Specifications of AnaMark / VAZ 1.5 Plus-compatible tuning files

General format specifications
Section and parameter specifications
Concluding remarks
Free source code
Software which supports this file format
Contact

General format specifications:

Max. line length 255 characters

Allowed line delimiters are: 0x00, 0x0a, 0x0d (so WIN/DOS-style as well as UNIX-style files may be used)

Empty lines are ignored

Leading/trailing spaces/tabulators have to be removed before processing a line.

Lines beginning with a ';' are comment lines and are ignored.

The file is divided into sections. A section starts with "[sectionname]", where "sectionname" stands for the name of the section and is not case sensitive. A section ends automatically, when the next section starts. The string "[sectionname]" must be the one and only string in the line, there must be no leading/following characters. A section must not be repeated / divided into several parts. So this would not be O.K.:
```
	[Section1]
	; Here come the parameters of Section1

	[Section2]
	; Here come the parameters of Section2

	[Section1]
	; ERROR, because Section1 is repeated
```
Unknown sections have to be skipped - this may produce a warning, but not an error. All lines preceeding the first section have to be skipped - if there are no-comment, unempty lines, this may produce a warning, but not an error.

Each section contains parameters. The format is "parametername=value" where "parametername" stands for the name of the parameter and is not case sensitive. "value" stands for the parameter's value. The '=' separates name and value. Spaces preceeding / following the parameter name or the value are possible and have to be ignored. If value is a string, it has to be set in quotationmarks '"'. A parameter may be repeated, whereas the last setting overwrites all preceeding settings.
NOTE: Unknown parameters have to be skipped and may produce a warning, but not an error.

Section and parameter specifications:

Section [Tuning]

This section contains a relative quantized tune in cents given for each MIDI note number from 0 - 127. The parameter name is "note #", whereas # stands for the MIDI note number.
The default value for each parameter is (100*MIDI_Note_Number). There is no setting for the absolute frequency of note 0.
The tunes are integer numbers and must not contain a '.', nor be written in scientific notation! Each one of the 128 notes has to be set. If a note is missing, this may produce a warning and the note's tuning is set to the default.

Example for a valid "[Tuning]" section, which shows the default settings:

	[Tuning]
	note 0 = 0
	note 1 = 100
	note 2 = 200
	; This has to be continued for each one of the notes
	; in the range 3-127, including 127

Section [Exact Tuning]

Similar to the section "Tuning". Differences:

The optional parameter "basefreq" specifies the absolute frequency of note 0. Its default value is 8.1757989156437073336Hz, which corresponds to the A=440Hz-tuning. ('A' is note 69.)
The tunes may be given in integer, floating point oder scientific representation, so they are much more exact.
Examples for valid numbers: "583", "-143.23", "0.837e4"
Not each MIDI note number has to be given. Note numbers <0 or >127 are generally possible in the future, but must be ignored in the current version of this format (in the following, they are treated as not-existing).
If no MIDI note number is given, keep the default tuning (100*MIDI_Note_Number).
Let H be the highest MIDI note number given, let P be its tune given in the file (called P, because it's the period length). t(x) is the current tune value of the note with the MIDI note number x, which is initially set to the values given in the file.
First set the tunes t(x) of all MIDI notes in the range [0; H] which are not given in the file to the default value (100*x). Then fill in the values [H;127] according to this algorithm:
if ( H < 127 ) then
    from i=H to i=127 including 127, stepsize 1 do:
        Let f(i) = f(i-H) + P
    end from
end if
Note, that f(0) is not necessarily set to 0!

Example for a valid "[Exact Tuning]" section:

	; All 'E' should be tuned +12.5 cents compared with
	; the default scale. All other notes should have the
	; default tuning.
	[Exact Tuning]
	note 4 = 412.5
	; To let the period be one octave, we have to set the "periodic point":
	note 12 = 1200

Concluding remarks

The section "[Tuning]" is for "downward"-compatibility to the widely used VAZ 1.5 Plus tuning files. So tuning files written by software _must_ contain a "[Tuning]" section for making the files usable for users of older software.

Writing a "[Tuning]"-section manually is sometimes much more work than writing a "[Exact Tuning]" section (because of the "auto expansion" ability). So files written manually may contain only a "[Exact Tuning]" section.

IMPORTANT: If you create tuning files which contain a "[Tuning]" section and a "[Exact Tuning]" section, you must take care to avoid data inconsistencies! The different level of quantization neglected, both sections always have to describe the same relative tuning!

Free source code

There is free C++ and Delphi source available for handling of AnaMark / VAZ 1.5 Plus-compatible tuning files. See the corresponding folders included with this specification in the .zip archive.
If someone ported it to another programming language not listed here and wants to make it available to the public, please let me know, I will add it here.

Software which supports this file format

You know software which supports this file format and is not listed here? Then write me a mail.

Editors

Scala: Freeware editor for tuning maps with many functions. Runs on:
PC: Windows, MS-DOS, GNU/Linux
PowerPC/MAC: GNU/Linux, MacOSX
Li'l Miss' Scale Oven: Commercial scale analysis and editing tool for MAC OS9

VST-Instruments (Plugins)

AnaMark (version 2.10 and above): Analogue-like, experimental and characteristic software synthesizer for Windows

Contact informations

Format specifications by Mark Henning, Germany.

Feel free to contact me / visit my web pages:

Mail
Homepage of AnaMark - The VST-Synthesizer
Private homepage (in german, download-section also available in english)

End of document.