Help: I want to assign aftertouch to pitchbend...

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 12:17 pm

Hey,

Here's what I'm trying to do. I want to assign pitch bend to my keyboard's aftertouch MIDI messages. I used to do this when I used a Roland VX-5050 and it worked perfectly. Mostly I want this to work with stringed instruments like a sitar where pressing harder would get your string to bend up.

Is this possible in Ethno Instrument?

saxmonster · Post by **saxmonster** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 10:10 pm

I have always been confused with aftertouch. What is it an what can i do with it. Either on a keyboard or EWI? Do certain patches sounds sound better with it?

thanks
-Scott

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:10 am

Aftertouch is a pretty simple concept. It's just another control like pitchbend or modwheel. It's harder to implement because you have to have a control sensor for each key, so it only comes on better controllers like the Novation models. (which I think are really the best). You hit a key, and press it down a bit after and that sends aftertouch.

It's really great IMO, but I'm mostly a guitarist and it works closer to how a guitar works (In my head at least)

It comes in two flavors, channel and poly. Channel affects all note info on a channel, and poly will effect each note seperately.

I'm getting the feeling that MOTU dropped the ball and didn't bother to implement this part of the MIDI standard. Really a shame. Ethno instrument isn't cheap and you'd think it would be pretty full featured, but I guess they cut this corner when they wrote the code. I've figured out that I can remap Aftertouch to pitchbend using Digital Performer's CC reassign plug-in, but it's really no excuse for actually having the functionality.

carrythebanner · Post by **carrythebanner** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 5:39 pm

In Ethno's LFO section, you could enable Vibrato & click the "A" button -- this modulates the vibrato with aftertouch (mono/channel, not poly). Depending on the exact effect you want, you might be able to get a pitch bend-like effect by finding the right LFO rate for your song.

Or, like zerocrossing says, use DP's Reassign Continuous Contoller MIDI plug-in to reassign aftertouch to pitch bend. If you're using something other than DP, I'm guessing most other hosts have a similar sort of MIDI plug-in, or you might be able to find a freeware app that reassigns incoming MIDI messages.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:37 pm

That's brilliant! A workaround I never considered! It *almost* does the trick, but I'd love to be in full control so I could do a fast bend or short bend.

I don't think Live (my host when playing live) has anything like the remap function of DP, but I shall now look on the internet for such a device.