Micron Piano is a Max for Live instrument with a microtonal piano sampler and 256-voice polyphony. Formally named Micronized Upright Piano, this device retunes piano samples in an n-EDO system and a variable tuning pitch. The sound samples were recorded from my 1927 Janssen upright piano. Each sample is tuned to either the octave or tritone and pitchshifted downwards filling in the chromatic scale. The event processing stage parses MIDI input into pitch and velocity values limited to the piano scale. The pitch values are sent to my Microtonal MIDI-to-Frequency component and are retuned according to the selected tuning system, tuning frequency, and chromatic mode. The velocity values are converted to a binary logarithmic scale and multiplied by the LEVEL value to control the sound sample’s amplitude. NATURAL sets a humanized variable, which is added to the MIDI velocity. The signal processing stage applies a compressor and an equalizer with customized parameters for the piano. This is followed by gain-staging for the make-up gain and the width and level parameters.

The pitch value is sent to the Microtonal MIDI-to-Frequency component comprising of a pitch formula, a modal formula, and a tonal formula. Pitch formula shifts the input pitch to calibrate the change of the tuning pitch. TUNE selects an integer as a tuning pitch congruent to the chromatic scale: C32Hz–B63Hz. Modal formula selects the chromatic MODE from the selected SYSTEM, then shifts the PITCH accordingly. SYSTEM selects the quantity of tones per register on a binary logarithmic scale: 12–36 tones. MODE selects the quality of tones through the mode of the chromatic scale parsed into the selected SYSTEM. PITCH selects the quantity of tones within the selected SYSTEM to be shifted upwards. Tonal formula converts the input pitch in the selected SYSTEM from a linear scale to a logarithmic scale and sets it to the TUNE integer.

The signal processing phase takes the audio signal outputs from the poly~ patch and sends it to the Compressor, where COMP sets the threshold. The compression amount above the threshold has a fixed ratio of 2:1 with a fast attack and slow release. These parameters are all fixed at a customized setting for this piano. The signal then goes to a low-pass filter with a -6dB slope with the TONE parameter setting the cutoff frequency. The signal finishes with a gain-staging setup. The STEREO parameter sets the amount of channel width from a full stereo sound to a mixed mono sound. There also is a custom setting for the compressor’s makeup gain following the gain-staging of STEREO.