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Topic: Confused!!! (Read 3503 times) previous topic - next topic

Confused!!!

The Multi-Point Controller is confusing me on way too many levels. I don't understand it at all!!! The Help isn't written in very simple terms, and I'm so confused. How do I intsert a trill or a tremelo and have it sound like one while it's playing back??? How do I make an ritard slow down extactly how I want it to??? Someone please help me, because I'm lost!!!

Re: Confused!!!

Reply #1 –
Welcome to the club.  The help menu for MPC's is written for people who don't need help.  I sruggled with MPC's once or twice, and someone gave me some pointers, so I lucked out, largely by trial and error.

I'm going to try to walk you through this step by step to show you the settings you need to use to get a certain effect.  Keep in mind, this is the blind leading the blind.

First, however, for a trill (movement of a full tone), you may do better with a workaround - mute the trilled note, place the trill sign in front of it (see user fonts such as Boxmark2), and use a second, hidden staff to play the trill.  A fast trill might be a group of 64th notes, a slow one might be 16ths.  The group should start on the same note you're trilling; the second note should be one full tone up and you continue this pattern for the duration of the trilled note.  Make sure to end on the same note as well - cheat a bit and double its value.  Judicious use of triplets within the trilled notes may help, and of course you can use the MPC to vary the speed of the trill... OOPS - getting ahead of myself...

Back to the MPC... Say you want a trill or vibrato on a whole note.  You will insert the MPC just before it (Insert Multipoint Controller)

Select pitch bend in the first window ("controller").  The second little window gives you two choices.  Absolute will give you a change every unit of time you pick, whereas linear sweep will slide up or down from one pitch to another. You can adjust the speed of this slide by fiddling with the Sweep Resolution setting.  A lower number resoluton like 1 will give you a true slide or pitch bend, a higher number like 5000 will give you more or less discreet steps.

Time value is the unit that will govern the timing of the changes you set.  If you picked a 32nd note, and you're in common time, then when you set the time offsets, the beginning of each change will start so many 32nd notes after the beginning of the modified note (for initial setting) or after the previous setting.

Aaagh! this is not easy to understand or explain.  Let's see it in action.

Make a new file, one staff, treble clef, common time, time 120 beats per minute.  Select an instrument like a trumpetfor the staff (use F2).  Enter a whole note in bar 1, and one more at the same pitch in bar 2.

Insert a multipoint controller just before the whole note.

Use the following settings:
Controller - Pitch Bend
Style - Absolute
Time resolution - Thirtysecond note
Sweep resolution - 32
Initial Time Offset - 6
Controller value for initial setting 4972 (I just chose an arbitrary number)
Setting 2 checked, time offset 6, controller value 0 (or as close as you can get - the slider isn't accurate.
Setting 3 checked, time offset 6, controller value 4972
Setting 4 checked, time offset 6, controller value 0.

Press OK then play it back.  You should hear a slow trill similar to the 1950's European police cars and ambulances - starts at the notated pitch, raises about a tone, returns, raises, returns.

If you change to Linear Sweep, and resolution of 1, you will get much more of a slide from one pitch to the next.  Try it.

Now go back to absolute and 32 settings. Change the time resolution to a sixteenth, and play it back.  The pitch changes only twice, instead of 4 times, because you ran out of note duration before the time offsets 3 and 4 kicked in.  A time resolution of a sixty-fourth changes the pitch every 6 32nd notes, and the variation finishes in the first half of the whole note, giving an effect similar to a "turn".  Using time offsets of 3 will result in the change in pitch every 3 32nd notes, so the trill would finish in one beat.

I'm sorry I don't know how to make the duration of the trill last longer, but I think if you've worked through the changes I've suggested, you will be able to experiment to see what numbers would need to change.

FWIW, I think a pitch bend setting of 4972 is approximately a whole tone, but you'll want to try different values to find the exact setting.

There is a limited amount of information in the Scriptorium http://nwc-scriptorium.org/helpful.html#NWCmpc

I believe one of the users of NWC is creating an MPC tutorial, butI couldn't find it on line just now, so I don't know how far she's taken it.

Re: Confused!!!

Reply #2 –
On
http://madmarsu.multimania.com/Nwc/trills1.nwc
you'll find an example I made 2 years ago.

Hope it is a good example of what you can do with MPCs for trills.

P.S. It seems you use the term tremolo instead of vibrato. AFAIK, tremolo is a rapid alternance between two notes (typically octaves or fifth, on piano), whereas vibrato means you produce variation of height around the same note (with the voice, breath or hand according your instrument). If I'm wrong please someone correct me.
Anyway, you can't make tremolos with an MPC, but you can with vibrato (with more than one MPC usually, and with value not exceeding half a semitone (2000). You'd better use the numeric value instead of the slider, if you want to be more precise :)

HTH!

Re: Confused!!!

Reply #3 –
Last Wednesday, I taught the MD of a ladies barbershop choir all that I know about mpc's. I only know some about volume and tempo, but that was all she needed. I, too, would like to see a comprehensive explanation of mpc's. Or, if that's a bit much to ask for, a file with a few good examples. And just a hint of explanation. Who might oblige?
Rob, Maarssen, Holland.

Re: Confused!!!

Reply #6 –
yeah, right. But you forgot to oblige.