Open Tuning 1.5.1 review

Open Tuning is a Midi utility offering to MIDI and MIDI-fied polyphonic instrument players (such as pianists, guitarists and violinists) the ability to play and explore an unlimited number of virtual tunings without needing to retune their instrument each time.

License: Shareware OS: Mac OS X File size: 5732K Developer: Phi Software Buy Now Price: $29.00 Updated: 25 Aug 2005

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Open Tuning is a Midi utility offering to MIDI and MIDI-fied polyphonic instrument players (such as pianists, guitarists and violinists) the ability to play and explore an unlimited number of virtual tunings without needing to retune their instrument each time. The internal Mac OS X Audio-Unit DLS Soft-Synth (DLS for Downloadable Soundfont) can be chosen as MIDI destination of Open Tuning.

Here are some key features of "Open Tuning":
The built-in Mac OS X Audio-Unit DLS Soft-Synth can be chosen and played from within Open Tuning through a user-friendly interface
Tuning Presets Files included
Tuning Presets can be controlled by Program Change
Real-time processing thanks to Apple's CoreMIDI technology
User can freely configure and play simultaneously up to four instances of Open Tuning
Adds four internal MIDI ports (2Inx2Out) per instance for rewire with soft-synths as plug-ins or standalone applications
User can create its own tuning presets
Snapshot feature to store and recall a tuning preset
Help tags available over each user interface elements.

Limitations:
you can try it out with no feature restriction except that a short random MIDI sequence is played every minute.

What's New:
This a maintenance release fixing several bugs:
1) Putting tuning presets files in any other location than the following repertory:
~/Library/Audio/Presets/Open-Tuning/
Systematically crashed Open Tuning.
These tuning files can now be stored anywhere on any disk.
2) In some situations, Tiger won't create the Presets folder in the user library:
~/Library/Audio/Presets/
Open Tuning creates this folder at first launch-time if it doesn't exist.
3) The DLS Soft-Synth could sometimes appear as a long vertical window with a green background at the bottom of the window. At each launch, DLS Soft-Synth is now correctly displayed at the last onscreen position of the previous session and with its correct size.
Several other minor bugs.
Inside the "Open Tuning Prefs Folder", the Instances_Prefs file is now named Tuning_Prefs_Prefs.
Tuning_Prefs_Prefs and DLS_Prefs are now displayed with a standard icon.

Requirements:
Any Apple computer running Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later
Midi USB or Midi FireWire interface 1x1 minimum
A free USB or FireWire port to connect the Midi interface
Audio output for playing the internal Apple DLS Music Device (QuickTime Musical Instruments)

Supported hardware
Axon 60, 66, 70 and 100, Photon, Roland GI 10 and 20, Yamaha G50, Zeta Synthony II
Interfaces with built-in synth: Axon 100 SB, Roland GR synth line, Zeta Synthony II.