no software instmts have lines for mod, pitchbend

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Level 1

29 points

no software instmts have lines for mod, pitchbend

One of the first things I accomplished in GarageBand 1 in OS 10.2 was to add a sax track to a demo song and tweak the modulation and pitchbend lines manually, to my great enjoyment. Fast forward to OS 10.4.6 and GB3. I add the same instrument to my own song, but now the modulation and pitchbend windows have no baseline. I can command-click and get a pencil icon, but the resulting endpoints produce a line alongside another one fixed at 0. Playback only seems to pay attention to the line at 0 (no modulation or pitchbend). Clicking on the main line produces no endpoints (just a green selection marqee), except when I hold down the command key, in which case I get endpoints for the track GB ignores. When I delete the editable track, the locked track disappears too. I tried replacing instruments that you'd think would bend pitch; no luck. The original demo song file to which I added the sax ("Shufflin' Piano Blues") has the pitchbend and modulation as I left it in GB1; it still sounds great. I can edit the lines in this song.

Question: what should I try now?

Posted on Jul 25, 2006 5:00 PM

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Answer 1

Rick_Wolff Author

Level 1

29 points

Jul 28, 2006 8:31 PM in response to Rick_Wolff

I feel like a real dope. I went to the Apple store, and made an instrument pitchbend successfully (a sax). It looks like I described before. That's how it works: it looks different from a volume control line. Why, I don't know. Why was I unable to get pitchbend to behave on my computer? Some instruments have pitchbend capabilities, and some don't -- according to the manufacturer's image, not the user's. How do you know which is which? Load each one and try it, apparently.
So beware: the pitchbend/modulation control looks similar to but not precisely like the volume control on the main track.

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Answer 2

HangTime

Level 9

53,841 points

Jul 28, 2006 8:37 PM in response to Rick_Wolff

How do you know which is which? Load each one and try it, apparently.

Pretty much .. or know how the real instrument works. For instance Piano's don't have pitchbend, thus the MIDI equivs don't either.

Glad to hear you figured it out (A "dope" wouldn't have been able to do so) --HT

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