Level 1

135 points

Separate Pitch Bend Controls for Individual Notes

Here's what I want to do:

Have a bunch of faders on a control surface, each controlling pitch bend of a particular note of an exs24 instrument for example

this would allow me to create and edit custom scales in real time

Anyone know how?

-Ben

17" MB Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Jan 2, 2009 12:41 AM

27 replies

Jan 4, 2009 6:24 AM in response to Bee Jay

Bee Jay
I think that this question is only theoretical...

Are you sure to understand what bschaaff needs to doo...

I'm not sure when

bschaaff wrote:
this would allow me to create and edit custom scales in real time

Usually the Custom scale should be intended as "temperate Scale" with different tuning!!! (this has nothing to do with Pitch Bend and Portamento)

So the therms must be correct to understand

the Pitch bend is a Wheel that cannot be used for make a Glissando!

The Portamento is the one for do that.....

I'm not sure to understand well the point of bschaaff... and you?

G

Bee Jay

Level 6

10,900 points

Jan 4, 2009 6:39 AM in response to Community User

If he doesn't want to do microtuning, and just wants to adjust regular scales just by semitones, then the OP's insistence on using pitch bend is the wrong way to do it, and is just making life more difficult 😉

Logic could do this quite easily within one instrument, just by setting up some transformers to transpose notes in realtime and using controllers to offset the transformers.

This is far more workable than using pitch bend (I had assumed the OP wanted to to microtuning because of the mention of pitchbend (which was one way to do microtuning back in the early days of MIDI, within certain limitations).

So which is it - tuning individual notes by semitones, or tuning by smaller than semitones?

Jan 4, 2009 6:39 AM in response to bschaaff

yeaaaaaaaahhhh 🙂

Maybe I understand the problem
you need to go in the song setting preference/ recording

you JUST need to Auto demix by channel your Midi incoming events

G

Jan 4, 2009 6:46 AM in response to Bee Jay

There are particular ethnic instruments with strange dissonat scales...

Indian Shenai or Sitar , African Kalimba... wood flutes... Scottish bagpipes
Wonderful instruments when recorded with a Neuman

😉

Bee Jay

Level 6

10,900 points

Jan 4, 2009 6:46 AM in response to Community User

I know what a scale is, thanks.

Jan 4, 2009 2:53 PM in response to bschaaff

Simple answer really . . . pitch bend is assignable by channel. I doubt there is any way around this.

RW

Jan 4, 2009 3:09 PM in response to Rick Whitelaw

yes... is assignable...

I have a master Keyboard that allow mw to set off pitch bend on ALL MIDI channels...
except for I.E. Channel 5!
it will send the pitchbend contol (or any other) only on Channel 5! (And I can also assign to a MIDI pedal the pitch bender function!

In Logic there is a Environment Object ... called "Transformer" that can be used to transform any INPUT midi control to another one that goes only on a specific MIDI channel!!!
(you can transform VOLUME Input to Pitchbend Output)

you can do that even if you don't have a Professional Master Keyboard!

G

Jan 5, 2009 9:50 AM in response to Community User

Yes, yes . . . we all know this. However, no matter how you re-channel or transform, pitch bend is transmitted by channel and not by pitch value.

Bee Jay

Level 6

10,900 points

Jan 5, 2009 9:58 AM in response to Rick Whitelaw

Correct, and this is why to use pitchbend to microtune individual notes, you have to divide things across multiple MIDI channels and multiple instruments to get all notes to act independently, as I've already gone into details about in my above post.

If it's just whole-note offsets, there isn't a problem, because you do it by transposing note values, not by using any channel messages.

Anyway, not much more can be said on this until the OP posts back.

bschaaff Author

Level 1

135 points

Jan 6, 2009 12:40 AM in response to bschaaff

Thank you so much to everyone who has posted. You guys have been a great help in getting this project rolling.

I was able to set up 16 instances of the same EXS instrument and have 16 faders on my control surface control pitch bend for each of 16 notes, and I can do some really cool stuff with this. However there are still some limitations I have:

1) Having 16 different instrument tracks is cumbersome. Ideally I would do this with only one instrument track, though I don't know if this possible.

2) I am limited to the EXS24 sampler. If I tried this w/ an ES2 for example, my RAM would not be able to handle it.

3) The number of unique pitch bends I can have is limited to 16.

If there are any more suggestions out there regarding these limitations, please let me know. I do want to do microtuning, which is why I must use pitch bend. Also, I consider myself to have a pretty good understanding of the environment and transformers.

My next step, aside from overcoming these limitations, is to set up the 16 notes w/ an arpeggiator, which I have already started a separate post for. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1852360&tstart=15

Even if not all the responses in this thread were what I was looking for, they have helped me deepen my understanding of Logic. So thank you, everybody!

Bee Jay

Level 6

10,900 points

Jan 6, 2009 1:15 AM in response to bschaaff

1) Having 16 different instrument tracks is cumbersome. Ideally I would do this with only one instrument track, though I don't know if this possible.

As already said, your use of pitch bend means you have to use multiple instances. If the EXS24 was multitimbral, you could do 16 MIDI channels on one instrument, but it is not.

2) I am limited to the EXS24 sampler. If I tried this w/ an ES2 for example, my RAM would not be able to handle it.

The EXS24 uses more RAM than the ES2. Perhaps you are thinking of the CPU requirements.

) The number of unique pitch bends I can have is limited to 16.

Per MIDI port. To use more, you will have to go across multiple MIDI ports. You can do this in Logic, but you will need to rig the environment to bypass the sequencer input object, which has a one-port 16-channel bottleneck.

bschaaff Author

Level 1

135 points

Jan 6, 2009 1:27 AM in response to Bee Jay

The EXS24 uses more RAM than the ES2. Perhaps you are thinking of the CPU requirements.

You're right. I am thinking of the CPU requirements.

Per MIDI port. To use more, you will have to go across multiple MIDI ports. You can do this in Logic, but you will need to rig the environment to bypass the sequencer input object, which has a one-port 16-channel bottleneck.

Cool. I think I know how to do this.

Thanks Bee Jay.

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Separate Pitch Bend Controls for Individual Notes