What's the best MPE mapping for this?

BETA TESTING
1

After some testing I am getting to love XT Surge synth. It’s MPE loaded so I want to give it a serious try.
However I was wondering what is the best MPE mapping to use with MG3 to obtain the following :

When vibrating a string with the left hand I’d like the Cutoff filter to open. Should I use Pressure or CC74?

Thanks a lot
Cheers
Pasha

2

I believe that such specific actions are the easiest to control with a pedal or a breath controller.

3

Ah… good to know. So I have to sync my hand with my foot and my EV50! :slight_smile:
Well… it gets me back to wah wah days :wink:

Thanks

4

If you want your string vibration (i.e pitch bend) to control the amount of filter cutoff being applied, I believe you could be in a bit ot trouble here. There are two pitch bend concepts in MPE really:

  1. A per-note concept sent with the note message on the channels in use (here: 2-7)
  2. A global PB concept (as what you would apply with a Pitch wheel on a synth) sent on the master channel 1.

And if we look at Surge’s “Voice and Note Properties” explanation, I think it is telling us they are using the Pitch wheel concept.

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There is no easy way for us to grab on to the per-note pitch bend (GLIDE) messages iif we compare to the STRIKE; PRESS, CC74, for those cases we want to use GLIDE to modulate parameters in synths. It would be great to have had GLIDE among the MODULATORS of course. Then we could just use any of the four connectors in the Surge module to connect to the Cutoff that way.

But as it is right now, when you try to add “Modulation from: Pitch” in Surge it is not the per-note pitch you create with bending your strings, and those are not avalible to access in MG3 at this point as far as I can see.

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5

this would be really neat. i’d love to use pitchbend to control pressure. especially on bass patches where i’d be using the chromatic filter anyway.

on the other hand, i do imagine it would be immensely complex to implement and possibly not serve the needs of the majority of users.

6

It’s always a good idea to post on this forum as there’s so much knowledge and expertise to share.
Thanks a lot. I was not considering that Vibrating a string (BB King style) it’s actually what a keyboard player would do with micro adjustments of PB wheel. I am not a keyboard player. I can play triads but I rarely use MW and PB on my M-Audio K61 KBD controller (Classic MIDI).
I will use the Expression Pedal way which is close to what I need - applying a filter effect in a specific moment during play. It only needs my EV5 mapping to Cutoff. In that case it will work as it is already working with Zebra 2 synth (no MPE). Fair enough. I’ll play with Surge and see what comes out with other MPE mappings by observing the behaviors of modulators in MG3, a third look at your videos and more.

Thanks LoFiLeiF for help!

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7

Yeah, that is how I solve it too (even though I am more likely to use my breathcontroller). It also doesn’t limit you to this one-to-one matching of pitch bend with filter opening, which can be very useful for sound design and certain instrument emulations like saxophone timbre that changes distinctly with pitch, but for most cases we probably like to have them clearly separated.

8

Good to know.
A Breath Controller (I saw your videos with MG2) it’s sure the professional way to do it.
However, I have many ‘projects’ in the pipeline at the moment and I will follow the EV5 route.
You mentioned sound design which is something that due to MG3 most of us should experiment.

Thanks!
Pasha

1 Like
9

For the record I have an EV-5 not an EV50…