I’ve been dabbling with using CC64 sustain in MG2 and am experiencing an irritating problem.
Try this using either the standalone or the plugin version of MG2.
Set:
-Polyphonic Mode
-PB Range +/-12
-Noise gate around 9 to 10 o’clock
-Sustain MIDI Machine loaded
Play any note and activate sustain to “hold” it with CC64 remotely or the latch switch in the MIDI machine. Now release finger pressure (ever so gently).
Why does the sustained note drop by what sounds like around a 1/4 tone? -This happens more than 50% of the time.
My playing technique is solid i.e. I don’t have any finger pressure problems and I’m always muting to avoid unwanted resonance. The problem is more prominent when releasing a note held with the 1st finger rather than the fourths despite my muting efforts.
But glancing at the MIDI Monitor I can see minor fluctuations in the PB data when releasing a note. Disabling PB range helps but I really like bending pitches…so…
The synth app (Omnisphere) has its PB range locked at +/-12. This same phenomenon does not occur when using a Fishman TriplePlay even with the same PB range active! I’ll test it with the VG-99 later too but I’m sure it doesn’t do the same thing or I would’ve noticed.
FWIW, the pitch problem is much worse at a +/-2 semitone bend range setting.
I don’t think you are missing something obvious. I’ve had that issue bothering me for a while too. I think (though I am not sure) that the software start out approximating your pitch to the nearest semitone, whereby the pitchwheel (PitchBend) info kicks in and makes additional adjustments up or down. And when we use Sustainpedal (to Hold) we kill the pitch wheel info coming in. And thus that held note returns to its non-adjusted position. Now, I could be crazy wrong here, so if @Paul or @JamO would care to weigh in here, I’d be most interested to learn what is really going on!
Here my 50 cents:
1/4 tone down is the tone your finger produces when the string vibrates on your fingertip, just after you release the string from the fret. This note will also be there when sustain is not enabled, but very short ofcourse.
The vibrating string has a smal retrigger effect when you release the fingerpressure: this effect is dependent on the phase of the string during the finger lift off: this is what makes it a 50% chance of happening. One half of the time the release mutes the string extra, the other half the string gets extra energy, hence the trigger effect. In general though, the envelop of the string leaving the fret should be decreasing. I tried a midimachine with aftertouch to fix that, I dont know if it worked, too long ago. I’ll have a look tomorrow.
In chromatic mode the effect is less, because then there is still an extra chance that the position of your finger is not exactly 50% between the 2 frets, but a bit lower. So you get also about 50% releasenotes, unless you fret the finger against the higher fret.
For chromatic mode in studio work, you can simply tune your guitar about 20 cents higher ( or 80 cents lower). That will take care of your finger being above the 50 cents down border.
For pitchbend modes, the easiest way to get rid of the dive effect, is to delete all downgoing pitchbends. As long as use no whammy, this should work. Notes that start with a silent string bend will not bend down, that is the negative side effect. You have to start every note with the base note, bend it up, to have it slide down again.
The midimachine “Bend Attack” has a knob to kill bend downs.
But seriously, thank you for the detailed response. I’ll give the Bend Attack MIDI machine a try though I can foresee the limitations i’ll hit since I’m a frequent whammy bar user. I might just have to set up a footswitch for PB and stop finger bending notes altogether if I’m to continue this relationship with MG2.
I’m quite surprised that I dont see the same problem with the FTP or VG-99. I guess the technology can’t really be compared at their vastly different pricepoints.
I only have the FTP system mounted on one of my guitars and it’s not easy (not even possible in my case) to switch it between instruments so I cannot call it a really neat pitch-2-MIDI solution…not to mention the USB dongle connection issues and the RF horror story I experienced on a gig once.
Also I’m leaning away from using Roland/BOSS gear, where possible, these days as 13-pin cables are so last century.
Will let you know how I go with the Bend Attack MIDI machine and if you happen to dig up any further info on your use of aftertouch to deal with the pitch problem please share.
Thanks a bunch for such a detailed description. Without having even had something like a hypothesis formulated I have anyway managed to close in on a “tuning” that actually worked to alleviate that issue. And you just told me how that could be. Thank you again, for that too.
I don’t think the differences are with “price point” The MG has to detect all audio coming in, then analyze it and convert it to midi. Very different from the FTP and V system. Since they have a dedicated pickup per string, they can deal with the information differently. I can tell I have had a Roland Strat, and also a few versions of the HEX pickup, connected to my Roland GR-33. Guess What? My MG2 tracks better than the Hex pickup, and is more responsive and quicker. So go figure. Did learn some things from this topic though.
