In case you didn’t catch the latest from WikiLeaks, the H-Pi software web pages have been updated with new layouts and graphics, and the software purchase pages have been consolidated into one new software uber-page.

Also, if you tried to view the H-Pi website between about 7:30 PM EST July 27 and 5:30 PM EST July 28, you would have been greeted with a 404 Error. The website was unavailable during that time interval, about 22 hours down. Any emails sent to @h-pi.com addresses during that time should be sent again. My apologies for the outage and any inconvenience this may have caused.

There have recently also been some issues with @h-pi emails getting lost in cyberspace, so I have started using a gmail account in order to communicate more reliably. That address is h [ dot ] pi [ dot ] instruments ( at ) gmail [ dot ] com. Keep in touch!

I get a lot of questions by email. Sometimes for tech support I’ve used Yahoo Messenger chat. A problem with that is, people who don’t already use Messenger have to download the software, set up an account, etc., and not everyone wants to do that. So, I decided it would be useful to have a custom web-based chat that would be easy to use for anyone who is online. The result is H-Pi Live Chat, a reasonably robust chat client I developed from a bare-bones open source chat project aptly named microchat.

At the login screen, you’ll find one of three greetings:

1. I’m online and available to chat
2. I’m online, but I’m helping someone else
3. I’m offline, but you can login anyway if you like

Live Chat allows any number of people to login, so it’s actually a chat room that can be used for conferencing. As the owner, I can lock out new logins at any time. Also, logins are announced, so there’s no a danger of a lurker listening in covertly. So, for example, if you are in a band of four members called The Four Tuning Geeks, and you all want to chat, we can all login, I can lock it, and we can have a semi-private conversation.

I say "semi-private", because the chat connection is unencrypted, open and public. If someone really wanted to eavesdrop, they could find a way to do it. Since I imagine you are probably not in the habit of shouting out your credit card numbers when discussing tuning issues, I think we’re all pretty safe.

Well, that’s enough blathering … Give it a try!

It was recently brought to my attention that the H-Pi website had some serious navigation and display issues when viewed on Windows machines running Internet Explorer 8, and I’m happy to hereby proclaim that those issues have been resolved … unless you find more problems.

Even though IE works (again) now as far as I can tell, I recommend PC users switch to Safari for Windows. It looks better and works better than IE. If you don’t want to install an Apple product, please try switching to Firefox. Both Safari and Firefox are superior to IE in both display and overall performance.

Website feedback is appreciated. Recently I took some time to improve the site in some general ways. Please remember that I code everything on the website, and if you see a problem, I want to know about it as soon as possible. Thanks!

Taken at a Board of Trustees presentation at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, June 14, and sent to me from renowned experimental guitarist and head of the Berklee microtonal music club, David Fiuczynski, we see in the above photo, pictured from left, David Fiuczynski (a.k.a. Fuze), Berklee President Roger Brown and keyboard student Takeru Yamazaki.

The green TPX4s keyboard belongs to Takeru. On top of the keyboard is what looks like a Korg mini-KP (KAOSS Pad). I’m told the event included a performance involving Tonal Plexus keyboards, and I hope to have some more details to share soon. Thanks for the photo, Fuze!

I was pleased recently when Tonal Plexus owner Aaron Wolf alerted me to Automat, a free Audio Unit synthesizer for Mac OSX which has implemented full dynamic retuning support for Tonal Plexus TPX keyboards, as well as .tun 1.0 support for compatibility with CSE and conventional keyboards.

Tonal Plexus owners can open Automat as a plugin in any AU host application (GarageBand, Logic, DP, Reaper, etc.) and tune it up dynamically with the Plexus on-the-fly, without loading any tuning tables at all. This is the same GM microtuning functionality implemented in the commercial software Pianoteq which I’ve been raving about lately.

The same is true for TBX1 owners. You can send MIDI out from your controller to TBX1, and send that TUNED output to Automat (or Pianoteq), for dynamic retuning without tuning tables.

Or, you can retune your conventional keyboard in Automat using tuning tables; just use CSE to create your tunings and export them as .tun files to the following location:

~/Library/Audio/Presets/alphakanal/Automat1/tunings

(where ~ means YourHardDrive/Users/YourUserName)

Then just select your tuning in Automat, and you’re good to go.

Note for U-PLEX users: you need to have a serious AU host such as Logic, DP, or Reaper in order to use Automat or Pianoteq as AU plugin synths for dynamic retuning. Apple’s entry-level sequencer, GarageBand, does not allow you to select the MIDI input; instead, all MIDI inputs are active. As a result, U-PLEX won’t produce tuned output in GB; however, TPX keyboards can be used with GB just fine.

It would be great if the .tun 2.0 standard were implemented in Automat, so that .msf would be supported, allowing U-PLEX to be used with Automat in GarageBand. Until then, Mac U-PLEX users should invest a little more in a professional AU host.