Welcome to my regular news page on the technology of controlling and synthesizing microtonal and just intonation music. I've named it The Pitch Bend in honor of the MIDI message called pitch bend, which is the most frequently used mechanism by music composition software for sounding microtonal intervals. In a sense, I hope to duplicate the MIDI pitch bend concept by providing insight into tweaking and stretching existing hardware devices and software applications to provide the best microtonal and just intonation sounds available. We'll go into depth in a number of technologies such as MIDI, Open Sound Control (OSC), various synthesis techniques, and even into our own proprietary synthesizer control technology named Amadeus. We're publishing this page because music composition software is NOT only about the pitch, it's about the quality of music that your synthesizer or sound card generates including timbre, dynamic range, and expression.
I'm starting this news page off with a series of articles that isn't really news. I'm writing a basic tutorial on the musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) so you can then extend that to the application of writing MIDI software. Hence the name of this series is MIDI software. By writing this first series, I hope to create a practical MIDI reference, which will be available in the The Pitch Bend Archive. Hopefully, this will be a reference that's complete, easy to use, and easy to find. You should find my series on MIDI software both interesting and practical.
I'm trying to write the Pitch Bend as a sort of informal editorial column; hence, I would like to hear from you to know (a) what your questions are, (b) what topics should be covered, and (c) if you would like to make a contribution. Enough for now, I hope that you'll be returning for the next installment of MIDI Software series of articles.