A few questions/calls for suggestion, for others using the SWAM solo strings with MG3. I am on iOS, with MG3 and SWAM instruments both plugins in an AUM session; my available controllers are tabletop control surface, footswitches, and an expression pedal. I found @LoFiLeiF’s coverage of “getting started with SWAM instruments” to be a very helpful starting point and that kinda represents where I’m coming from thus far. With that said…
What is “bow speed”? The SWAM manual speaks of “bow speed” several times but doesn’t ever seem to define what that means. Is it just Strike, in MG3 terms? Or Pressure? Or some combination, or something else?
Ideal setup for getting “expression” in the fingers. I have thus far used the Cello or Bass duophonic trackers (my guitar tuning uses C2 for the sixth string) and set up MIDI Out to send Aftertouch, with the “expression” parameter mapped to Aftertouch within the SWAM instrument. This alone seems to get a lot of “MPE in the fingers”, but I have also been using Modulators for Strike and Pressure to “expand” the playing-touch-sensitivity of those properties, and it seems to work well. Can others validate this as a sound idea, and/or suggest better/other ways to tap in?
Controlling “bow pressure”. The “bow pressure” parameter seems like one I’d want to take advantage of, and I’m curious to know what others might think is the best way to control it. Thus far the best way I’ve come up with is to map it to my expression pedal, such that the full travel of the pedal takes the “bow pressure” dial from zero up to about 60% (above which it seems to me to become too harsh to control–but I might certainly be missing something). Are there better ways to do this? In theory one could use Strike, but it already seems like Strike is useful on its own. What are others doing?
Use for “brightness”? I often seem not to know what quite to do with the “brightness” data from MG3. At one point it occurred to me that palm-muting on the guitar seems to produce interesting results for “brightness” (observing it in the Modulator while playing), but what would be the thing to do with that, on the cello or double bass? Could it be used to switch on/off something like “bow lift”, or the sordino mute, or something like the alt. fingering setting?
Use for “release”, and/or “glide”. Similarly, are people using these elements for SWAM instrument control? and for what, exactly? Could “release” e.g. possibly map logically to “bow lift”?
Other suggestions? I’ve been amazed at how much nuance has been coming out of my own fingers with the SWAM instruments (thus far I’ve tried the double reeds and now the solo strings, on iOS where I’m aware some features are locked), but on the flip-side, these instruments seem powerful enough that I’d want to tap in to them fully, if I know how to do it. And so open-ended suggestions are absolutely welcome as well.
Thank you and happy playing!