wish it would be for more sample sets like the extended piano to allow me to write more advant garde music. That is an area that is poorly represented in most sample sets since they tend to be main stream. The music of George Crumb would be one direction. A prepared piano – in fact a user modifiable prepared piano would totally rock! (That is chose which note gets the paper clip and which gets the felt pad and so on). Bowed metallic objects is another area, flute multiphonics and extended techniques or bassoon extended techniques would totally rock too. If you’ve not played a bassoon you would not believe the incredible range of sounds possible. look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhLoOLys0bU

Thanks Dan – I have enjoyed all of the sample sets from your company and recommend them.

Hi Chris,

Great to see our Xtended Piano as the example in this. I’m very much into microtuning and follow your blog regularly.

You might be interested to know that there are a couple other microtuning scripts in our Scriptorium package as well… one of which allows you to enter just intonation intervals directly in the Kontakt window.

All the best,
Dan
Soniccouture

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