Lite and Pro

Here is Tune Smithy in action showing the fractal tunes - one of the features you get with the Bounce Metronome Pro license, which unlocks the "Play" level for Tune Smithy

Details of what you get:

The Lite key unlocks

• Chord Player - a "free with some restrictions" tool that lets you play any chord progression, just paste it in and you can play it. The Lite key unlocks it completely, with gradual tempo changes, scripting, and the option to create midi clips
• Retuning Midi file player - "free with restrictions" lets you play any midi file in any tuning, e.g. try out some of the many subtle colourings of authentic tunings for baroque and romantic classical music etc. The Lite key unlocks it completely with midi save, needed if you want to share your retuned midi clips with others.
• Your Lite unlock key for Bounce Metronome pro is the same as a "MIid Save" unlock key for Tune Smithy.

The Pro key unlocks all those and also:

• Fractal Player and Fractal Composer to make your own royalty free fractal music - if these are new to you, listen to some of the clips on the site to get an idea of what fractal music is like, or the demo (above).
   
• Tune Smithy is a much more versatile fractal tune generator than Bounce Metronome. For more about royalty free fractal music see Play and Create Tunes as intricate as Snowflakes.
• Metronome & Polyrhythms (though this is the older version of Bounce Metronome)
• It's the same as the "Play" unlock key for Tune Smithy.

This is a source for an endless variety of musical ideas - complex fractal flurries of tiny notes as intricate as snowflakes - and beautiful slow melodies - all as royalty free music to use as you wish.

Note: Because Tune Smithy is the older program, many of the rhythms and other features you can use in Bounce Metronome Pro are not available yet in the Tune Smithy fractal tunes. This will be addressed in the next release of Tune Smithy 4.x.

The Complete key unlocks everything in Tune Smithy

This includes composition retuning, music keyboard retuning and the Lambdoma Diamond Keyboard (based on harmonics and subharmonics). See Complete.

When will Tune Smithy get upgraded?

See the forum post: Plans for upgrade of Tune Smithy to 4.x. If you want to be notified when I complete the release, contact support@robertinventor.com

Where do I find it?

Download Tune Smithy to get the fractal tunes and other features. You can unlock them with the same keys you use for Bounce Metronome Pro.

• Your Lite key unlocks the Tune Smithy MIDI SAVE level
• Your Pro key unlocks the Tune Smithy PLAY level

You can find the various tasks in the Tasks menu in Tune Smithy

Complete

Here is Tune Smithy in action showing it in use for composition retuning, one of the features you get with the Complete license

The Complete key unlocks everything, so it also unlocks:

•  Music Keyboard Retuning - lets you use your midi keyboard as a hugely versatile microtonal instrument. Includes region splits so you can divide your keyboard into any number of regions each with its own instrument, tuning etc. E.g. left half of keyboard with one tuning and right half with another etc. 
• Composition Retuning - lets you retune any composition into any tuning. Again hugely versatile. Composers use it to retune all forms of compositions into microtonal tunings including symphonies for full orchestras. 
• Audio Pitch Tracer (though this has a steep learning curve at present)
• Lambdoma Keyboard #tab2- this is an interesting keyboard layout originating in Pythagorous - a rectangular keyboard with every row playing a harmonic series (major flavour type chords) and every column playing a subharmonic series (minor flavour type chords) or vice versa. With just intonation so the purest possible harmonies.
• Lambdoma Music Therapy - form of music therapy originating in work of Barbara Hero, based on playing pure musical harmonies, accompanied with visual display of Lissajous patterns. 

Note - Tune Smithy is still at version 3.x. So some features of the interface you may be familiar with in Bounce Metronome, which help make it so easy and intiutive to use, aren't yet available in Tune Smithy. This will be addressed when I update it to version 4.x. See How easy is it to use.

The Lambdoma Music Therapy has already been updated, is ready for release, and will be available on-line soon.

Why should I be interested in the retuning features?

The keyboard and composition retuning tasks in Tune Smithy are of special interest to anyone who uses pitches outside the gamut of the twelve equally spaced notes of the modern "Western" music scale.

That includes the mellow just intonation tunings, historical temperaments from Bach to Chopin temperaments, Indian music, Arabic Maqams, Thai, Japanese, Pygmie and other African tunings, Jazz,... the list goes on and on. You may well find this feature useful even if you don't call yourself a "microtonalist".

Where do I find it?

Download Tune Smithy.

• Your Complete key unlocks the Tune Smithy COMPLETE level

You can find the various tasks in the Tasks menu in Tune Smithy

When will Tune Smithy get upgraded?

See the forum post: Plans for upgrade of Tune Smithy to 4.x. If you want to be notified when I complete the release, contact support@robertinventor.com

Free

These features of Tune Smithy are completely free for everyone:

• Scale Composer - this is for microtonalists who want to make new scales or explore scales already made - companion to SCALA.
• Sounds Harmonic Analysis - super accurate spectrum analyser. It's maybe not so easy to use as other spectrum analysers, but it is of interest to microtonalists since the results it gives can be so accurate even for very short notes.
• Mouse & PC Keyboard music - use your PC keyboard as a microtonal musical instrument. Easy to use with lots of presets to get you started.
• Calculator with special Microtonal features - useful if you want to do calculations involving ratios, cents etc.
• Chord Player - a tool that lets you play any chord progression, just paste it in and you can play it (though you can also do this in Bounce Metronome) - free apart from midi clips save, gradual tempo changes and scripting, which requires the Lite  unlock key.
• Retuning Midi file player - lets you play any midi file in any tuning, e.g. try out some of the many subtle colourings of authentic tunings for baroque and romantic classical music etc - free apart from midi clips save which requires the Lite unlock key.

Where do I find them?

Download Tune Smithy. You can find the various tasks in the Tasks menu in Tune Smithy

How easy is it to use?

Some of  the features of Tune Smithy are as easy to use as Bounce Metronome. Others, especially the Audio Pitch Tracer have a steep learning curve.

Next version of Tune Smithy should help

Easy to use features

Intermediate features

Your unlock key includes all future versions

And friendly help

Review in SoS

Here is what Martin Walker says about the Tune Smithy fractal tunes in Sound on Sound:

"The final stage in the journey is the Fractal Tune — a combination of Scale, Arpeggio and Musical Seed, plus a choice of one or more instruments across multiple MIDI channels. Using the Play button now generates continuous, ever-changing tunes based on your settings. If you want impressionistic flurries and cascades of notes, try 'rushes blown in a storm' or 'echo effects in rests'. More extreme examples include 'Fibonacci rain shower', the unsettling 'Paleolithic field recording', and 'bird calls with Afro-Caribbean percussion'.

Don't go away thinking FTS can only generate avant-garde meanderings for classical and jazz buffs. Although many of the offerings are 'off the beaten track', they may still inspire new songs, while others, such as 'string quintet' and 'shakuhachi and koto' are gently melodic, and still others (such as 'resting in the shade') create floating backdrops. You can also explore the more rhythmically-based offerings, such as the improvised 'percussion medley' and 'non-repeating bongos'."

Sound on Sound October 2004

That's the bonus you get with the Pro license.

Here is what Martin Walker says about the microtonal features:

"The most important additional feature is its ability to retune any MIDI synth to a completely new scale tuning. It does this using standard pitch-bend data to create notes that sit 'between' those of normal equal-tempered tuning.

There's a huge number of scales to choose from. The default list contains 32 options, including standard 12-tone equal temperament, plus 15-tone to 31-tone equal tempered, just temperament, and various ethnic and folk tunings, such as Gamelan from Indonesia and Java, Japanese Koto, West African Xylophone and Indian Raga. Further drop-down lists cover historical and modern twelve-tone scales, bagpipes, Idiophones, and even wind chimes. So if you want to play a keyboard in the authentic tuning that Bach or Mozart would have used, you can.

The handy Play button above the drop-down Scale menu auditions an octave's worth of your selection, and you can also play in real time from your keyboard in both monophonic and polyphonic modes (this is termed MIDI Relaying). The MFX version lets Sonar and Cubase SX users patch FTS in as a real-time effect; you could use MIDI Yoke or a similar utility to do the same in other sequencers.

Various note mappings are used to make it easier to play unusual scales from a normal keyboard. For example, the Japanese koto has just six notes per octave, and these have been mapped onto the white notes, with the black notes generally identical in tuning to the next highest white note. Within a few seconds I was playing what sounded (to me!) like authentic Japanese music."

Sound on Sound October 2004

That's what most users get the Complete unlock key for - to explore and use those tunings from their keyboard or for composition retuning.