Viscount Chorale 8, User Manual

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14
Viscount
Chorale 8 Owner’s Manual
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TEMP (Temperament) : this parameter allows the selection of a series of historic temperaments of different
eras and national origins. You can choose from EQUAL , a temperament with perfect tuning, or the classical
KIRNBERGER, WERCKMEISTER, PYTHAGOREAN, MEANTONE and VALLOTTI
temperaments .
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ENSEMBLE: this parameter can be used to set six levels of natural tiny differences in pitch between
one organ pipe and another, in order to simulate the tuning errors that occur in the organ’s pipes due
to wear over time and variations in temperature. If you wish to use the registers perfectly tuned, select
the – value.
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STYLE: selection of the organ style required. For further information refer to chap. 5.
HOW TO MOVE AROUND INSIDE THE SCREENS
The screen cursor is in the form of the field displayed in reverse; in the screen shown above, for example,
the cursor is located on the MEMORY BANK parameter.
As explained in paragraph 2.3, to move the cursor use the [FIELD
S
] and [FIELD
T
] buttons.
[FIELD
S
] moves the cursor to the field above, [FIELD
T
] locates it on the one below.
If a menu consists of more than one screen, an arrow symbol indicating that previous and/or subsequent
pages are available will appear in the top right-hand corner.
there are pages after the one currently displayed
there are pages before the one currently displayed
there are pages before and after the one currently displayed
To access a submenu or a function, press the [ENTER] key; to exit the current screen use the [EXIT] button.
To adjust parameters or select the various settings / options, use the [VALUE +] and [VALUE -] buttons.
A BRIEF NOTE ON TEMPERAMENTS
In the “natural” tuning system, based on the acoustic phenomenon of harmonic sounds, two important musical intervals, the
major third and the perfect fifth, cannot be made to coexist in the “pure” state (i.e. beat-free). Therefore, over the centuries a
variety of compromise solutions known as
TEMPERAMENTS have been invented and realised. These give priority to one or
the other interval by modifying them in various ways.
In the ancient world and the Middle Ages, until the last few decades of the 17
th
Century, the “Pythagorean” tuning system, in
which the fifths were retained perfectly pure, was in use. The resulting major third was particularly unattractive in sound, and
was therefore treated as a dissonance.
However, the music of the time was mainly monodic, and the early forms of vocal and instrumental polyphony made a great
deal of use of the interval of a fifth. With the early Renaissance, and the start of the great flowering of vocal polyphony, the
interval of a major third gradually came to be heard as consonant and not dissonant. The instruments with fixed tuning, such
as the organ and harpsichord, gradually adapted to this situation by adopting a system of temperament known as “Meantone”,
which gave the major third priority over the fifth. This temperament is particularly important because it was the temperament
in normal use in Europe in the 16
th
and 17
th
Centuries, until the early 18
th
Century. Here are the six temperaments available on
the Chorale 8, first and foremost the MEANTONE.