editing pitch bend wheel's range

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editing pitch bend wheel's range

I can't figure out for the life of me how to modify the range of the pitch bend wheel on an Edirol (Roland) PCR-30 MIDI keyboard. It's set at at a range of 2 semi-tones and I would like to change it to an octave or even two. The only instruction I can find in the manual refers to a complicated 27-step routine using buttons that don't exist on the PCR-30 (such as SysEx and numeric keys).

Granted this is a basic MIDI rig, but the pitch bend ought to be user-definable. Any PCR-30 vets know the secret?

iMac 20 Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Nov 29, 2006 4:56 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 30, 2006 1:28 AM in response to John Dolan

The pitch bend is set in GarageBand, and is normally limited to 2 semitones. There is a way to increase this, but note that it does not work on GB instruments, only on Soundfonts and QuickTime Instruments.

I can't advise about your particular keyboard: most keyboards have some way of sending CC messages: for example my Evolution has a button marked 'Wheel Assign', and the M-Audio Keystations can use note keys in shifted mode as number keys. You need to see if you can find an equivalent. You then need to send CC128.

Now if you hold down a note and move the pitch bend to its maximum, if you then move the modulation wheel you will hear the pitch of the bent note change and you can set it to anything you want.

When you move to another track you may still get the same increased pitch and you may have to reset it if that's not what you want.

GarageBand will remember this instruction for that track during the session, but once you quit it will revert to 2 semitones and you will have to go through the process again - it will then work on the existing notes as before.

It's a bit of a kludge because GB was never designed to allow for this in the first pace.

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