Manual

Chapter 40 Project Settings and Preferences 947
 Convenience: Retuning an instrument to a temperament that is better suited for a
particular piece of music is a hassle. Many instruments are not capable of being
alternately tuned (fretted string instruments, for example).
 Portability: All Western musical pieces can be performed (adequately) on an
instrument tuned to equal temperament. Obviously, some of the nuances may be
missing in pieces that were originally performed in another temperament.
What Is Hermode Tuning?
Hermode Tuning automatically controls the tuning of electronic keyboard instruments
(or the Logic Pro software instruments) during a musical performance.
In order to create clear frequencies for every fifth and third interval, in all possible
chord and interval progressions, a keyboard instrument would require far more than 12
keys per octave.
Hermode Tuning can help with this problem: it retains the pitch relationship between
keys and notes, while correcting the individual notes of electronic instruments—
ensuring a high degree of tonal purity. This process makes up to 50 finely graded
frequencies available per note, while retaining compatibility with the fixed tuning
system of 12 notes per octave.
How Hermode Tuning Works
Frequency correction takes place on the basis of analyzed chord structures.
The positions of individual notes in each chord are analyzed, and the sum of each
note’s distance to the tempered tuning scale is zeroed. In critical cases, different
compensation functions help to minimize the degree of re-tuning—at the expense of
absolute purity, if necessary.
As an example:
 The notes C, E, and G form a C Major chord.
 To harmonically tune these, the third (the E) needs to be tuned 14 cents higher (a
cent is 1/100th of a tempered semitone) and the fifth (the G), needs to be 2 cents
higher.
It should be noted that Hermode Tuning is dynamic, not static. It is continuously
adjusted in accordance with the musical content. This is done for the following reason:
As an alternative to tempered, or normal, tuning—fifth and third intervals can also be
tuned to ideal frequency ratios: the fifth to a ratio of 3:2, the major third to 5:4. Major
triads will then sound strong.
With clean (scaled) tuning, Hermode Tuning changes the frequencies to values that are
partly higher or partly lower.