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Tuning

Particle Chimes can retune away from standard 12-note equal temperament. Pick one of four built-in tuning systems, or import a Scala (.scl) file. Tuning lives under TUNING, in the same settings sheet as the performance ribbon's key and scale.

Built-in tunings

To retune, tap a chip in the tuning row:

  • STANDARD: tuning off. The performance ribbon's normal 23-scale system runs in plain 12-tone equal temperament.
  • 12-TET: 12-tone equal temperament, tunable to a reference pitch other than 440 Hz.
  • Just Major: 5-limit just intonation, a 7-note scale.
  • Pythagorean: the 12-note Pythagorean tuning (stacked pure fifths).
  • Bohlen-Pierce: a non-octave tuning, 13 steps to the tritave (3/1) instead of 12 steps to the octave.

Reference pitch

With any tuning besides STANDARD active, a REF · A4 = n Hz slider appears: 415 to 466 Hz in 1 Hz steps, default 440 Hz. It retunes the whole instrument, including the drone, in real time as you move it.

Importing a Scala file

Tap Load .scl… and pick a Scala .scl file. A valid one becomes an extra tuning chip, active immediately, labeled with the file's own name. Anything that doesn't parse as a proper Scala file shows an inline error: "Not a readable Scala .scl file." A tuning has to arrive as a file; there's no way to paste tuning text directly.

How tuning interacts with the scale

The 23-scale chip grid on the KEY popover only makes sense over a 12-note tuning. When the active tuning divides its period into something other than 12 steps (Just Major has 7, Bohlen-Pierce has 13, and a custom .scl might have any count) the scale chips gray out and a caption tells you the scale is set by the tuning. 12-TET and Pythagorean both still divide into 12, so the scale grid stays live and composes normally on top of them: "Dorian in Pythagorean" works. The root picker stays live under every tuning, including the non-12 ones.

The performance ribbon and the AUTO player always read the same composed key/scale/tuning, so switching a tuning on retunes both at once. They never drift apart.

FREE mode stays 12-TET

The ribbon's FREE mode glides continuously and isn't quantized to a scale. It keeps plain 12-tone semitone spacing even when a microtonal tuning is active. NOTES, TEXTURE, and the FIXED theremin column all snap to the tuning's own note ladder. FREE doesn't.

MTS-ESP

While any tuning is active, Particle Chimes also connects to MTS-ESP, the shared microtonal-tuning standard other apps and plugins can broadcast to. If a live MTS-ESP master is present, it takes over the pitches. With no master present, the instrument falls back to whichever tuning you've selected locally.

What gets saved

  • Standalone app: your tuning choice, reference pitch, and any imported .scl are remembered on the device across launches, but they are not part of a saved sound. Sharing or reloading a .json preset doesn't carry your tuning with it. Tuning is a device-wide setting, not a per-sound one.
  • As an AUv3: tuning is captured in the host's own session save. Save your DAW project and reopen it, and you get back the exact tuning bank, reference pitch, and any custom .scl you had loaded.