Doel:

You are very right. It is something I can and should do. I apologize for any inclination I have to take my frustration out on you. I should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath. Thanks for making me realize this.

A little OT: I am presently involved in re-writing the front end to a database and have gone the loooong way around back to the type of front end that I started with. The other types just did not have the features I was hoping for regardless of the work-arounds that I tried. I am concerned that MS will do some kind of update in the future that will make what I have now perform in unexpected ways. It has happened before especially with Autocad, which I need to unwrite from most of the front end. The original needs some other modifications, anyway. Programming is something I can and should do, but not something I enjoy...

Anyhoo, if (sigh, when... ) I rewrite the simulator I will try to make it a standard .exe file that anyone can use.

In case anyone is interested:

The double octave sequence just wasn’t working all that well and a particular Gulbransen spinet really put me through the wringer! So now I am back to tuning a D3-A4 temperament.

I thought I would prefer a double octave temperament because it would give me usable chromatic M3s below or straddling the break. It does, but they are not as useful as I thought, especially when dealing with poorly wound strings. Having even just one note below the break is helpful, though. And if the break is below D3, the break isn’t going to be much of a problem anyway.

But I noticed a pair of checks available toward the beginning of the sequence that I didn’t notice before. Starting from A4, if you go down a 5th, down a 5th, up an 8th you end up at G4 and have an 11th (octave and 4th) with D3. Likewise from D3, if you go up a 5th, up a 5th, down an 8th you end up at E3 and have an 11th with A4.

So here is a pair of 11ths one whole step apart that completes a self-checking circular mini-temperament (as does a set of CM3s…) which includes a dependable 8 bps RBI (M6 G3-E4). Theoretically, these 11ths should be wide and have a slow beat. But, since the partial match is 8:3, iH can have a big say in what actually happens. Just how much and in what direction iH affects the 11th may be a bit unpredictable, but if it howls like a banshee or if they beat very differently without transiting a scaling change, then there is room for improvement. They should end up virtually pure.

Btw the RBI test for an 11th is m6/M6.