You are not only a critically underrated youtuber, but underrated musician as well. Just watching this video alone allowed me to grasp concepts about Microtonal tuning, polychromatic music and just music theory in general. You are awesome, this is so cool.
I love how the first thing you do when playing is just listen and appreciate all the different tones and colours :) the work you’re doing is amazing!!!!
I'm having one of those moments where I've stepped through some sort of portal and can't go back - or be the same musician that I was yesterday after watching this. Mind blown 🤯 Thank You💯🌌
I think ignoring the chromatic notes closes so so so many possibilities. It means your harmony will always have its centre at the major scale. At least using the chromatic scale opens you up to most global music.
The Lumatone can also render many varieties of minor, dominant and other scales. A good way to think about it is that, because the Lumatone accommodates a closer approximation to the pitch continuum, many more types of scales - Western/chromatic and other cultural scales - can be played on this keyboard.
Fascinating and inspiring. I love when I run across people who are studiously deep-diving with minimum restrictions into their passion. A very sharp mind and set of ears are at work here.
I’d love to connect this to a eurorack modular synth. Please do what you can to encourage them include some kind of CV out as well. Having a dedicated CV out for eurorack modulars would be extremely helpful because most of us don’t use standard 12 keyboards anyway. We mostly rely on the onboard 16 step sequencer. Some of us don’t even use a DAW. Also transparent labels to manually assign root/octive, 3rd, 5th, 7th, (9th), 11th and 13th harmonic overtones would be nice. You wouldn’t even need symbols for the overtones, just assign them by number value. FAR OUT INTERFACE! It effortlessly incorporates theory without any translation. I think it’s very intuitive based on your demo.
Just WOW !!! and thanx for this wonderful presentation! I'm so thrilled with the new Polychromatic Music Instruments who fit just perfect to my stage designs in creating costumes and shows! What a fantastic new option! Can't wait to see how this is going on ! And again, thanx for the introduction 🖒
I remember discovering Just Intonation through Wendy Carlos, and it was a musical epiphany...this video about polychromatic music ("and" the Lumatone) is equally fascinating .Thanks for introducing me to another level of music where the visual and the audible merge even more than traditional notation. Greetings from Memphis. Tennessee. .
Thanks so much for this video! I'm eagerly awaiting a Lumatone! I can't wait to get it under my fingers. This was the first demonstration I've seen that illustrates moving around the instrument more. It looks like a joy!
I'm excited for you to have one too! :P I was lucky enough to try it at NAMM and I can't stress enough how nice the keys *feel* to play. That was one of my biggest concerns prior to trying it out, and it went well beyond my expectations.
Am I in the Twilight Zone? Or you guy never heard of the pitch wheel? Also, perhaps I could appreciate this invention a bit more were I to hear actual consumable music, instead of just scales, using the lumatone. Nonetheless, still interesting!
This is very interesting. Let us not forget however that musical "interfaces" with continuous pitch (besides the human voice, obviously) have existed for eras under the form of fretless string instruments. That natural notion of continuity has been integrated for long into both North-African and Classical Indian music traditions, to name only two examples. In 2023, we definitely need both modern keybeds able to allow full access to that larger spectrum, and also a proper, unified notation system that gets away from the classical microtonal "accident" syste ( which is way too referential towards the diatonic tradition). Such explorations as this instrument here and your music are great steps in that direction.
why didn't they have you in their latest promo video? you're clear the most adept and thinking critically about intonation and technique and fusing tradition with innovation.
It seems a little odd that each column has 8 keys, except the B columns, which have 7. Why is that? Is it related to the limitation on the number of different notes in MIDI? Also, I would have thought an odd number would be better anyway, so that there is always a central key. It's an amazing controller though! Did Elaine Walker have anything to do with it? I know she has advocated in the past for hex keyboards that light up and can be configured to arbitrary patterns.
i cant wait to get my hands on one of these i might never put it away because i think i just fell in love with the most beautiful man made music maker ive ever seen in my life im die im die im die and im blessed and glad to do sooo
Loving finding Lumatone, the Bosanquet-Wilson isomorphic keyboard, and your presentation! Would be helpful to flip the video from above when you are playing to show keyboard from your perspective (i.e. right side up) to also see the patterns as you do ;)
Two things strike me as intriguing here. I’m not suggesting that these are “bad” choices, by any means; just “curious” ones. You’re making intriguing music, and that’s all that ultimately matters, so “keep it coming”! First, it’s interesting that it appears at least (9:30) that you’re not mapping an upward whole step to the key directly to the right (and slightly above). Instead, you appear to be mapping it to the key directly above that. Again, not necessarily good or bad, but interesting. Second, 55TET strikes me as a … curious … choice. To whatever degree it’s about approximations to small harmonic ratios (2:1, 3:2, 5:4, 7:4, etc.), 41TET and 53TET get a lot closer. Of course, Just-Intonation approximations are just one dimension of the question. They’re not necessarily a goal, but are a factor.
Love your channel love it love it love it Van Halen’s “1984” the track leading into “Jump” the synth intro that’s some polyphonic sounds and Eddie described a “Brown Sound” everyone thought it meant his amplifier and guitar He heard his brother Alex drum playing as a “Brown Sound”
I would be really interested to hear you take a stab at creating a Melody like in "resonance" or an arpeggiation progression along the lines of the song "Hold" both by the artist Home.
I really appreciate your methodical approach to exploring this instrument - looking forward to some inspiring new music! I know you like the focus to be on the harmonic interactions, but I wonder if you’ve thought about mapping the polychromatic dimension to other parameters besides pitch to create variations in timbre as well?
That is an amazing area to explore! I guess at this point, I'm still trying to work out and explore the possibilities of polychromatic keyboard technique and an adaptable system for notation and learning. The Lumatone's keys are continuous controllers and as new features are implementaed in future firmware updates (and MIDI 2.0), we might be able to assign an overlay of CC messages to each key as well (i.e. modulation, filter sweep). With MIDI (1.0), I have run into 'buffer overload' type problems with using 16 channels of CC (pitchbend) messages simultaneously. Very exciting possibilities ahead!
You don’t need black or white keys to play the lumatone, but you need color-vision. And how are blind musicians supposed to find where they are on the instrument without the tactile land marks offered on the piano/ keyboard?
I'm also going to try using braille stickers for tactile orientation. This could be helpful in navigating the keyboard for sight reading, and also as an orientation for visually impaired musicians.
Maybe also there could be an instrument which either changes roughness of the texture of each note or height of each note, alongside the colors, or keeping one row a certain roughness or texture to distinguish a "home row" and keep the color aesthetic uniform.
Like the pitch bend wheel that you can control. Fascinating. I bet the intervals can be mid blowing. Is the world ready for this? This is an evolved approach.
Completely off topic -- but I'm going through your uploads and noticed the "Moose tipping" shirt in your previous video and the snow covered spruce forest (in May) in this one. Are you in Alaska or the Yukon?
I have a general interest in the way "new" controllers integrate the possibility of microtonality. This Lumatone instrument is definitely exciting and also extremely pleasing on the visual side (which, I find, is also a meaningful characteristics of musical instruments beyond the mere cosmetics). It raises a few questions or issues however, and maybe somebody here has clues about them. 1. Why choose a hexagonal structure ? Why not a cartesian (x,y) rectangular grid ? I fail to see the meaning of the intermediate directions, or rather, it seems to me that there is a lack of symmetry between some of the hexagonal directions (like right ascending vs left ascending for instance). Any idea what the creators had in mind with this kind of layout ? 2. One difficulty I see both playing and "reading" the keyboard is that contiguous notes (in the sense of pitch) end up being very far from one another sometime (like, the red value of each classical chromatic note is tonally contiguous to the purple value of the next one, and yet the two corresponding keys are as far apart as they can be). Maybe it would make sense to extend the colour spectrum up and down (at the cost of redundant notes) to keep some degree of microtonal continuity when needed Just my two cents/interrogations on the system. This is all very interesting anyway.
I'm a little confused by the description around 3:43. You mentioned removing removing black keys from a piano and adding pitch colors above and below, which makes sense. But then the overlay graphic shows A B C D E F G next to each other with colors above and below them. As B->C and E->F are only semitones apart, wouldn't that lead to overlap (duplicated keys) between those pitches since it seems there are the same number of keys between each note / pitch class?
I think it’s easier to think about it as an octave being divided into 55 pitches. The pitches are then assigned according to the physical layout of the Lumatone keyboard. The modal reference of A-G is only used as a known point of reference and departure - A-G aren’t related to each other in the same way as in the chromatic scale (i.e. E/F and B/C semitones). Instead, the white row notes are similar but not exactly the same as the white notes on the piano. 55 EDO 12 EDO A = 55/55 [1] A = 12/12 [1] B = 8/55 B = 2/12 C = 15/55 C = 3/12 D = 23/55 D = 5/12 E = 31/55 E = 7/12 F = 39/55 F = 8/12 G = 47/55 G = 10/12
@@dolomuse Thanks so much for the reply, that helps a lot. You're right, it is easier to think of that way and makes a lot of sense. My thinking that the white keys on the Lumatome lined up with the white keys on a piano threw me off. I also understand now why the note names on the graphics moved later in the video (8:55) - you were showing patterns/shapes with the intervals of a major scale, for example C-white, D-green, E-cyan, F-yellow, G-white, A-green, B-cyan, C-white. Thinking of it as shapes like guitar chords makes a lot of sense for shifting scales up and down through the pitch colors. It's an amazing instrument, I'd definitely like to try one. Thanks again for demoing it and for the explanation.
Wow thank you! Really struggling to write in 24 edo. Just can’t feel natural chord progressions, unsure of which part of the chords to raise or lower in pitch. Any ideas for song writing?
I wonder if the secrets are demonstrated in the video? I'm starting to think dolomuse's practice regime might help unlock the potential. Which input system/control surface are you using to play? I'm really interested in this type of thing at the moment.
I had to watch this and do some thinking before it occurred to me that the keys of the same color are dividing the octave into 7 equal intervals, or the 7th root of 2. Edit: I realize that the interval between keys of the same color must be very slightly wider than the 7th root of 2 since one "column" in each octave has one fewer key than the other "columns." At any rate, it seems like that would really take some getting used to!
are there budget options? it doesn't seem like a lot of different options for microtonal music are out there, and if it's above 50, maybe a hundred bucks it's out of reach unfortunately.
If they get enough sales in this first production run to stay in business, they will be working toward producing a 'mini' model. This has been the greatest difficulty with innovative musical instruments: they are very expensive in the prototype stage (recouping R&D costs). But if they don't recoup those costs they can't develop more products which are smaller, cheaper and mass produced. Roli is a great example of this.
The polychromatic stuff is beyond my imagination (in a good way), but the electronic voice is quite disturbing to my ear. Can you use other kinds of samples in your incredible videos/compositions too? (Like maybe a microtonal piano sample?)
My guess is she uses this sound to enhance the harmonics of the notes, but I´d really like to see what kind of sounds could be achieved with softer tones.
Brass or rather saw waves disturb You? That is a Richard Wagner effect... Did The Flying Dutchman play in the background of a traumatic event? Half joking, of course. I thought she should have used Sine waves... So pure and calming.
@@oldnikix Agreed, i was guessing she used saw waves in this video, for fuller harmonic content maybe. But if you check her channel there are some videos where she uses a softer tone :)
@@oldnikix Harmonically rich sounds tend to give you a better idea of the sound of each interval, your brain notices how each harmonic of each note interacts.
K nzo [Vortex1212] True enough for normies. I'm fairly certain if you are into polychromatic, microtonality, and the like, your ears can perceive sine waves' frequencies adequately. I know, it's a RUclips crash course. Don't worry, be happy 🙏🏻
The Lumatone has a lever-action for each key. All the other microtonal keyboards I know of have electronic switches/pads (minimal movement/excursion of the key, or a pressure sensor). The Lumatone's lever-action gives a piano-like movement to the key, but it is non-weighted. You may want to check out Elaine Walker's keyboards, she makes microtonal 'vertical' keyboards, but I'm not sure if they have weighted key action.
@@dolomuse Thank you for your answer. Which ones you know have pression sensors? I'm looking for a microtonal keyboard suitable for performance which will allow me to play as many as sounds as possible but will not neglect dynamics. I find switches not convenient enough as I'm often losing in fluidity while using them. Elaine Walker's keyboards don't seem to allow any change in dynamics, I don't think they have weighted key action.
Wonderful video. Can I become your student and learn more about the interaction between a controller and software in terms of microtonal music and in general?
They are both great controllers, but quite different in specs and design. The LinnStrument has square shaped silicone keypads (multidimensional sensors). They are color-programmable and can render MIDI data in the X (left/right), Y (front/back), and Z (pressure) dimension. The keypads have no movement with playing. It is an amazing instrument with open-source firmware. The LinnStrument has 128 or 200 color/tuning assignable keypads. The Lumatone has lever-action, color assignable plastic hex keys, so there is motion of the key when played. Each key has a Hall-effect sensor (like the Continuum), so it can, with firmware updates, render precise position and pressure data (Z dimension). No X or Y data can be rendered with the keys on the Lumatone, but you have more keys to assign pitch values to. The Lumatone has 275 LED color/tuning assignable keys and an editor for programming.
Great observation! The Lumatone designers created a 275 hexagonal keyboard and this created an asymmetry in one column (the 'B' column has one less key). I just adapted to this by dividing the octave into 55 pitches, but the color layout reveals the missing key. The polychromatic system is flexible enough to work with unique keyboard designs like this.
With your configuration, did you choose to omit B violet deliberately? Or was it simply a limitation of the prototype? A combination of both? Or is B violet actually sitting there in plain sight and i missed it? Thanks!
The Lumatone keyboard was designed with 275 instead of 280 keys and this left an asymmetry in the "B" column. My adaptation was to divide the octave into 55 EDO and workaround the 'missing' key.
9:22 i thought the major scale was played by playing a colored row (eg the white row) left to right without moving up and down? is it just a different way of filling out the octave? im so confused now
While this keyboard is designed to be able to accommodate a myriad of layouts/mappings, in looking at the overall geometry of it and comparing it to your MicroZone, I get the impression that it's primarily designed with the primary MicroZone-type layout in mind but with fewer keys vertically and more keys horizontally, which would still be 55 EDO here; would you say that's the case? If the normal 7+5 chromatic layout of the MicroZone were applied to the LumaTone, I can see that the columns for the naturals would have 5 keys each, and the columns for the sharps/flats would have 4 keys each. Also, is it your hope that LumaTone would eventually come out with a model that has even more keys, particularly in the vertical direction, so that you could apply your layout here to a higher EDO, say, 72 EDO?
Very cool ideas! This design opens seemingly endless possibilities to explore. The keyboard could also be split and programmed with multiple tunings and varieties of iso/polymorphic colorized layouts! The analogy for me is a painter’s selection of palette colors to mix in a work and also in the sense that different color palettes can be easily chosen for different works. The polychromatic system is an attempt to create a simple framework with flexible assignments of pitch-color relative to the tuning method, with a consistent in a spectral-type ordering from (infra/flat)red to (ultra/sharp)violet. This makes transitions to different pitch-palettes easier for musicians and dovetails well with standard music notation. The Lumatone is based on a modified Terpstra design (circa 1980’s) which is, to my eyes, a variant of the Wilson layout (circa 1970’s) with the added innovation of a cascade key design (hex keys gradually ascend in height from front to back). The Lumatone design has further implemented led color, note# and channel# assignment, velocity sensitivity and has capability for firmware additions like aftertouch implementation, as its keys can also render continuous control (MIDI CC) messages.
Hi Dolores, thank you for the música and your explanations. Maybe I just didn't dig in all of your videos but I mostly saw you using sounds/banks with long or even infinity sustain. Is that your choice/taste or is something related with polychromatic music? What about silences in this kind of music. Thanks and greatings from Uruguay!
Hi Andres. The phase and harmonic interactions take a while to emerge and interact, so slower and sustained intervals are necessary. Silence is a beautiful contrast of stillness, as is ‘just’ intonation (intervals minimizing phase pulsations/beating). These are elements I look forward to integrating. I am still in a very early stage of exploring polychromatic music, and these new auditory phenomena are a bit over exaggerated so I can demonstrate and reveal them more clearly. This is also the reason I have been using a synth sound with prominent higher harmonics and not yet integrating the infinite possibilities of sound design. So much to explore…!
I’ve never been less sure of my ability to execute a C Major scale
Imagine Gb Diminished or Dorian b2 😂
seems like c major is used as the base here
You are not only a critically underrated youtuber, but underrated musician as well. Just watching this video alone allowed me to grasp concepts about Microtonal tuning, polychromatic music and just music theory in general. You are awesome, this is so cool.
This invention is deeply inspiring.
Seriously. Really shows you how unlimited the potential of musical instrumentation and it’s ability to change music is
This invention is actually relatively old. Search for Janko Piano.
@@Hvranq those are squares
this is one of the most mind blowing videos on music i’ve ever seen
This instrument is incredible
I love how the first thing you do when playing is just listen and appreciate all the different tones and colours :) the work you’re doing is amazing!!!!
Excellent video
You make this all seem so accessible. Thank you soooo much! Your videos are not just calling into the void, we're LEARNING from you!!!
Excellent demo and impressive playing! 😎👍
I'm having one of those moments where I've stepped through some sort of portal and can't go back - or be the same musician that I was yesterday after watching this. Mind blown 🤯 Thank You💯🌌
congratulations. so nice to explore the music this way
That instrument looks so fucking awesome!
Still waiting for mine to arrive
Fantastic stuff! - now I just need another lifetime to do music . .
Loved the info and music. Didn’t want it to end
I think ignoring the chromatic notes closes so so so many possibilities. It means your harmony will always have its centre at the major scale. At least using the chromatic scale opens you up to most global music.
The Lumatone can also render many varieties of minor, dominant and other scales. A good way to think about it is that, because the Lumatone accommodates a closer approximation to the pitch continuum, many more types of scales - Western/chromatic and other cultural scales - can be played on this keyboard.
Woah so exciting! I love your ideas and I can’t wait to see what you’ll do with this instrument! It’s also really pretty. And yes collaboration!!!
Fascinating and inspiring. I love when I run across people who are studiously deep-diving with minimum restrictions into their passion. A very sharp mind and set of ears are at work here.
A very nice and clear presentation ! Thank you, Dolores...
I’d love to connect this to a eurorack modular synth. Please do what you can to encourage them include some kind of CV out as well. Having a dedicated CV out for eurorack modulars would be extremely helpful because most of us don’t use standard 12 keyboards anyway. We mostly rely on the onboard 16 step sequencer. Some of us don’t even use a DAW. Also transparent labels to manually assign root/octive, 3rd, 5th, 7th, (9th), 11th and 13th harmonic overtones would be nice. You wouldn’t even need symbols for the overtones, just assign them by number value.
FAR OUT INTERFACE! It effortlessly incorporates theory without any translation. I think it’s very intuitive based on your demo.
I want to see Jacob Collier in this room
I tried to report your comment but there is no option for "The world is not ready for Dolores, much less Dolores x Collier"
I was about to comment this exact comment lmao
@@PacificBird Mee too lol
Jacob turning Lumatone into his new harmonizer
I made this EXACT comment on another dolomuse video, mad bro
Just WOW !!! and thanx for this wonderful presentation! I'm so thrilled with the new Polychromatic Music Instruments who fit just perfect to my stage designs in creating costumes and shows! What a fantastic new option! Can't wait to see how this is going on ! And again, thanx for the introduction 🖒
So cool! I thought polychromatic music was mind blowing on its own and this controller really seems like a perfect fit. Thank you for showing it!
A very efficient, synesthetic system, congratulations. a very insightful and detail explanation Thanks for sharing.
Such a lovely well organised review. Thank you!!
This is so awesome. Thanks for making a video about it!
Happy to see more content from you dolomuse
I remember discovering Just Intonation through Wendy Carlos, and it was a musical epiphany...this video about polychromatic music ("and" the Lumatone) is equally fascinating .Thanks for introducing me to another level of music where the visual and the audible merge even more than traditional notation. Greetings from Memphis. Tennessee. .
Love your channel!!
I am absolutely amazed with your work! Love from Brazil!
Thanks so much for this video! I'm eagerly awaiting a Lumatone! I can't wait to get it under my fingers. This was the first demonstration I've seen that illustrates moving around the instrument more. It looks like a joy!
I'm excited for you to have one too! :P I was lucky enough to try it at NAMM and I can't stress enough how nice the keys *feel* to play. That was one of my biggest concerns prior to trying it out, and it went well beyond my expectations.
Hi Dolores, this is just what I’ve been looking for and from a fellow Canadian! Thank you
We're reaching an age where we can notate our sheet music with crayon. This is truly the future.
Jesus christ, this is so inspiring... my god thank you for researching and sharing this.
Thank Jesus Christ for Creating the GIFT of music. That’s just ONE of the gifts!
Am I in the Twilight Zone? Or you guy never heard of the pitch wheel? Also, perhaps I could appreciate this invention a bit more were I to hear actual consumable music, instead of just scales, using the lumatone.
Nonetheless, still interesting!
Fascinating!
Thank you for this video! Really insightful look at the instrument that makes me even more excited to get my own.
This looks cool with a dark lighting and shadow hands.
- How would the room of your dreams look like?
- 2:40
This is very interesting.
Let us not forget however that musical "interfaces" with continuous pitch (besides the human voice, obviously) have existed for eras under the form of fretless string instruments. That natural notion of continuity has been integrated for long into both North-African and Classical Indian music traditions, to name only two examples. In 2023, we definitely need both modern keybeds able to allow full access to that larger spectrum, and also a proper, unified notation system that gets away from the classical microtonal "accident" syste ( which is way too referential towards the diatonic tradition).
Such explorations as this instrument here and your music are great steps in that direction.
Wonderful stuff
You are making me want to spend serious time on the artiphon instrument 1 editor… :)
As always… your massive expansive mind is the coolest.
why didn't they have you in their latest promo video? you're clear the most adept and thinking critically about intonation and technique and fusing tradition with innovation.
No way, if I'm gonna drop 3k on a keyboard I need at least three minutes of some guy tapping out farting synth noises.
It seems a little odd that each column has 8 keys, except the B columns, which have 7. Why is that? Is it related to the limitation on the number of different notes in MIDI? Also, I would have thought an odd number would be better anyway, so that there is always a central key. It's an amazing controller though! Did Elaine Walker have anything to do with it? I know she has advocated in the past for hex keyboards that light up and can be configured to arbitrary patterns.
Fantastic video, thank You!
These things are so cool! I have one too.
ruclips.net/video/L8zkQp4egp0/видео.html
this is beautiful.
I was just watching your old videos, glad your well and still micro!
The only instrument microtonal musicians are always in tune on. :D
i cant wait to get my hands on one of these i might never put it away because i think i just fell in love with the most beautiful man made music maker ive ever seen in my life im die im die im die and im blessed and glad to do sooo
Loving finding Lumatone, the Bosanquet-Wilson isomorphic keyboard, and your presentation! Would be helpful to flip the video from above when you are playing to show keyboard from your perspective (i.e. right side up) to also see the patterns as you do ;)
Looks incredible, love it!
Mind. Blown.
Two things strike me as intriguing here. I’m not suggesting that these are “bad” choices, by any means; just “curious” ones. You’re making intriguing music, and that’s all that ultimately matters, so “keep it coming”!
First, it’s interesting that it appears at least (9:30) that you’re not mapping an upward whole step to the key directly to the right (and slightly above). Instead, you appear to be mapping it to the key directly above that. Again, not necessarily good or bad, but interesting.
Second, 55TET strikes me as a … curious … choice. To whatever degree it’s about approximations to small harmonic ratios (2:1, 3:2, 5:4, 7:4, etc.), 41TET and 53TET get a lot closer. Of course, Just-Intonation approximations are just one dimension of the question. They’re not necessarily a goal, but are a factor.
Could you try using the whole tone scale or the chromatic scale in the middle?
Love your channel love it love it love it
Van Halen’s “1984” the track leading into “Jump” the synth intro that’s some polyphonic sounds and Eddie described a “Brown Sound” everyone thought it meant his amplifier and guitar He heard his brother Alex drum playing as a “Brown Sound”
I haven't seen a video from this channel for a really long time
So, the colors are microtones?
I would be really interested to hear you take a stab at creating a Melody like in "resonance" or an arpeggiation progression along the lines of the song "Hold" both by the artist Home.
I’ve been playing this kind of music for years when I’m tuning my guitar 🙃
Jokes aside, this looks really fun to play music with!
Now I'd like a lumatone.
I really appreciate your methodical approach to exploring this instrument - looking forward to some inspiring new music! I know you like the focus to be on the harmonic interactions, but I wonder if you’ve thought about mapping the polychromatic dimension to other parameters besides pitch to create variations in timbre as well?
That is an amazing area to explore! I guess at this point, I'm still trying to work out and explore the possibilities of polychromatic keyboard technique and an adaptable system for notation and learning. The Lumatone's keys are continuous controllers and as new features are implementaed in future firmware updates (and MIDI 2.0), we might be able to assign an overlay of CC messages to each key as well (i.e. modulation, filter sweep). With MIDI (1.0), I have run into 'buffer overload' type problems with using 16 channels of CC (pitchbend) messages simultaneously. Very exciting possibilities ahead!
Is this what Bobbi Krilc is doing with the Midsommar soundtrack, except he's just fluctuating the frequency of a mono synth?
This makes me so happy!!!
You don’t need black or white keys to play the lumatone, but you need color-vision. And how are blind musicians supposed to find where they are on the instrument without the tactile land marks offered on the piano/ keyboard?
I'm also going to try using braille stickers for tactile orientation. This could be helpful in navigating the keyboard for sight reading, and also as an orientation for visually impaired musicians.
Maybe also there could be an instrument which either changes roughness of the texture of each note or height of each note, alongside the colors, or keeping one row a certain roughness or texture to distinguish a "home row" and keep the color aesthetic uniform.
Like the pitch bend wheel that you can control. Fascinating. I bet the intervals can be mid blowing. Is the world ready for this? This is an evolved approach.
you are a wizard! let me know when these hit the streets?
Completely off topic -- but I'm going through your uploads and noticed the "Moose tipping" shirt in your previous video and the snow covered spruce forest (in May) in this one. Are you in Alaska or the Yukon?
SO COOL!
I have a general interest in the way "new" controllers integrate the possibility of microtonality. This Lumatone instrument is definitely exciting and also extremely pleasing on the visual side (which, I find, is also a meaningful characteristics of musical instruments beyond the mere cosmetics). It raises a few questions or issues however, and maybe somebody here has clues about them.
1. Why choose a hexagonal structure ? Why not a cartesian (x,y) rectangular grid ? I fail to see the meaning of the intermediate directions, or rather, it seems to me that there is a lack of symmetry between some of the hexagonal directions (like right ascending vs left ascending for instance). Any idea what the creators had in mind with this kind of layout ?
2. One difficulty I see both playing and "reading" the keyboard is that contiguous notes (in the sense of pitch) end up being very far from one another sometime (like, the red value of each classical chromatic note is tonally contiguous to the purple value of the next one, and yet the two corresponding keys are as far apart as they can be). Maybe it would make sense to extend the colour spectrum up and down (at the cost of redundant notes) to keep some degree of microtonal continuity when needed
Just my two cents/interrogations on the system. This is all very interesting anyway.
Theese are so amazing I want one so much
I'm a little confused by the description around 3:43. You mentioned removing removing black keys from a piano and adding pitch colors above and below, which makes sense. But then the overlay graphic shows A B C D E F G next to each other with colors above and below them. As B->C and E->F are only semitones apart, wouldn't that lead to overlap (duplicated keys) between those pitches since it seems there are the same number of keys between each note / pitch class?
I think it’s easier to think about it as an octave being divided into 55 pitches. The pitches are then assigned according to the physical layout of the Lumatone keyboard. The modal reference of A-G is only used as a known point of reference and departure - A-G aren’t related to each other in the same way as in the chromatic scale (i.e. E/F and B/C semitones). Instead, the white row notes are similar but not exactly the same as the white notes on the piano.
55 EDO 12 EDO
A = 55/55 [1] A = 12/12 [1]
B = 8/55 B = 2/12
C = 15/55 C = 3/12
D = 23/55 D = 5/12
E = 31/55 E = 7/12
F = 39/55 F = 8/12
G = 47/55 G = 10/12
@@dolomuse Thanks so much for the reply, that helps a lot. You're right, it is easier to think of that way and makes a lot of sense. My thinking that the white keys on the Lumatome lined up with the white keys on a piano threw me off. I also understand now why the note names on the graphics moved later in the video (8:55) - you were showing patterns/shapes with the intervals of a major scale, for example C-white, D-green, E-cyan, F-yellow, G-white, A-green, B-cyan, C-white. Thinking of it as shapes like guitar chords makes a lot of sense for shifting scales up and down through the pitch colors. It's an amazing instrument, I'd definitely like to try one. Thanks again for demoing it and for the explanation.
Wow thank you! Really struggling to write in 24 edo. Just can’t feel natural chord progressions, unsure of which part of the chords to raise or lower in pitch. Any ideas for song writing?
I wonder if the secrets are demonstrated in the video? I'm starting to think dolomuse's practice regime might help unlock the potential. Which input system/control surface are you using to play? I'm really interested in this type of thing at the moment.
pick 5 tones randomly, try to make anything randomly and then remove the parts you don't like.
I would start with flatting Maj 7th’s and then work off chord extensions based on that. That interval kind of feels like the entry point
I had to watch this and do some thinking before it occurred to me that the keys of the same color are dividing the octave into 7 equal intervals, or the 7th root of 2. Edit: I realize that the interval between keys of the same color must be very slightly wider than the 7th root of 2 since one "column" in each octave has one fewer key than the other "columns." At any rate, it seems like that would really take some getting used to!
Are the chromatic sharps and flats you'd find on a traditional keyboard on the default Lumatone configuration?
i love your set up lol wish i had the all black controller
are there budget options? it doesn't seem like a lot of different options for microtonal music are out there, and if it's above 50, maybe a hundred bucks it's out of reach unfortunately.
If they get enough sales in this first production run to stay in business, they will be working toward producing a 'mini' model. This has been the greatest difficulty with innovative musical instruments: they are very expensive in the prototype stage (recouping R&D costs). But if they don't recoup those costs they can't develop more products which are smaller, cheaper and mass produced. Roli is a great example of this.
Nobody:
Piano companies during pride:
very cool!
Can you put Wicki-Hayden layout on it? Looks as if you can’t unless you tilt the keyboard sideways
The polychromatic stuff is beyond my imagination (in a good way), but the electronic voice is quite disturbing to my ear. Can you use other kinds of samples in your incredible videos/compositions too? (Like maybe a microtonal piano sample?)
My guess is she uses this sound to enhance the harmonics of the notes, but I´d really like to see what kind of sounds could be achieved with softer tones.
Brass or rather saw waves disturb You? That is a Richard Wagner effect... Did The Flying Dutchman play in the background of a traumatic event? Half joking, of course. I thought she should have used Sine waves... So pure and calming.
@@oldnikix Agreed, i was guessing she used saw waves in this video, for fuller harmonic content maybe. But if you check her channel there are some videos where she uses a softer tone :)
@@oldnikix Harmonically rich sounds tend to give you a better idea of the sound of each interval, your brain notices how each harmonic of each note interacts.
K nzo [Vortex1212] True enough for normies. I'm fairly certain if you are into polychromatic, microtonality, and the like, your ears can perceive sine waves' frequencies adequately. I know, it's a RUclips crash course. Don't worry, be happy 🙏🏻
Do you have a composition where you combine and layer all your microtonal instruments?
Hi Dolores,
Simple question : is not a bit illogical to have unequal number of keys inside each column ?
Nice video ;)
Hello Dolores, thank you for your work. Do you know any weighted keys microtonal keyboards?
The Lumatone has a lever-action for each key. All the other microtonal keyboards I know of have electronic switches/pads (minimal movement/excursion of the key, or a pressure sensor). The Lumatone's lever-action gives a piano-like movement to the key, but it is non-weighted.
You may want to check out Elaine Walker's keyboards, she makes microtonal 'vertical' keyboards, but I'm not sure if they have weighted key action.
@@dolomuse Thank you for your answer.
Which ones you know have pression sensors? I'm looking for a microtonal keyboard suitable for performance which will allow me to play as many as sounds as possible but will not neglect dynamics. I find switches not convenient enough as I'm often losing in fluidity while using them.
Elaine Walker's keyboards don't seem to allow any change in dynamics, I don't think they have weighted key action.
omg gives me motivation to work to bad im broke this is my life and the one instrument that was disigned for someone that only sees spectrums
Wonderful video. Can I become your student and learn more about the interaction between a controller and software in terms of microtonal music and in general?
how would you compare this to a LinnStrument programmed to have a similar pitch layout?
They are both great controllers, but quite different in specs and design. The LinnStrument has square shaped silicone keypads (multidimensional sensors). They are color-programmable and can render MIDI data in the X (left/right), Y (front/back), and Z (pressure) dimension. The keypads have no movement with playing. It is an amazing instrument with open-source firmware. The LinnStrument has 128 or 200 color/tuning assignable keypads.
The Lumatone has lever-action, color assignable plastic hex keys, so there is motion of the key when played. Each key has a Hall-effect sensor (like the Continuum), so it can, with firmware updates, render precise position and pressure data (Z dimension). No X or Y data can be rendered with the keys on the Lumatone, but you have more keys to assign pitch values to. The Lumatone has 275 LED color/tuning assignable keys and an editor for programming.
Man I really want one of those
This is so amazing
So cool....
I love it, I want it!!!
Why isn't there a B####? Sorry if I missed that explanation
I love that you spent time talking about notation from a human factors standpoint :)
Great observation! The Lumatone designers created a 275 hexagonal keyboard and this created an asymmetry in one column (the 'B' column has one less key). I just adapted to this by dividing the octave into 55 pitches, but the color layout reveals the missing key. The polychromatic system is flexible enough to work with unique keyboard designs like this.
@@dolomuse Fortunately they solved the issue with the final production model that has 280 keys.
@dolomuse are there patches/samples of traditional instruments like piano sounds/horns etc that can be used with the Lumatone?
Bruh this needs to be used to make the most epic edm/trance music. Please Please Please
With your configuration, did you choose to omit B violet deliberately? Or was it simply a limitation of the prototype? A combination of both? Or is B violet actually sitting there in plain sight and i missed it? Thanks!
The Lumatone keyboard was designed with 275 instead of 280 keys and this left an asymmetry in the "B" column. My adaptation was to divide the octave into 55 EDO and workaround the 'missing' key.
So cool
9:22 i thought the major scale was played by playing a colored row (eg the white row) left to right without moving up and down? is it just a different way of filling out the octave? im so confused now
as a finger drummer this is some very interesting stuff.
The keys are arranged horizontally by white keys and vertically by an eight tone?
While this keyboard is designed to be able to accommodate a myriad of layouts/mappings, in looking at the overall geometry of it and comparing it to your MicroZone, I get the impression that it's primarily designed with the primary MicroZone-type layout in mind but with fewer keys vertically and more keys horizontally, which would still be 55 EDO here; would you say that's the case? If the normal 7+5 chromatic layout of the MicroZone were applied to the LumaTone, I can see that the columns for the naturals would have 5 keys each, and the columns for the sharps/flats would have 4 keys each. Also, is it your hope that LumaTone would eventually come out with a model that has even more keys, particularly in the vertical direction, so that you could apply your layout here to a higher EDO, say, 72 EDO?
Very cool ideas! This design opens seemingly endless possibilities to explore. The keyboard could also be split and programmed with multiple tunings and varieties of iso/polymorphic colorized layouts!
The analogy for me is a painter’s selection of palette colors to mix in a work and also in the sense that different color palettes can be easily chosen for different works. The polychromatic system is an attempt to create a simple framework with flexible assignments of pitch-color relative to the tuning method, with a consistent in a spectral-type ordering from (infra/flat)red to (ultra/sharp)violet. This makes transitions to different pitch-palettes easier for musicians and dovetails well with standard music notation.
The Lumatone is based on a modified Terpstra design (circa 1980’s) which is, to my eyes, a variant of the Wilson layout (circa 1970’s) with the added innovation of a cascade key design (hex keys gradually ascend in height from front to back). The Lumatone design has further implemented led color, note# and channel# assignment, velocity sensitivity and has capability for firmware additions like aftertouch implementation, as its keys can also render continuous control (MIDI CC) messages.
Hi Dolores, thank you for the música and your explanations. Maybe I just didn't dig in all of your videos but I mostly saw you using sounds/banks with long or even infinity sustain. Is that your choice/taste or is something related with polychromatic music? What about silences in this kind of music. Thanks and greatings from Uruguay!
Hi Andres. The phase and harmonic interactions take a while to emerge and interact, so slower and sustained intervals are necessary. Silence is a beautiful contrast of stillness, as is ‘just’ intonation (intervals minimizing phase pulsations/beating). These are elements I look forward to integrating. I am still in a very early stage of exploring polychromatic music, and these new auditory phenomena are a bit over exaggerated so I can demonstrate and reveal them more clearly. This is also the reason I have been using a synth sound with prominent higher harmonics and not yet integrating the infinite possibilities of sound design. So much to explore…!
@@dolomuse thanks for your answer!
What do you think of that Swopper stool?
damn i love both this lady and the instrument. Please Dolores be my second mother