MICROTONE 5000, new free Microtonal (Micronal / Xenharmonic) synth VST. 64-bit Windows

  VST3:  DOWNLOAD MICROTONE 5000, + manual + microtonal primer. 8.2 megs.

  VST2:   DOWNLOAD MICROTONE 5000, + manual + microtonal primer. 8.3 megs.

Latest version: v0.91 (April 16, 2023). FIXED TUNING PICKER PROBLEM. If you’ve used this VST before, please read the text doc in the zip for old users.

 

Watch the YouTube walk-through with sounds and settings

Album performed entirely with this VST and some drum machines

(Get bland interface versions here…just white text on black background, Zen / Goth)

MICROTONE 5000 is the easiest Microtonal (Micronal) synth to use. Yet it is robust, and will give you power. New From BipTunia Synths. Will work on any DAW.

MICROTONE 5000 is a Windows 64, VST3 (also VST2) Polyphonic analog-style synth with 5000 microtonal tunings (also has western 12-TET setting), 128 presets (also can be user configured), 2 oscillators, 2 filters, 1 LFO, 7 LFO assigns, and 6 voices. It has very low CPU usage.

Q. What’s the difference between this and the dozens of other synthesizer VSTs out there?

A. A normal synth will make notes that use 12-tone western scale. This uses options of over 5000 alternate, from ancient Greek, to Bulgarian, to recent modern ones, to things like dividing the octave into 16 notes (or 5 or 20 or 17) even notes instead of 12.  This one actually also has 12-tone western scale as an option (12 TET, 12-Tone Equal Temperament), but it’s only one of 5377 total options.

Street Date: April 2, 2023. Initial release version: 0.9. VST ID: MT5T. Mfg ID: BIPT. Website: biptunia.com

MICROTONE 5000 is the best free microtonal VST synth in the world.

You’ll have to use the picker to find the tunings file inside the VST file on your hard drive.

IF YOU EVER GET AN ERROR where you can’t close and/or use anything on the synth, it has not crashed, it is just looking in the wrong folder. This happens usually if you rename a file path that includes the VST. If this happens just look for the “MidiPlayer2” error message in your system tray, click on OK, and close it.

Ready to step outside the constraints of the 12-tone Equal Temperament Western Scale? That’s been used for everything from the Baroque era to the Ramones. That’s good music, but narrowly constrained. It’s also used for everything good and horrible on popular radio.

But always why divide the octave into 12 equal parts? That’s so square. We have divisions in our synth by all numbers, from 4 EDO (4 equal divisions of octave) to 313 per octave. Many of these tunings don’t even use octaves.

We also included ancient Greek and current folk scales from Scotland, Japan, Indonesia, Iran, Lithuania, Germany, and dozens of other countries. You can use Bach’s Just Intonation (and many other Just Intonations, all file names start with ji.) And hey, if you want to play in 12-tone equal temperament to jam along with some Pink Floyd or Ramones or (whatever’s on the charts this week), pick the 12 TET tuning, or use the second preset (002), “Western 12 TET.”

Microtonal / Xen (xenharmonic) music is explained, along with tutorials on music in general, in the PDF documents in the included folder, written by microtonal / xenharmonic star Sevish and used with permission. He also made some of the included tunings.

Microtonal music may seem “out of tune” at first, but after not much listening, it will start to make sense. You’ll even find your favorite tunings/ scales/ tonalities. I’d recommend if you’re new to this that you spend some time listening to this Microtonal Playlist on Spotify on Shuffle. It has almost 1500 microtonal songs by many artists in many microtonal tunings, and in many genres.

 

SPECIAL THANKS:

Jef McClintock of SynthEdit, and these SynthEdit users who helped me learn this stuff: Chris Roberson, Peter Buick, H Spook John, Gijs de Mik, Sigi Asta, Davidson Carpenter, YUGEN, Davidson Carpenter, and Michael Berendes.

If you enjoy this VST, and please tell two friends.

ABOUT THE NAME

I considered both “Microtonal 5000” and “Microtone 5000.” I did polls online. Was nearly split down the middle. Tie breaker was Google’s Bard AI:

LEGAL: 

Made with SynthEdit.

All BipTunia synths are free and BipCot NoGov license, v1.2

This allows use and re-use by anyone except governments and government agents.

https://bipcot.org

 

“VST” is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.

BipTunia Synths has been licensed for VST SDK use by Steinberg. Agreement countersigned by Steinberg on August 23, 2018.

If you want to help out, you can listen to or buy one of my albums for you or a friend, on BandCamp, or any of these services:

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