Really enjoying the beta, very expressive.
One issue I’m experiencing is that in polyphonic mode I’m getting pitch bends down (or occasionally up) near the end of some notes, more often when I mute the note to end it. The pitchbend will hover around 8192 while holding the note, then dive by up to 100 values right before the note off, so with instruments with long releases it very can be quite jarring. I figure this could be reduced if there was an option to ‘sanitize’ the pitch bend data right before note off is sent (maybe take the median of the last few pitch bend values).
I’ve uploaded a wav file with a dry sample then the same audio fed through the beta 3.0.50 (default values) into surgeXT (I’m running this in Reaper)
Yep it set to ±48, normal bends sound good, just some note endings veer off. My guess is that the ending mute is confusing the tracking right before the note ends.
When you release the pressure on a string, it’s normal for the pitch range to drop, and I use this to obtain a more natural vibrato than by bending the string.
If you don’t want this effect, you need to maintain constant pressure and mute the string to stop it without pitch variation.
That was for the ‘playing technique’ part.
But this will also depend on how the preset is programmed in any instrument: some react extremely sensitively to the Bend Range setting in MG, others don’t react at all to bend, even when set to 1.
So it’s up to you to set the range according to your needs, but above all according to the possibilities of the preset.
If you can’t do this, you need to edit the parameters of your preset to make them match your expectations.
Example with :
Surge XT / Factory Patches / Pads / Sawteeth preset:
pitch variations are high when the Bend Range of 1 to 2 is selected (which triggers a variation by changing the pressure on the string) but this effect no longer appears for a Bend Range of 4 to 12 (=1/2 tone) and 24 to 48 (=no bend).
Example with the following preset of the menu Semiconductor preset:
no bend possible whatever the setting.
Some pitch dive from releasing the fret is understandable, but I would hope that left hand muting isn’t completely off the table
This is almost a whole semitone drop:
Thank you for the advice, but I do want the pitch to track for actual bends. I’m using Surge in MPE mode, where the pitch bend range should be fixed at ±48, and those settings have no effect.
OK, I have tried your dry sample in Logic, looped and going into SurgeXT. I can’t replicate that pitch dive. What sound are you using in Surge? (A picture is best at getting all the settings and stuff.)
I also tried the UWYN free MIDI monitor “ShowMIDI” outside of Logic and I got nothing out of the ordinary. When your chord ends I get 8174 and 8107. Try that so it is not a Reaper issue?
Thanks for the quick response!
I wasn’t able to get standalone mode working (I’m on windows, sorry for not stating that earlier), but I did try with another MPE synth (Noise engineering Sinc Vereor) and it has the same issue.
If you’re seeing one note is ending with a pitch bend of 8107 I think that is reproducing the issue, that would be a pitch drop of 50 cents at ±48 semitones which would be pretty noticeable.
If I run that sample in a loop get a fair amount of variance on the final pitch, sometimes it is fine, but about 50% of the time is half a semitone or lower, ie this run:
Yes, I would agree that a pitch drop or raise (with PB =48) around 150 points is about a semitone. I can definetly recreate this by strinking a note and bending it up or down a semitone. But I have nothing like this on muting a note. I can bend a note and mute it without any significant effect on the pitch.
What software can’t you get working in standalone? ShowMIDI? Have you tried MG3 with SurgeXT both in plugin mode (in Reaper) and in Standalone with the same pitch drop results? It seems so wierd.
I’m not sure how @adb is “muting” the notes but today I realized that with certain VSTs and sounds (Halion7 / Tales) the described phenomena occurs when I just lift a finger off the fretboard but leave it sitting on the string to “mute” it. Most of the time the previous played (and still sounding) note bends down a semitone and sometimes up a semitone, despite all pitch bend settings are matching and correct.
Muting strings with the picking hand has no influence to pitch bend.
I haven’t been able to get the standalone MIDI guitar 3 application working (I can run it and hear the test synth, but I can’t add/change the module, either I don’t understand or due to its pre-beta state).
I can run ShowMIDI in reaper and it shows similar pitch dives to the ones you got (ending at 8090-8110, despite the value during the actual note hovering around 8192).
This is only speculation, but I would guess that the initial smaller pitch drop from releasing the fretted note is being extrapolated during the transient from the left hand mute, resulting in the final pitch bend value being much lower than the real final pitch.
I don’t think I can help you much here, I am afraid. I have learnt not to draw ANY conclusion from behaviour inside DAWs. I will withhold judgment and also refrain from speculation until we can get those faulty pitches confirmed coming directly from MG3 itself.
But are you telleing me that no Windows user can get MG3 to work as standalone?
The instruments weren’t showing up initially, but I got it working after a restart. Oddly the ShowMidi Editor does not register any activity , but I was able to get similar behavior with SurgeXT (not the exact audio I shared above, but similar situations in live playing had very audible pitch drops at the end for long release synth patches).
Just to get on the same page, I believe you did reproduce my issue above as the ending pitch value of 8107 you had in your tests is a similar drop I saw in testing.
