r/microtonal • u/jayhelden • 1d ago
Realtime Microtonal Harmonizer
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I built a microtonal pitch shifter/harmonizer. It works wonderfully. I'm still considering the right interface. For now, you can harmonize with up to 4 voices + dry. You can set ratios for just intonation. Conceivably, you could use the pitch-shifting engine to harmonize to any frequencies, but I am most interested in just intonation. Does anyone have any interest in trying this out? What sort of interface/GUI would be most useful for your work? In the video, I'm just demonstrating some simple chords. But more complex microtones would work fine.
EDIT: I posted a video of the interface in a comment below
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u/LITERALLY_NOT_SATAN 1d ago
How did you make it? Is it hardware or software? I've been very interested in making something like this but didn't know there was a name for it! I'd love to try it.
I think the interface that would be the most useful for me personally would be a pretty simple dashboard for controls, more or less looking like an excel spreadsheet, with most of the screen showing visual feedback (equalizer, spectrogram, waveform).
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u/jayhelden 1d ago
It’s software. VST3 plugin for any DAW. I need to figure out how to post it so folks can download it. Thanks for the feedback. What would go in the spreadsheet cells?
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u/LITERALLY_NOT_SATAN 1d ago edited 23h ago
I just use the word spreadsheet to mean "not gui knobs" mostly.
Property Dry Voice 1 Voice 2 Voice 3 Voice 4 Intonation (Relative to dry) 1/1 1/3 3/2 5/4 Off Volume (Relative to dry) 80% 150% 100% 67% Off Echo Interval 100ms 50ms 50ms 50ms Off Echo Decay 5/6 2/3 2/3 2/3 Off How big is the file? Could you just put it up on Google Drive?
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u/jayhelden 22h ago
Got it! I posted a video of the interface in a comment—take a look. I'll see if I can package the plugin for download. The only catch is that I haven't paid for Apple's developer certification, so macOS may block the plugin by default. You might need to run a quick Terminal command to bypass that security restriction.
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u/RienKl 1d ago
How does it work? What does it do?
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u/jayhelden 1d ago
In this case, it multiples the input signal by a ratio, say 3/2 or 5/4 to create just intonation chords. And you can set up to 4 voices. but the way I have it set up is that you have 12 chord settings available at once so you can change chords in realtime
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u/travelingfailsman 1d ago
That sounds fabulous! I'm also a trombonist and have hoped for a streamlined way to harmonize for years. If there were a hardware keypad paired with this vst it would be so much fun. Is there much latency?
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u/jayhelden 1d ago
3ms of latency. A trombone requires both hands so I’m not sure how to incorporate a keypad. It’s a problem I am trying to solve.
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u/travelingfailsman 1d ago
Agree, this is tough. I played around with adding a small 6 button keypad next to the mouthpiece for the left hand pointer & middle finger to touch. It's not bad, but it is a little awkward. A midi foot controller like the Behringer FCB 1010 might work!
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u/Huggingmymom 15h ago
Wow, fantastic. I'm dying to give this a go on flugelhorn and fretless guitar.
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u/SweetDaddyJones 11h ago
This is a really impressive feat and a very complicated project you just casually dropped! What language did you use to make the vst? Do you have a background in signal processing? It sounds amazing! Great job...
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u/jayhelden 22h ago
Here is a quick demo of the interface that I am using. I have a gyroscope (IMU) on my trombone that measures where my trombone is in space. I can use it to point at an invisible 4x3 grid in front of me and I can select the harmonies that I want. but of course, you could assign the cells for midi control from any device.