Syntoniq comes with a few built-in scales and allows you to define your own scales. It is not a goal of Syntoniq to support a wide range of built-in scales or to load scales from Scala files. Instead, you can define your own scales that map from a relative Syntoniq pitch to one or more note names. This is done using the define_scale directive. For authoritative documentation on Syntoniq directives, see Language Reference or run syntoniq doc. The define_scale directive has one required parameter, scale, indicating the scale name, and an optional cycle_ratio parameter, indicating what the "octave" markers do. The default for cycle_ratio is 2, indicating that ' and , change pitches by an octave, but you can set this to a different value for tritave-based scales or scales that cycle differently from an octave. The define_scale directive must be followed by a data block, which is delimited by << and >>. The data block contains pitches mapped to one or more note names. Each note is defined as a pitch followed by one or more note names.
As a reminder, the pitch ^1|5 would represent exactly a fifth of an octave because this notation means $2^{\frac{1}{5}}$. Using define_scale, you could define a 5-EDO scale with the notes p, q, r, s, and t like this example, which defines the scale and then plays one full cycle of the scale, repeating the first note an octave up.
syntoniq(version=1)
define_scale(scale="5-EDO") <<
^0|5 p
^1|5 q
^2|5 r
^3|5 s
^4|5 t
>>
use_scale(scale="5-EDO")
[p1.0] 1:p q r s t p'Here's an example of a scale with a cycle size other than an octave: the Bohlen-Pierce Scale. This scale divides the tritave, a ratio of 3/1, into 13 equal steps. This example defines the scale using the notes j through v for the steps. We call this "13-ED3", indicating 13 equal divisions of the ratio 3/1 (or just 3). This example shows how you can use a cycle size of other than an octave. We play a series of chords, followed by a pause, followed by the notes j and j', so you can hear that there is an octave and a fifth, not an octave because of the cycle mark. Here are some things to notice:
j through v, we defined xn where n is the step number.3^n|13 as the pitch for each $n$. The cycle ratio doesn't change the meaning of any individual pitch. It only changes what the cycle marks (' and ,) do to the pitches.xn versions of the note names. This is just to show that you can do it. Those notes could have been written starting with 1:m n o p q r s t and would have sounded the same.syntoniq(version=1)
define_scale(scale="13-ED3" cycle_ratio=3) <<
3^0|13 j x0 3^1|13 k x1 3^2|13 l x2
3^3|13 m x3 3^4|13 n x4 3^5|13 o x5
3^6|13 p x6 3^7|13 q x7 3^8|13 r x8
3^9|13 s x9 3^10|13 t x10 3^11|13 u x11
3^12|13 v x12
>>
use_scale(scale="13-ED3")
[p1.0] 1:j k l m n o p q 4:~
[p1.1] 1:x3 x4 x5 x6 x7 x8 x9 x10 ~ 3:j
[p1.3] 1:p q r s t u v j' ~ 3:j'Syntoniq comes with a few built-in scales to get you started. You can see them defined below for reference. The real power of Syntoniq comes not from using the built-in EDO scales but from using generated scales. There is a built-in generated scale called "JI", which we saw briefly in a previous section. Note that the note names in these scales contain the # and % symbols. In explicitly defined scales, #, %, +, -, and the other characters with special meanings in generated scales are just note characters. They are intended to carry semantic meaning, but the software doesn't treat them differently from anything other character. We could have replaced c# with c* or potato, and it would have meant the same thing. Also, notice that it is a bit painful to manually define high-EDO scales and decide what to call the notes. The next section discusses generated scales.
define_scale(scale="12-EDO") <<
^-1|12 c%
^0|12 c ^1|12 c# d%
^2|12 d ^3|12 e% d#
^4|12 e f%
^5|12 f e# ^6|12 f# g%
^7|12 g ^8|12 a% g#
^9|12 a ^10|12 b% a#
^11|12 b ^12|12 b#
>>
define_scale(scale="19-EDO") <<
^-1|19 c%
^0|19 c ^1|19 c# ^2|19 d%
^3|19 d ^4|19 d# ^5|19 e%
^6|19 e ^7|19 e# f%
^8|19 f ^9|19 f# ^10|19 g%
^11|19 g ^12|19 g# ^13|19 a%
^14|19 a ^15|19 a# ^16|19 b%
^17|19 b ^18|19 b#
>>
define_scale(scale="31-EDO") <<
^-2|31 c% ^-1|31 c-
^0|31 c ^1|31 c+ d%% ^2|31 c# ^3|31 d% ^4|31 d- c##
^5|31 d ^6|31 d+ e%% ^7|31 d# ^8|31 e% ^9|31 e- d##
^10|31 e ^11|31 f% e+ ^12|31 e# f-
^13|31 f ^14|31 f+ g%% ^15|31 f# ^16|31 g% ^17|31 g- f##
^18|31 g ^19|31 g+ a%% ^20|31 g# ^21|31 a% ^22|31 a- g##
^23|31 a ^24|31 a+ b%% ^25|31 a# ^26|31 b% ^27|31 b- a##
^28|31 b ^29|31 b+ ^30|31 b#
>>
define_generated_scale(scale="JI")