micro.CAL is my little microtonal user-input program for the popular Cakewalk^TM music sequencer software.

It allows the user to input ratios as fractions, right at the computer, to indicate the pitches using the step-time method (i.e., putting the notes in one at a time, as opposed to playing live).

It allows the user to specify note-durations in the way musicians are ordinarily used to doing it: as fractions of a metrical unit. This also gives the ability to input any kind of tuplet and have the computer do the timing calculations.

The "NOW" parameter is automatically updated to the next tick after the end of the note just inputted, so you can just continue adding notes on a single track until you're finished.

There are a few default values programmed in, and they are all fully commented in the code, so they're easy to edit.

Also, a few lines that can provide additional input (such as 'tonic' and 'meter') have been commented out. The semicolons which designate comments can simply be removed if you want or need to use this input. I always use double semicolons, just to make sure CAL doesn't try to turn my comments into lines of code! (If you're a CAL programmer, that's a good habit to develop.)

By the way, it was difficult to get CAL to do this, since CAL uses only integer math and does not have logarithms. I got around the integer math by multiplying all the numbers by 10000 or 1000000. The lack of logarithms was a more difficult hurdle, but finally solved, thanks to Alexander Ellis's ingenious augmented bidmodulus formula, which is accurate to within 2 cents for any ratio.

(See p 447 in Ellis's great translation of Helmholtz's On The Sensations Of Tone.)

It is my intention to eventually allow input of prime-factor notation for just-intonation, and also to allow input of degrees in non-12 equal temperaments, but so far only ratio input is working.

The input also needs to be cleaned up a little. It only enters notes in one "octave" right now, and you have to edit the "octave" of the note after you finish inputting it with CAL.

Also, I noticed one bug recently, where it entered an "A" instead of a "D". There are probably still a few small bugs in it. But overall, it works nicely and is much easier than entering the pitch-bend manually.

My version of CAL is the ancient v. 21, which came with my Cakewalk^TM Pro for Windows 2.01. So it should work on just about anyone's version of Cakewalk^TM.

Please feel free to offer any improvements, and to submit this link to Cakewalk^TM discussion groups.

Download micro.CAL

(It downloads as a text file, which it is. Just click on 'View|Source' on the menu bar, and when it opens in 'notepad', save it as "micro.cal" with 'File|Save As')

LINKS

You can find a ton of information on CAL at:

• John S. Allen's excellent CAL pages.
  (lots of other good info on microtonal music and bicycles too,
  and one of the very few places where Fokker has a web presence).

• Glen Cardenas's great CAL tutorial.

• Alan Myers's big collection of CAL links.

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If you don't understand my theory or the terms I've used, start here or try some definitions.

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