my first question is about equal temperment of the chromatic, scale.

i read there is 13 notes in the chromatic scale, with the first note as c or unison and then 13 is octave c, is this true ? now im reading there is 12 tones in a chromatic scale can someone please explain the best of their knowing to set the story straight.

also, what exaclty does equal temperment actually imply, that all notes on the scale are split up exactly with the same amount of divisions between, where does the octave cut in half, i found charts that have equal spacing between notes and charts that have smaller slices, do these represent the sharp notes or black keys ? this is for just plain old piano tuning no fancy magical healing scales or anything.

i keep running into this equation, it would be lovely if i knew what it meant but this is what i think it means. N(f) = (12/ln(2))*ln(f/27.5)
and other variations of this equation for piano and synthesizer tuning,

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my next question is, would i be better off learning to tune this scale, or using something more modern like solfeggio or something with pure harmonics, because the chromatic scale sacrifices harmonics for the ability to play anything in any key, they say its to make music easy, i think its stupid, the more i learn about this stuff, the more , i abandon traditional ideas about music. but i like a challenge, hope someone can help guide me on the right path.

peacce

i'm no expert, by any means, but here's my take.

equal temperament was proposed to get "true" tuning. when you pitch, you are modifying frequencies. equal temperament (from my understanding) gives you EXACT chromatic tuning.

however, that doesn't mean that triads / chords (etc) played in equal temperament will actually sound good, because, again, you are messing around with the frequencies of individual notes.

chromatic tuning is more like shorthand, getting the notes as close to being perfectly in tune, while still guaranteeing that they'll sound consonant when played in chords, etc. so its based on the chromatic scale, but is more aligned with the overall than the precision of each note.

but again, i'm just some hack, so this just my understanding.

so to map out 12 notes to make a sample bank for the sp it is just a matter of preference, because 12 notes of an octave is pretty much useless, do you think it would be better to use a chromatic scale or skip out the black keys and use a diatonic scale, i also heard there is 12 notes in a solfeggio scale with no octaves, but im not quite buying into the magic tuning fruequencies because coming from a non technical un educated musical background i know that when tuning instruments you dont need a tuner just go to what sounds right, i think i almost figured it ouut, i might go equal temperment chromatic and skip the ugly keys and throw in more harmonic keys from the lower and higher octaves to fill up the omitted ugly notes.