'Spectral Transformations' | polychromatic 55

A polychromatic composition with the prototype Lumatone keyboard. 55 notes per octave. The Lumatone can implement custom key colors, MIDI note/channel numbers, and tuning layouts. Scheduled for production in late 2020.
This is the first keyboard controller that I've used which does not have an embedded 12 note chromatic (black note) pattern. Here, I'm applying the polychromatic system to pitches 'A' through 'G' and using pitch-color to distinguish varying shades of flat/sharp. This simplifies the system further and also eliminates the need for key signatures or microtonal pitch modifier symbols (accidentals).
More information about the Lumatone keyboard at: www.lumatone.io
Micro-tunings for the Lumatone and any keyboard controller are implemented with the UTE (Universal Tuning Editor): hpi.zentral.zo...
score: polychromaticm...
audio track: dolorescatheri...
more information: newmusicusa.or...

[@arthinox3317]

stranger: oh, you're a musician? what do you play? dolomuse: the rainbow

[@ninodesbordesofficial]

Polytonic microtonal harmonic rainbowish electronic keyboard

[@AimeeNolte]

I like just focusing on the beats that the waveforms make. Super-relaxing. Beautiful composition.

[@storm8y744]

Wow didn't expect you to be here. I love watching your videos

[@lerippletoe6893]

You could give yourself a click track and make tempo relationships from the beats if you wanted to, that really stuck out to me as well

[@tesselode]

i know you chose this synth patch for the thick harmonics, but i'd love to hear you branch out into different synth sounds! maybe a bell tone instead of a pad?

[@methyod]

I would absolutely love to hear this thing driving a really good electric piano sample library, or a string quartet patch.

[@nickcarter4006]

I think the sound selections are fantastic on Outer Worlds - but THIS will always be the sound of Dolomuse music for me

[@dairebarefoot6763]

I think the harmonics are too strong honestly. I’d love to hear it with “smoother” sounds as well.

[@lumatone]

Dolores this is beautiful, so amazing to see what you're creating with the instrument! Thank you for sharing!

[@Mattieval]

What I love so much about this is that the design, colour scheme and lights make it look like something out of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Sound wise it sounds a lot like a Prophet synth.

[@Sevish]

Incredible. And that final chord...

[@dylandecker_music]

Sevish! It would be awesome if you got a Lumatone and incorporated it into what you do. Love your music!

[@crouton3455]

The last chord at the end really drives the point home about how much there is to listen to in every chord. I think I could easily get lost in any of them for a lengthy amount of time.

[@stephenweigel]

My profile picture is going to become very outdated very soon Gosh, the Lumatone looks incredible! If these keyboards are everywhere, things will get awesome really quick

[@lolhs96]

3:20 I like how you played the rhythmic part. Thats something I hope is done more with this type of music

[@orifox1629]

the 55 EDO is really cool! I liked to hear the quicker movement (I've noticed over time in the body of your microtonal work you've been including more movement recently and it's pretty cool to see that trend). I love the textures that your work has. The dissonances feel complex and well i'm not sure how to put it into words . . . Like the chord at 1:54 is like the texture of the paper of a book that you really love, it's both distressing and has a familiar and exciting quality to it. Like how the texture of the page freaks out my hand but I know I want to turn the page anyway to keep reading, but I'm willing to let my hand linger on the page to finish reading it because I've started to turn the page before I've finished reading it. I'm not sure if that makes sense to any people without touch based texture-issues. Anyway, thank you a ton for this composition, I could try to describe the emotions I get from listening to this piece and the physical textures I associate the chords with but that would take hours and many pages so i'll leave you with just that one. Hope you're safe and thanks again for this one!

[@stefani-edenknowles-carey1170]

This is the future

[@BrandonLewisD]

Beautiful music! Those bass movements along with the chords you played really lift the soul. 3:28 - 55 ... Thank you!

[@mrhs5220]

Your voicings always sound so rich!

[@sepsmusic]

Behold... some of the spiciest chords ever uttered

[@charlesmitchell7864]

I'm so impressed and amazed and filled with wonder all at once. Changed, I am.

[@woegarden]

so much stank face on this one. my nose hurts from scruntching so much. love your worlds and place you create

[@EastPlanet]

Quite possibly the best dolomuse, maybe even better than Temporal Parallax. Love the rhythmic ideas you're introducing and the super close "key" modulations. Lumatone looks great!!

[@pbartmess]

I've been waiting to hear a performance on this instrument! It must be a wonderful experience to play. The sounds are delightful - so many harmonic possibilities open up when you arrange the interface in this format.

[@jimmyhsp]

i wish there was more music in between tuning extremes. theres tons of 12et and tons of 9461edoxx99tzd but there arent many normal sounding songs that put cool tunings to use. getting a vocalist, using cyclic chords, or sneaking in solos and runs in weird tunings in more "typical" music would make this kind of stuff more accessible to more people.

[@54CFL]

Beautiful music

[@ChristianVegh]

I need to learn how to make this music. It’s incredible.

[@The_Mimewar]

Forget everything you know about music. If you don’t know anything you’re better off. Forget half steps and learn quarter steps.

[@AnthonyRagus]

Check out Sevish's website and videos. He is a wealth of information (and music), and you'll learn everything you'll need to get started. His Scale Workshop is a game changer.

[@SatanicDesolation]

Dolores, thank you, this is epic! This board is gorgeous by the way!

[@dylandecker_music]

Beautiful composition. I'd love to see more of the Lumatone in action! Can't wait to get my hands on one of these things.

[@Lucius_Chiaraviglio]

Don't get to hear much 55EDO, so this is a welcome addition.

[@darrenwhite1939]

Phenomenal, thank you for all your efforts!

[@bibinetto]

Esse Design é matador. É de uma beleza absurda, uma grande colmeia eletrônica. Eu abelhuda estou chocada com tanta beleza. 😲🥰

[@narcissuswaters4953]

Thanks for this! It would still be nice to know more about the details of the hardware and software needed, in addition to the beautiful controller that's featured here.

[@vsicurella]

Beautiful! I can't wait to get a Lumatone. How have you been liking it, now that you've spent some time and wrote your first composition with it?

[@dolomuse]

It is such a beautiful and solidly built instrument. The lever-action of the keys feels great to play--much closer to a piano-like feel, in comparison with the Microzone which has keys that have very little movement. I think the assignable key color, without any chromatic (preset black key/region) overlay is a game changer. The polychromatic system dovetails well with this configuration and allows easy exploration of micro-pitch scales which are not multiples of 12 (chromatic).

[@markovchains573]

Sounds so beautiful! Please record more stuff like this! Would also love to hear different sounds or maybe with more pad like longer attack and decay time.

[@dannyzep92]

I love the colors on the keyboard lol and your music is excellent as always thanks for sharing

[@akaleri]

You're incredible!

[@TomWinspear]

Fantastic Dolores! Have you tried 31 EDO on it yet? I feel it's quite a perfect size for the Lumatone -with enough vertical space for a doubling of b, natural, and sharp. Flats on the bottom row, with just one set of x/bb on the middle row. I feel a big strength of this isomorphic layout is the ability to finger scales and chords in two ways (for example, 7th chords with right hand thumb on the bottom octave bass, left hand pinky on the bottom octave row 7th). The vertical spacing of an octave in this setup fits just right under my average male handsize at least. I feel this is much more ergonomic than trying to play a scale or chord of one colour crammed into one horizontal row. Though, it seems you are mixing colours much more than me :) The Terpstra website has the 31 layout stock to test

[@dolomuse]

That sounds like an excellent layout for the Lumatone. I try to push each new keyboard design to its maximum pitch-resolution in equal divisions of the octave, then explore the interval/harmonic variations and sound characteristics. Benton Roark plays the Lumatone in 31 EDO.

[@Muzikman127]

@@dolomuse thanks for the recommendation, I love 31TET and I'll be sure to check it out

[@johanleemeyer2626]

The gamer polychromatic keyboard

[@PoopVintner]

I would love to hear you play something with this that uses little to no sustain. I’m interested to see why kind of genre-oriented and pop-oriented music you could make with this in general. I love your compositions, but all of the possibilities with this make me want to explode haha

[@jonahganska242]

Really cool stuff keep up the good work you're amazing trying to map out this territory. I only started getting into music 8 months ago by learning blues harmonica but it has completely convinced me that the microtonal structures in music are where the real interesting things "i.e. soul' lie. Wish I could afford the instrument, perhaps down the road...

[@lachlanferris]

love your work, are these sounds coming from this instrument or are you just using it as an interface

[@Val_Cla]

It is a midi controller that sends pitch information to another synthesizer, which will make the sound :)

[@hankitnap5076]

@@Val_Cla thanks for the explanation. So it interfaces with a synthesizer to produce the sound.

[@narcissuswaters4953]

@@Val_Cla yes, which brings up the question: what is the synthesizer which will make the sound? And what alternatives are available.

[@Muzikman127]

@@narcissuswaters4953 It's a midi controller, use it with any midi synth or virtual synth that accepts pitchbend information (which is most of them). No different than any other microtonal midi controller in this regard.

[@ollimoore]

@@Muzikman127 more specifically the synth would need to accept *polyphonic* pitch bend information which is a little harder to come by. MPE capable synths will do it and multitimbral synths should work as well. There was a kind of basic MPE type mode available on some older hardware synths for use with guitar synth gear, the name of the mode escapes me right now but I guess that would do it too.

[@d.lawrencemiller5755]

Stunning!

[@musicartgeek]

This is very cool!

[@yoctoflop]

Have you ever considered recording the MIDI data and providing it somewhere?

[@rengamesitout]

Can you make a demonstration just using a sine wave O: I'm not sure if its just me, but my ear is catching a lot of clashing intervals, and I'm not sure if it's just the unison of the synth >-

[@pardaq24]

What you are doing is really fantastic but I have noticed that in all of your compositions you use no timbral variety, and only little textural variety. I feel like you really explore a lot of harmonic possibilities while abandoning other aspects of musical composition. I would love to hear your work in which you incorporate polychromaticism (this is a word now :) ) into planned compositions, where main goal is not polychromatic harmony but the polychromatic harmony serves the music. Thanks again for the amazing content :)

[@paulvonjankozuehren5037]

thanks for your very interesting and beautiful works ! Paul von Janko (1856-1919) proved 347 steps per octave to be the closest equal tuning to a pure tuning with the possibility to play pure intervals. In his study "about more than 12 steps equally tuned" he proved further on, that 53 steps per octave would be also very close to natural (mathematically correct) tuning and described a lot of other tuning possibilities and compared their advantages with each other. Which of your instruments, including the lumatone programmed with the UTE program, would be best, to realize such a tuning? The lumatone has 55 keys per octave, so it seems possible to just ignore 2 of those keys and devide the octave among only 53 keys ? With 53 steps per octave equally tuned, the intervals would be much closer to pure tuning, according to Janko. His keyboard configuration for 12 steps per octave is an other story that should not be mixed up with the above mentioned study. Janko wrote and invented a lot and every word of his writings is most valuable. Greetings from Germany and thanks again for your extremely interesting videos !

[@dolomuse]

I think of the 'natural' state of pitch (and color) as being an undivided continuum. From this perspective, "just intonation" is one of many possible pitch division methods (temperaments). My approach is to try to implement the maximum possible pitch divisions of each controller, within a generic "equal divisions" framework, and then explore the intervallic and harmonic possibilities of each new array of 'pitch-colors'.

[@paulvonjankozuehren5037]

@@dolomuse I agree, the continuum is great. But if keys are used, that´s the framework of my available colours and colourcombinations. If I want to enjoy in this frame of given keys to choose pure intervals , I´d really liked to have a division of 53 per octave. Do you think I could programm this for example on the lumatone ? Thanks for your kind consideration and how is climate change in Alaska, by the way ?

[@dolomuse]

You could definitely create a 53 (edo or JI) layout on the Lumatone. The easiest way I've found is to use the Universal Tuning Editor by h-pi. The glaciers are melting up here, but thankfully not many wildfires this summer.

[@hankitnap5076]

Great composition. Glad you got over the techno hurdles. The color structure is great tool to conceptualize polychromatic music. How did you set up the board from left to right?

[@dolomuse]

I am working on a tutorial about the process. In a nutshell, the Lumatone comes with an editor where you can assign the color, MIDI note # and channel of each key. Then I use the UTE (Universal Tuning Editor) by H-Pi instruments to setup the micro-tuning of each key.

[@YngvilVG]

I'm a ready to play duo with ya !

[@JohnVietta]

I'd love to see an actual acoustic pipe organ build (just like 1-2 stops; nothing insane) that utilized this setup and temperment

[@wakeupthisisntreal8168]

This is music right? It's beautiful

[@ZytrikX]

Wow this is, T R A N S C E N D A N T

something like this might also fit as a movie score, e.g. when arriving on an alien planet

[@jimmyhsp]

if i ever get one of these i'd probably record some wonky chords, loop them, and try to come up with a cool melody or solo. idk where that would go, that area isnt really explored

[@barrbass0]

Hola Dolores. ¿que pasaría si experimentas e incluyes elementos en tus opus (composiciones - obras - interpretaciones - ejecuciones) textura melódico-ritmica y ritmico-armónica; así como variaciónes tímbricas, así sean sintetizadas, y también matices de intensidad dinámica...? Eso habrá que oirlo!! la creatividad e imaginación al poder

[@Hecatonicosachoron54]

What the hell you got the lumatone keyboard, so cool!

[@Forora]

Sounds like it should be he music for the sacred realm in LOZ:Ocarina of Time. Or just the theme of some mystical plane.

[@FractusFractaurus]

Wonderfull

[@The_Mimewar]

Now color correspond a laser to fire when a key is pressed. Laser light show!

[@gunnerbellow6703]

Looks and sounds great, but also expensive lol

[@jeffscharf3947]

Ah ha!!! 🎛🎚🍭🌏🙏🙏✌️🇨🇦

[@DaredemoSoloPiano]

yeah

[@kurtn4819]

Different synth sounds???! Sounds like stuff we stopped doing in the 70s

[@corvusmonedulas4895]

So, who's going to send Jacob Collier a Lumatone?

[@javiceres]

... or get an old VCO based synth and it'll do all the micro tonal variation for you B-)

[@freecopyrightmusic6273]

00:55

[@Betis91]

2080s music

[@jessemontano6399]

Maximally psychedelic

[@valyri]

Hmm, i dunno about calling this microtonal, this setup seems pretty CHROMATIC to me!!

[@valyri]

please note; this is a pun and also i really love your music

[@mr.pooper7615]

@@valyriGood to see u here! :D

[@bonitabromeliads]

looks like no one knows how to play it yet

[@AEMachinas]

Messiaen and Alice Coltrane already did this with far more soul, sounds like further attempts by Academia to ruin music.

[@ChiffCharang]

Ah yes, Messiaen, that anti-establishment figure who never set foot in a conservatory in his life, and definitely didn't teach Boulez or Xenakis