Scala is a

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

software application with versions supporting

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

. It allows users to create and archive

musical scales In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale. Often, especially in the ...

, analyze and transform them with built-in theoretical tools, play them with an on-screen keyboard or from an external

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...

keyboard, and export them to hardware and software synthesizers. Scala can retune MIDI streams and files using pitch bend. It also supports MIDI sysex and file-based tunings. Originally a command-line program, Scala now uses the

GTK+ GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and proprie ...

GUI toolkit. Scala is written in the

Ada programming language Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, and object-oriented high-level programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages. It has built-in language support for '' design by contract'' (DbC), extremely strong typing, explic ...

, and is the work of Manuel Op de Coul of the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Scala can also be used as a midi sequencer, by way of its

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

-based sequencing format, ''seq''. Because of its great flexibility when it comes to tuning formats, it is a very powerful tool for those who want to compose and sequence

microtonal music Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of tw ...

. Scala's motto is , Latin for 'it finds and perfects' or 'it discovers and accomplishes'. Its logo is a

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

-style

relief print Relief printing is a family of printing methods where a printing block, plate or matrix, which has had ink applied to its non-recessed surface, is brought into contact with paper. The non-recessed surface will leave ink on the paper, whereas t ...

of a

cherub A cherub (; plural cherubim; he, כְּרוּב ''kərūḇ'', pl. ''kərūḇīm'', likely borrowed from a derived form of akk, 𒅗𒊏𒁍 ''karabu'' "to bless" such as ''karibu'', "one who blesses", a name for the lamassu) is one of the u ...

holding a

compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with ...

and a globe inscribed with a diatonic musical scale and a circle of fourths.

File formats

Scala can open, transform, and save standard MIDI files. It can also export MIDI tuning tables in .tun format. It provides a native, human-readable sequencing language (). But it is best known for its use of human-readable text files to store musical scales. The Scala scale file format has become a standard for representing microtonal scales in a way that can be used by other software. The Scala site lists over thirty applications that support the format, including several major commercial packages like Apple Logic 7, Celemony Melodyne 3, and

Cakewalk The cakewalk was a dance developed from the "prize walks" (dance contests with a cake awarded as the prize) held in the mid-19th century, generally at get-togethers on Black Slavery in the United States, slave plantations before and after End ...

Rapture.Rapture Microtuning and Alternative Tunings
/ref> Scala's developer also makes freely available an archive of over 4,000 Scala scale files, containing many musical scales of historical, cultural, and theoretical interest.

References

External links

Scala's home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scala (Program) Freeware MIDI Scorewriters Windows multimedia software MacOS multimedia software Linux audio video-related software Audio software that uses GTK

File formats

See also

References

External links