Infinitone Microtonal Saxophone

https://xerocraft.org/news/298-maker-interview-the-infinitone-and-the-notes-between-the-notes

by brudgers • 2 years ago

55 46 2 years ago

brudgers3• 2 years ago

Composition for the Infinitone here, https://youtu.be/56fLizLEn6Y?si=o20KmVemkuHid2RX

matheist2• 2 years ago

Interesting, see also the glissotar (https://glissonic.com/) for a purely analog variation. That one is more analogous to a fretless guitar (if the linked sax is more analogous to a guitar with adjustable frets).

jnichols35• 2 years ago

Wild that they may have come to basically the same design as the Moe[0].

It seems they reached out to Bart Hopkin when they were trying to patent it[1].

[0] https://barthopkin.com/instrumentarium/moe/

[1] https://barthopkin.com/more-moe/

matheist2• 2 years ago

Oh very neat, I didn't know about that! Thanks!

zengid2• 2 years ago

I was running to the comments to post this too. The Ininitone is an impressive mechanical achievement, but I think the glissotar has much more potential to catch on.

amadeuspagel3• 2 years ago

I made a web app to play microtonal music with touchscreens: https://slidesynth.com/

amelius4• 2 years ago

Cool. One issue: not all wave shapes play at the same volume.

amadeuspagel3• 2 years ago

That's due to clipping. For a sine or a triangle, you'll hear clipping at a volume where a sawtooth or square still sounds fine.

brudgers3• 2 years ago

Wilsonic is a microtonal tool by Ervin Wilson, https://wilsonic.co/

zengid2• 2 years ago

needs some mouse love too! very trippy!

mauvehaus2• 2 years ago

This seems like a lot of effort to go to to avoid buying a trombone.

(Former HS trombone player. Go ahead with the jokes, I love them because I've lived them)

pnathan• 2 years ago

As soon as I got a few lines in I was like,

"So, a trombone... with extra steps"

(Also if you want to slide, any fretless instrument is good! )

bitbckt• 2 years ago

As a current semi-pro trombonist, I had the same reaction.

Relevant aside: Alan Kaplan has been recording Jacob Collier transcriptions for his YouTube channel. Check out “Moon River”.

drewcoo• 2 years ago

Playing a trombone usually does not mean playing microtones in tune.

Imagine a greater-than-twelve-tone chromatic scale.

Or go listen to some Harry Partch. Partch's compositions sound to me more like gamelan than someone noodling on a trombone.

https://www.harrypartch.com/bio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQGvmaH-ce0

waffletower2• 2 years ago

Partch is a good recommendation -- with a fairly large focus on microtonal percussion -- but you do dismiss the trained trombonists who actually train and perform microtonal works. It isn't necessary to disparage a viable microtonal instrument to make your point.

waffletower2• 2 years ago

The infinitone appears to be more like a dynamically scaled instrument, unlike the trombone, which is influenced by electronic instruments such as the Kaossilator and Cosmovox.

bewaretheirs• 2 years ago

There have been a couple types of slide saxes made but for whatever reason they haven't really caught on..

This one has keys that are actuated by the slide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJU9Rm-KviI (The last third of the video has a narrative in French describing the instrument, photobombed by a set of four serpents hanging on the wall behind the speaker. A serpent is a instrument that is sort of the opposite of a slide sax: it combines a brass-style mouthpiece with woodwind-like fingerholes).

This one looks mechanically simpler but it's not conical bore like a real saxophone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjnrM3GZMS8

amelius4• 2 years ago

There are twelve semitones in every octave and they make up just about all the music we hear in the West today.

Is it just me, or is this strict division into semitones making e.g. piano music sound like it's slightly off-key at times?

mauvehaus2• 2 years ago

HN discussion of "The Saddest Thing I know about the Integers"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8682782

Original article is offline, it seems :-(

EDIT: archive.org to the rescue!

https://web.archive.org/web/20240123154411/https://blogs.sci...

amelius4• 2 years ago

Is there a video that demonstrates the difference?

jfengel• 2 years ago

Yep. There are many different ways to tune a piano, none of them perfect. A tuning that is just right for one key will leave real howlers in others. (Literally "howlers"; it's called a "wolf tone")

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_(music)

Actual pianos are usually tuned in a way that sounds pretty good most of the time, without ever sounding perfect.

singleshot_• 2 years ago

“Well-tempered” (yes, like the clavier).

IsTom• 2 years ago

Pianos are tuned differently, they use stretch tuning and will be pretty out of tune with other instruments at both lowest and highest notes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_tuning#/media/File:Rails...)

jojobas4• 2 years ago

It's the other instruments that are out of tune.

fernly• 2 years ago

You have a good ear, you are hearing the small errors inherent in "twelve-tone equal temperament"[1] which is a compromise between numerical ideals and practical instrument-making.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_equal_temperament

brudgers3• 2 years ago

Equal temperament is used to allow playing in arbitrary keys without retuning…for example D and E flat are equally in (and out of tune) with equal temperament. With Pythagorean or Just tuning, instruments are tuned to a specific key (or set of related keys).

Which is to say historically, equal temperament is mostly a result of compositional and performance concerns rather than manufacturing limitations.

card_zero• 2 years ago

The word saxophone comes from the Middle English sax, "knife", and the Ancient Greek phónos, "murder".

ogig• 2 years ago

The word comes from the surname of the inventor, Sax, and phono, sound.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Sax

contingencies2• 2 years ago

Hrrm. Looking at the electronics apparently it's an array of servos mounted to a tapered rectangular prism base geometry sheet metal chassis held together through welding. Listening to the recording they seem to 'click' audibly when closing off holes. I wonder if it would be feasible to introduce a non-clicky approach and/or a non-servo approach, for example by integrating on-PCB linear actuation and some form of non-metallic seal contact. Non-servo would also have the benefit of greatly reducing instrument weight. On-PCB would also have the benefit of greatly reducing cost, assuming a working mechanism can be found with adequate torque. Happy to offer what assistance I can if there's a contact point.

subhraag2• 2 years ago

Subhraag, the inventor of the Infinitone here! A friend of mine just told me about this thread. Please write to me at subhraag (at) infinitone.com. I made this instrument the way I did because it was within my skill set (and budget) to do so. I am absolutely open to collaboration to improve it.

contingencies2• 2 years ago

Cool project, I've reached out.

subhraag2• 2 years ago

Hey all, Subhraag, the inventor of the Infinitone, here. A friend of mine just saw this and told me about the thread. I'm happy to answer any questions..... The advantage of the Infinitone is that it can play ANY microtonal scale instantly (with little to no practice). The scale in this composition, posted earlier, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56fLizLEn6Y, is 128 harmonics within an octave. I basically "sight read" it for this recording (though the motors were triggered by MIDI). Try THAT on any other instrument :) We are about to release a software instrument called InfinitoneDMT... which gives instant, inspiring, dynamic access to a multiverse of vibrant new tonal possibilities using notes not available on a standard keyboard (https://infinitone.com). It will be coming out soon, hopefully this summer!

jojobas4• 2 years ago

Sounds like pulling teeth.

You can bend notes on a normal sax if you want. Maybe it's just my perception, the tune in the article and those linked here would be better if they just stuck to normal 12 notes.

BriggyDwiggs423• 2 years ago

In general I think microtonal music takes a bit of getting used to, and that most of it isn’t that good anyways because most of the good composers are on other stuff.

jojobas4• 2 years ago

Why would one want that kind of acquired taste?

You don't need to get used to Bach (or so I think), you know the good stuff on sight.

taneq• 2 years ago

I’m surprised not to see any mention of the Otamatone, a Japanese toy instrument with a bit of a cult following. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otamatone)

stevage2• 2 years ago

But you may be surprised to learn that the twelve musical tones that shape our very understanding of Western music today is extremely narrow.

Grammar aside, the twelve musical tones that comprise Western music are, well, the good ones. It's not like there are thousands of notes out there and we randomly picked 12 and didn't think about the rest. We picked the 12 best ones.

cyberme0w• 2 years ago

I find it a bit reductive to say equal temperament has 'the good [tones]'. I think 'the least bad tones' would probably be more accurate, in the sense that no matter what you are playing (i.e. which note(s)/scale(s) the piece is centered on), it'll sound fairly OK, even though some intervals are not what they should be.

It sounds pleasant to the ear because that's what most people hear all day. Other cultures have developed a slightly different relationship with harmony, leading to them considering other tones 'good'.

For a cheeky example of what I mean with 'the least bad tones', feel free to check this short demo by Jacob Collier[1], about just how out of tune equal temperament is.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGDWXe2u9kw

stevage2• 2 years ago

The fact that equal temperament is imperfect is a bit of a side issue. The 12 tone scale was settled well before that came along.

The fact that our 12 tones, which are mostly made of simple ratios of frequencies, sound good is not a coincidence.

Infinitone Microtonal Saxophone

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