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Prophet-6 Operation Manual
Appendix A: Alternative Tunings
Appendix A: Alternative Tunings
By default, the Prophet-6 is set to standard, chromatic western tuning.
Additionally it supports up to 16 additional alternative tunings, which
you can access using the
alt
tuning
button in the
globals
section.
From the factory, the Prophet-6 ships with 16 preset alternative tunings
ranging from Equal temperament to Indonesian Gamelan tunings. If you
want, you can replace these with other tunings that you can find on the
Internet. These must be in SysEx format. You can download them into
the Prophet-6 using SysEx Librarian for Mac or MIDI-OX for Windows.
Here are descriptions of the default alternative tunings:
Nor
(Normal) 12 Tone Equal Temperament (non-erasable)
The default Western tuning, based on the twelfth root of two.
1. Harmonic Series
MIDI notes 36-95 reflect harmonics 2 through 60 based on the funda-
mental of A = 27.5 Hz. The low C on a standard 5 octave keyboard acts
as the root note (55Hz), and the harmonics play upwards from there. The
remaining keys above and below the 5 octave range are filled with the
same intervals as Carlos’ Harmonic 12 Tone that follows.
2. Carlos Harmonic Twelve Tone
Wendy Carlos’ twelve note scale based on octave-repeating harmonics.
A = 1/1 (440 Hz). 1/1 17/16 9/8 19/16 5/4 21/16 11/8 3/2 13/8 27/16 7/4
15/8
3. Meantone Temperament
An early tempered tuning, with better thirds than 12ET. Sounds best in
the key of C. Use this to add an authentic touch to performances of early
Baroque music. C=1/1 (260 Hz)
4. 1/4 Tone Equal Temperament
24 notes per octave, equally spaced 24root2 intervals. Mexican composer
Julian Carillo used this for custom-built pianos in the early 20th century.
