Modulation Wheel

[spagbol]

Hi, A dumb question.
How do i use modulation wheel? I can't seem to get it to control modulation of anything.
Or just point me to a tutorial, if one exists

[login]

First it has to be assigned in the instrument.

[spagbol]

Thanks for the answer. Only one thing, I don't find how to do that. Would you care to expand?

[login]

Depends on the instrent, for example in the glibal section of Operator you cam choose the tatget for some modulation sources as the MW and aftertouch.

You have to consult the instrument manual to see how to do it, all instruments do it in different ways.

[yur2die4]

On the Push, hold the Select button (bottom right, near shift) and tap the strip. It'll be in Mod mode.

You'll be able to tell because the LEDs don't bounce back to center when you touch it.

As of v9.2, many of Live's preset instrument racks have modulation.

[spagbol]

Thanks for your replies.
I figured it out with your pointers and once Id started to look at VST instruments.
After buying Push last December, Ive only just gotten around to really starting to spend any time learning it. During this hiatus, i'd forgotten about VST's.
I already knew how to select the ribbon as Modwheel (thanks yur2die4) but good to know about the instrument racks since 9.2.

I did see one youtube video about using mod wheel by inserting a midi clip in the Arrangement view, and doing something from there. I have read that modulation wheel works differently in clips and in arrangement view, in that, in clips it allows control over more things (or the other way around, I've forgotten). But that video didn't make all that mush sense. Im guessing somehow i can map the mod wheel to control certain parameters where there is no mod wheel. But that, i have not figured out yet. So if someone could care to expand on this method (if indeed it does exists) then please do, would be most helpful.
Im also having to re-learn MIDI mapping, amongst a whole bunch of other stuff. Push/LIve is certainly deep. Coming from Logic, Ableton at first seemed rather unintuitive, but as Im learning it i think I'm beggining to like it.

[yur2die4]

Actually the mod wheel has the same behavior in either view. It only works directly with instruments.

On the Live instruments, is often a tab which allows ModWheel to control the amount of a parameter. Especially in Operator and Sampler. You find the mod and I'll have a row of device to select and Percent. So you could select the filter cutoff, and change the percent to 100. Then your mod wheel will control the filter on that instrument. If that's how you want the instrument to behave, then you leave it at that.

The mod wheel is meant as a performance control. It is handy to consistently have something at your disposal that you can tweak and will always change the sound in a way that the sound is meant to be changed.

Usually people choose a parameter that is most suitable for that specific sound to be controlled by mod. Like for a brass patch, mod might control the lfo/vibrato amount. For a dubstep bass patch, it might control the Rate of a filter or amp lfo so you can have it change at different speeds. Or maybe on a guitar patch it'll change distortion heaviness, or feedback or vibrato (it depends on what works best for the sound, and what whoever made the patch prefers).

For vsts, there are sometimes notes in the presets that have little descriptions of what things can do. They'll sometimes explain if modwhl does anything exciting. Other times it might even be directly in the preset name.

Even in Live, I think if you leave open the Notes on the bottom left corner of the screen, and browse the presets, there might be notes.

To actually choose your own parameters for the mod wheel in vst depends on the layout. A lot have a mkdilation matrix so you say "LFO 1" changes "Pitch osc B parameter" by "20%"

Or "Velocity" changes "Amp Envelope" by "60%"
Or "ModWhl" changes "PulseWidth Osc A" by "100%".

Other times there aren't a whole lot of options. Or in some other cases, there is a Mod knob near that control which indicates that you can decide the amount that a mod wheel can affect the device.

In the second-to-worst case scenario you'll have to use 'midi learn' within the vst itself and assign the mod wheel (cc# 1 I think??) to a parameter. Midi Learn is different from midi Map. Learn is done inside a vst's interface (not always available option), Map is done from live and it'll essentially take over your mod wheel and you won't be able to use it to control any instruments after.

[spagbol]

Cheers,
That's very helpful.
Id started just using MIDI Learn, yea i found it a bit limiting, so ill take a deeper look into what you say.

[tedlogan]

Another straightforward universal way to control stuff in Live with the modwheel, if you also have Max 4 Live:

Load an Expression Control device onto a MIDI channel. You'll find this under the Max 4 live category in the browser, under Max MIDI effects.

In this device, next to a modwheel slot, click MAP. Now click on any parameter in Live, whether it be an effect, a native instrument, vst, track panning, whatever. The Modwheel now controls this. You can alter the range it controls next to MAP via the Min/max controls. You can assign all Expression Control's slots to the modwheel if you like to control multiple parameters.

To control VST parameters, you'd need to have those appear in its Configure pane first.

It's not the most elegant solution and does not offer relative control, and it takes complete control of the mapped parameter, but there you go.

[spagbol]

Unfortunately, i am only on Live Intro. But its starting to show its limitations. Ill upgrade sometime in the future. I guess the question is to Standard or Suite.

[spagbol]

However, I am making progress with using the Modwheel. Also started defining parameters for some VST control (which means i guess I've built a Rack, as i can save/load and access the VST controls through Push browser now.)
Thanks for all your input.