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Topic: Pitch bend (Read 9258 times) previous topic - next topic

Pitch bend

Is there a way to get a greater range of pitch bend within one notation? Such as two quarter notes tied across a bar, attempting to bend a step-and-a-half up, or even just one quarter note trying to do that. I'm hoping to get a much fuller range of pitch bend for individual notes.

Re: Pitch bend

Reply #1 –
I've addressed this question on the forum previously, but I'm afraid I didn't do a very good job of it. So I'll paste in a better treatment of the subject from an answer on the Newsgroup. (The person in this case wanted to know how to do trombone slides, but the principles are the same).

-----------------------------------------------------------

... It's not hard to do a slide (whatever it might be termed
technically) as long as it's no more than a major third (for example,
from C to E).

So let's say you want to do a slide on a whole note on C, starting at
the beginning of the note continuing to the third beat, then holding for
the rest of the duration of the note.

Write your note on D (not C... you'll see why in a minute). Select
Insert --> Multipoint Controller. This brings up a dialog box. For
Contoller, select Pitch Bend. For Style, select Linear Sweep (that's
what gives the slide). For Linear Sweep Contour, leave it at 32 (the
default for now) This controls the rate and resolution of the sweep.
Also leave Time Offset Multiplier at the default fo Quarter. Below,
you'll see four "slidepots" Crank the first one all the way to the left
(-8192) and then inch forward by one to 8191 (some sound cards don't
like -8192). Leave its time offset at 0. This bends our D down to C,
where we want it to start. Check the clickbox on Setting 2, leave its
time offset at 1, and slide its pot all the way to the right (+8191).
This bends our D up to E, where we want it to end up.

After the note, add another pitch bend MPC, to restore that channel to
normal intonation. This time, use Absolute for Style, since we just want
one quick change and not a linear sweep of a whole bunch of them.
Restore all the slide pots to the center.

btw - you can do +/- 10 changes to these pots by clicking the mouse on
either side of the pointer, and changes of +/- 1 by using left/right
arros.

By now you may have gathered that a pitch bend of +/- 8192 corresponds
to a whole tone, or put another way, 4096 pitch-bend units per semitone.
This is the default pitch-bend range as defined in midi. So that limits
our possible slide range to a major third. There *is* a pitch-bend range
parameter, but you would have to insert that with some external utility
as it doesn't seem to be supported in the current version of NoteWorthy
Composer. That being said, I'd hesitate to use it anyway, since I've
heard from others that not all synths treat this parameter the same way.

By using subsequent pitch bend MPC's, you can with care get pretty good
approximations of slides over larger intervals by appropriately choosing
your notes and slide ranges, and setting the performance style to legato
or use a slur to minimize the length of the "dropout" in the middle of
the slide.

Re: Pitch bend

Reply #2 –
In order to simplify, how great it would be to have 5 lines instead of 4 in MPCs...

Excellent description, Fred, as usual :-)

Hint : once you made one, copy your 2 MPCs into an empty staff or your "tools" score. It's always handy to have such a "tools" staff with such items already made...

HTH,
      MAD

Re: Pitch bend

Reply #4 –
Hey there, I'm just posting this solution to my problem, because I searched[read:scoured] the internet looking for the real solution that would increase my pitch bend range.  I finally came across the parameters, but they didn't work:  No one mentioned how to IMPLEMENT them.  So I feel obligated to say how:

To increase your pitch bend range (I used cakewalk but it should be universal), you need to start by choosing the track you want to increase the range on, and go into the event editor.
At the very beginning of the track, insert two new Control events.  You're going to do what's called "CC" functions, for Control Change.
The first Control event, change the number to 101 (this is the 'patch change' slot), giving it a [depth] value of 0.  Next, insert another Control event after it, value 100, depth 0.
After these two, you've activated the RPN edit.  There are only 3 functions that are official RPN's, and Pitch Bend Sensitivity is the option you'll edit.  You do so by adding a final third Control event after the initial two, choosing number  this time with a value equal to the number of semitones you want your pitch bend to have, the default is two semitones, or 8191 as shown by your pitch mod wheel.
I haven't included how to insert a new Control event, or how many semitones are in an octave basically for the reason that if you don't know either of these, what are you doing with MIDI? :p

Now that you have all 3 Control events at the front of the track (let them run before any real data), your pitch should now be a full octave when you use the wheel.
*THE EXTRA SPECIAL PART*
I tried to do these things, and after finally finding out what I needed to do, I still had no success.  I thought about it overnight, and came to the idea of trying seperating the events.  If you just insert all 3 in a row, they'll probably have the same time. *If you tried increasing your range and it didn't work, the extra help I'm giving is try setting each at a different time, such as the first event at flat 0, the next with a frame added, and the final with yet another frame of time. *

I hoped I made this as full and informative as possible, since I had to do a lot of footwork to compile everything(and then some trial and error), I figured I'd put it all in one easy to digest source to spare everybody else out there.

I hope this helps everyone who needs it, you're welcome if it does ;)

-A