Interactive System for Exploring Audiovisual Harmony

Today MIDI and the great majority of software and interfaces used for musical creation use the twelve-tone equal temperament as the only universally accepted intonation system. Equal temperament was established around the XVII century as a practical solution to the problem of tuning the acoustical instruments of that time[1]. Nevertheless, the freedom provided by software sound synthesis turns such an intonation criterion into something arbitrary, limiting and confusing. This freedom provides the possibility of creating new instruments and using a different intonation system, that allows us to profit from today’s technological potential. As engineering students we are used to base our comprehension of nature on mathematical models. Therefore, in view of the mathematical simplicity of its essence, we decided to experiment with just intonation in sound synthesis. Working with multiplication and division of frequencies in Reaktor3, we started to explore the infinite resolution of the frequency domain.

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