"Scales", a plugin to apply temperaments to a score, ver 0.2

• Feb 10, 2010 - 15:29

Hi,

I'm glad to initiate this forum session by sharing a new version of the Scales plugin.

Some Scales features:

* Temperaments are kept as fully-enharmonic 35-tone scales
* Temperaments can be manually added, edited and deleted from the user interface
* Scala scale files can be imported (well, at least a subset of them!)
* and (of course!) temperaments can be applied to a score
* an optional global tune shift can also be applied (tuning to a different diapason).

Before use, please read the included readme file.

The plugin has been tested with MuseScore 0.9.5 under Windows XP. It is known NOT to work with the current pre-release 0.9.6; it may work with the CVS version (I did not test it yet).

Currently (version 0.9.5) there are 2 limitations:

1) Among notes, only the 7 diatonic notes and D#, Eb, F#, G#, Bb are correctly reported to the plugin by MuseScore. All other 23 altered notes are reported enharmonically as one of the above 12 notes and will be tuned as such.
2) Small notes (acciaccaturas and appoggiaturas) are not reported at all to the plugin and will be left untuned.

Scales is based on code initially written by lasconic.

Any comment, correction, suggestion is welcome!

Thanks,
M.

Attachment Size
Scales_plugin_0_2.zip 15.26 KB

Comments

• Feb 14, 2010 - 14:22

The idea and the implementation are very beautiful. Well, basically... ;-)

On practice, though, I had a problem. Please take a look at the attached file. I used a "natural" tuning that was mentioned in some very old books (last one in the temperament file), and applied it on a simple scale for experimentation. The result wasn't quite as expected. In the MuseScore included file there are two versions, the first is the plug-in's, the second manually adjusted. The difference isn't huge, really, but betrays a bug, all the same.

I would also suggest, if at all possible, the possibility of applying the tuning on a selection, rather than on the whole score.

Thanks.

Hosam Adeeb Nashed

Attachment Size
Temperaments.zip 1.6 KB

Reply

• Feb 15, 2010 - 10:48

Hi Hosam,

Thanks for your interest in the plugin and for spending time to test it.

Selection: I would crave to! However, MuseScore does not give plugins any info about the current selection, so it cannot be done right now. The issue is under discussion though, so it may come in the future.

Bug: Your attachment only contained one score and a temperament. Anyway, you are right, there were a bug which left a few notes unassigned when adding a new temperament.

I'll post soon version 0.3 which corrects this bug and takes advantage of the latest addition to the plugin API in the nightly build.

Thanks!
M.

Reply

• Feb 14, 2010 - 17:23

Thank you for this great plugin! I added it to the source repository so it will be available in the next release as part of the normal distribution.

Reply

• Feb 15, 2010 - 10:52

Thanks Werner, I'm honoured!

I already have a new version of the plugin (using your newest additions to the plugin API!) and I assume I will have to maintain it. Is the account on this forum enough or do I need a specific account to access the repository with write permission?

Thanks!
M.

Reply

• Feb 15, 2010 - 11:16

Currently the plugins are revisioned in the main MuseScore trunk. This is far from ideal for managing plugins, especially when MuseScore will branch starting from version 1.0. Any large project which deals with plugins uses a separate centralized repository or another option is to use decentralized versioning with centralized packaging.

We will need to start thinking about a better solution, which involves the ability to download plugins from musescore.org as a self installable package. The first step towards this solution is in place since one can make it's own plugin project on musescore.org. The second step is deciding how to manage the plugins in the repository, in relation with MuseScore branches and knowing that plugins also could be translated. The last step is implementing a plugin manager in MuseScore and offer downloadable plugin packages on musescore.org on their proper plugin project pages.

Reply

• Feb 17, 2010 - 00:24

You are probably right. My first attempt was the import of Scala's scales, whence the name. Also, in my own language (Italian), "scala" is also used with the meaning of temperament ("scala pitagorica", "scala zarliniana" and so on), so I oversaw the possibility that, in other languages, this association was missing.

I'll rename the plugin, but I will wait a little: I've been playing catch-up with the API syntax in the few nightly builds and I always lagged behind: better to wait for the API to stabilize a little...

Thanks,

M.

Reply

• Mar 12, 2016 - 13:57

Hello,

I am new to MuseScore and I find the software really exciting and promising. I am a vocalist of Byzantine Music and I would like to compose and play music on MuseScore using alternative temperaments. I am aware of the "Scales" plugin and have tried to use it. I 've downloaded the .zip file and unzipped it in the Plugins folder, as the README instructs. However, I have encountered a problem. When opening the Plugins Menu, the Scales plugin option is nowhere to be found. I have come to a conclusion, that there was supposed to be a Scales.qml file, which was not included in the .zip file.

Is this right, or is there another way to install the plugin?

Regards,
Demetris

Reply

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.