Midi controllable pitch bend?

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Comatoze
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Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:05 am

Midi controllable pitch bend?

Post by Comatoze » Wed Dec 17, 2008 7:23 am

Is there any way to control the pitch bend by midi (and not by the pitch wheel)? When I go into the midi assign mode, i can't find anything to click on for pitch bending.

salatspinatra
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Post by salatspinatra » Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:44 pm

You're in luck. Just assign the control on your hardware to pitch bend. the soft or hard synth you're using should be receiving from any midi port that you've set up with Track enabled. So long as your synth accepts pitch messages (which I believe does include any ableton instrument) you'll hear the pitch bend when you play it. Or if you just want send PitchBend messages, when you go into midi mode, ableton will recognize the Pitch Bend Control.
Where ableton is lacking is in other performance changes, like aftertouch etc.
-J

Comatoze
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Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:05 am

Post by Comatoze » Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:58 am

salatspinatra wrote:Just assign the control on your hardware to pitch bend
This is the bit i'm having trouble with. I don't know where to find the pitch control so i can assign midi to it! I have no problem assigning to controls for everything else, volume and panning etc, but pitch seems to have eluded me.
Last edited by Comatoze on Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Kent_in_CO
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Post by Kent_in_CO » Fri Dec 19, 2008 7:13 am

What device are you using? This can be a breeze if you have a editor applicaiton (like the Trigger Finger's Enigma).

Comatoze
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Post by Comatoze » Fri Dec 19, 2008 2:53 pm

I have two devices.... one is a theremin that i've got running through a pd patch that converts the pitch in real time to a midi control signal. Works great for altering stuff like LFO and volume, but pitch control would be good too.
The other device i have is a full-range keyboard with no pitch wheel.

I downloaded enigma, unfortunately i don't have any of the supported devices...

edit: missed a word
Last edited by Comatoze on Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

speak_onion
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Post by speak_onion » Fri Dec 19, 2008 4:23 pm

Comatoze wrote:I have two devices.... one is a theremin that i've got running through a pd patch that converts the pitch in real time to a midi control signal. Works great for altering stuff like LFO and volume, but pitch control would be good too.
The other device i have is a full-range keyboard with no pitch wheel.

I downloaded enigma, unfortunately i don't have any of the supported devices...
What salatspinatra is saying is that you need to set up your MIDI controller to send a Pitchbend message instead of a Control Change message. Youll have to alter the Pd patch to do this. Alternately you could use a MIDI translator utility to take a CC message and convert it to a PB message.

Comatoze
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Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:05 am

Post by Comatoze » Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:46 am

Great idea, worked like a charm. Was about time i actually learnt how to use pd anyway.

In case anyone's interested, here's a screenshot of the patch i used to change pitch via a midi control knob:

Image

And the patch used to convert the theremin audio pitch to a midi pitch signal:

Image

And the patch i started with, to convert theremin audio into control signals (courtesy of Charles Martin):

Image

modecai
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Re: Midi controllable pitch bend?

Post by modecai » Mon Jul 11, 2011 9:20 pm

Sorry to revive an old thread from the dead, but is it possible to do this when using a pitch bend-less controller, like the mpk mini 25?

dentaku
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Re: Midi controllable pitch bend?

Post by dentaku » Tue Jul 12, 2011 2:43 am

modecai wrote:Sorry to revive an old thread from the dead, but is it possible to do this when using a pitch bend-less controller, like the mpk mini 25?
The thing about pitchbend is that it's not a regular control with 128 steps that starts at 0. It always snaps to the center and goes from +8192/-8191.
I just checked the pitchbend wheel on my Akai MPK49 with MIDI-OX and it actually only gets 128 steps out of the pitchwheel for some reason but it seems to work fine. I'm guessing there are two types of pitchbend. One that's very fine and another one that's simpler and only has 128 steps.

You can use Pizmidi midiConverter3 to receive CC (from a knob) and output pitchbend and then have another track with an instrument listen to that track and plugin. You will get a strange type of pitchbend because it doesn't snap back to position 64 which is the center where the notes will play at their corret pitch.
I just tested it out with my Akai LPD8 and it works.

Fnu Smith
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Re: Midi controllable pitch bend?

Post by Fnu Smith » Tue Oct 21, 2014 2:22 pm

The pitch bend by default appears to be stuck at +/- 5.

I have a Roland A-30 keyboard, not listed in the control surfaces list so I'm stuck setting that to None. My input is a FireWire 410.

In my Midi Synch tab of the Preferences, Control Surface is None, Input and Output are both FireWire 410.

I've been told that "You can specifically MIDI map Pitch Bend to the Mod Wheel, and then adjust the maximum and minimum values to +/- 12 in the MIDI Mapping Browser".

I go to the Midi Mapping Browser and it's empty. I Ctrl/Click and I get 'No Commands Available'.

So, I appear to be stuck with a pitch bend range of +/- 5.

Any ideas anyone?

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