What file format does timidity's -Z (or --freq-table) option require?

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to use the "-Z" (or "--freq_table") option of timidity to assign specific frequencies to midi note numbers, but there is no clear documentation online.]

How do I specify a frequency table for timidity?

Answer 1

The file is a list of 128 integers -- each of which is the frequency of the corresponding midi note in miliHertz. The first line gives the frequency for midi note 0, the next for midi note 1 and so on.

For A440, 12-tone equal temperament, lines 65-72 (inclusive) would be:

--lines 1-64 (midi notes 0-63) snipped >>
# next is midi 64
329628   
349228
369994
391995
415305
# next is midi 69
440000  
466164
493883
-- lines 73-128 (midi notes 72-127) snipped >>

The file can contain comment lines that start with a # character; note that placing a comment after an entry will cause problems, i.e.

414305
440000  # a comment like this will cause problems
466164

I think that putting comments after the entry causes the whole line to be ignored but I haven't tested this.

The following python snippet spits the file for A440, 12TET:

    f0=440.0
    midi0=69
    print "# A440 12-TET"
    for i in xrange(128):
        print int( f0*2.0**( (i-midi0)/12.0 )*1000+0.5 )

To have octave repetition of the same table do something like

    table=[1.0, 16.0/15, 9.0/8, 6.0/5, 5.0/4, 4.0/3, 45.0/32, 3.0/2, 8.0/5, 5.0/3, 16.0/9, 15.0/8]
    f0=440.0
    midi0=69
    print "# A440 just intonation"
    for i in xrange(128):
        (octave, index)=divmod( i-midi0, len(table) )
        print int( 2**octave*table[index]*f0*1000+0.5)