How can I pitch VI permanently by half a tone?

[Felix Bartelt]

First of all: My focus is to load a second instance of VI to Forte to create my 2nd violins. So I want to pitch them by half a tone and transpose the midi-track by half a tone to the other direction, which means, that the 1st violins are playing another C4 than the 2nd violins, avoiding a phazing.

Pitching half a tone sounds easy, but

1. The master tune of VI just goes to 460 hz, but for pitching half a tone it would be something around 466 hz.

2. My Forte-PC (beeing connected to my Logic-Mac) has no plugins like pitch or something, so I don´t see a way to pitch in the PC.

3. I don´t have enough audio-inputs in my mac, to route the 2nd violins to another input with a pitch plugin.

So the only way, I see, is using the pitch wheel.

Is there a way of programming a permanent pitch wheel change?
I could draw or automate the pitch bend, but the pitch value goes back to zero, whenever I stop playing a song. So using the pitch-wheel doesn´t look like a good solution to me.

Any other suggestions to solve this?

[andysmi]

Hi -

Not sure what sequencer you're using, but I use Cubase SX3 and it has an option called 'Chase Controllers', and when selected it causes Cubase to set any controller(s) to the last set value, no matter where you start in the song. So even if you haven't touched the controller since the very beginning, it looks back in the track and sets the controller to whatever the last value was. So if you set pitch bend once at the beginning of a track it will be remembered from then on.

Maybe you have a similar function in your sequencer.

Hope this helps.

Andy

[DG]

@andysmi said:

Hi -

Not sure what sequencer you're using, but I use Cubase SX3 and it has an option called 'Chase Controllers', and when selected it causes Cubase to set any controller(s) to the last set value, no matter where you start in the song. So even if you haven't touched the controller since the very beginning, it looks back in the track and sets the controller to whatever the last value was. So if you set pitch bend once at the beginning of a track it will be remembered from then on.

Maybe you have a similar function in your sequencer.

Hope this helps.

Andy

This is a little bit dodgy using the Pitch Wheel, and chasing continuous controllers hardly ever works IMO. this is one of the reasons I prefer to use keyswitches where possible.

DG

[Conquer]

>I want to pitch them by half a tone and transpose the midi-track by half a tone to the other direction, which means, that the 1st violins are playing another C4 than the 2nd violins, avoiding a phazing.

Good idea, should fatten the unison sound nicely. One slight caveat: it will only work with chromatically sampled instruments. Most VSL sounds are chromatically sampled, but their Special Edition instruments are sampled at every tone, I think.

>Pitching half a tone sounds easy

It is easy - in the VI's PERFORM window, set the pitch bend range amount to 100 cents (=one semitone) and push the pitch wheel all the way up.

>The pitch value goes back to zero, whenever I stop playing a song.

In any sequencer, if you write a pitch bend command at the top of a sequence the pitch will stay 'bent' during the duration of the sequence. In Logic, I think it stays bent even when you stop the sequence.

[Sapkiller]

@Conquer said:

In any sequencer, if you write a pitch bend command at the top of a sequence the pitch will stay 'bent' during the duration of the sequence. In Logic, I think it stays bent even when you stop the sequence.

Just to contribute:
In Sonar this is optional - there is a switch "Zero Controllers on stop", if
this is set all controllers are set to initial state on stop - else they remain
in there current state. This is combined with the "Search Back for controllers"
switch.

Question is if a notation program like Finale has these options.

[andysmi]

@DG said:

This is a little bit dodgy using the Pitch Wheel, and chasing continuous controllers hardly ever works IMO. this is one of the reasons I prefer to use keyswitches where possible.
DG

I haven't done it all that much, but when I have it seems to work. What problems do you have with it? What sequencer are you using?

Isn't the problem with keyswitches the same, in that the sequencer can't chase the 'last keyswitch' like it can controller data? That happens all the time to me, I start up in the middle of a song and the strings are playing legato when they s/b staccato cause it doesn't know what the last keyswitch was. I've been thinking about switching to use my midi controller to send patch changes instead of keyswitches for just that reason. But very interested if you have a better way, I'm still a newbie.

Thanks,
Andy

[DG]

@DG said:

This is a little bit dodgy using the Pitch Wheel, and chasing continuous controllers hardly ever works IMO. this is one of the reasons I prefer to use keyswitches where possible.
DG

I haven't done it all that much, but when I have it seems to work. What problems do you have with it? What sequencer are you using?

Isn't the problem with keyswitches the same, in that the sequencer can't chase the 'last keyswitch' like it can controller data? That happens all the time to me, I start up in the middle of a song and the strings are playing legato when they s/b staccato cause it doesn't know what the last keyswitch was. I've been thinking about switching to use my midi controller to send patch changes instead of keyswitches for just that reason. But very interested if you have a better way, I'm still a newbie.

Thanks,
Andy
I'm using Nuendo. Some controller data never seems to be chased, no matter what the setting, so I tend not to use continuous controllers, if I don't have to. Regarding keyswitches, that is easy. Make them legato (with a setting of around -10) and they will always make sure you are on the correct patch. It also has the advantage of being able to see at a glance what patch I am on, without looking at thousands of Controller lanes.

DG

[hetoreyn]

Doesn't the VI have a Master Tune function. You could just offest that by half a tone couldn't you. You'd have to do the same with all of the instances .. but that's how it could be done simply.

Wouldn't bother with all this controller stuff .. just use the VI player to do it .. since it can [:D]

[Conquer]

>Doesn't the VI have a Master Tune function

Yes it does, but as Felix explained it shows tuning values as A=440 etc. So unless you know (or can work out) what a semitone equates to in Hertz, it's not so easy!

[andysmi]

@DG said:

...Regarding keyswitches, that is easy. Make them legato (with a setting of around -10) and they will always make sure you are on the correct patch. It also has the advantage of being able to see at a glance what patch I am on, without looking at thousands of Controller lanes.

DG

Can you explain? I have no idea what you're talking about. What does 'a 'setting around -10' mean for keyswitches? Is that a VI setting?

Thanks again.

Andy

[marnix]

Andysmi,

To my understanding, DG referred to the Keyswitch notes being played or drawn in or copied as legato notes (Logic f.i. has a function called "note force legato (selected to selected)") and to move them for around -10 steps, so they always trigger before the actual 1 of the next beat (or wherever you want them to f.i. change the patch of a given matrix) This way, you can always see, in your sequencers matrix editor, which keyswitch is active at a particular moment in your arrangement.

Conquer,

A# would be 466.164Hz
Ab would be 415.305

I have a handy little widget in my dashboard to calculate these things - if you want to, I could send it to you by email!

Best, Marnix

[DG]

Marnix has it sort of right...! What I do is play the keyswitch at the correct time and then make it almost long enough so that it almost reaches the next one. By selecting all the keyswitches you can do this with one key command (in Nuendo and Cubase). This means that there is always a Note On command active wherever you start in your music. The -10 refers to the fact that the automatic gap that I set is 10 ticks, so that your notes are not quite legato. I hope that this clears up and confusion that I might have caused. [:O]ops:

DG

[andysmi]

Ah I see... using the 'legato' function of your sequencer you stretch each of the keyswitch notes until it almost hits the next one... pretty clever!

So what's the tradeoff... you have to apply that function manually every time you lay down a part, no? I guess I could assign a macro.

Also, each instrument has a different range for keyswitches... do you just have a different macro for each different keyswitch range?

Thanks! I love getting these tips from the masters!

- Andy

[Felix Bartelt]

@andysmi said:

Hi -

Not sure what sequencer you're using, but I use Cubase SX3 and it has an option called 'Chase Controllers', and when selected it causes Cubase to set any controller(s) to the last set value, no matter where you start in the song. So even if you haven't touched the controller since the very beginning, it looks back in the track and sets the controller to whatever the last value was. So if you set pitch bend once at the beginning of a track it will be remembered from then on.

Maybe you have a similar function in your sequencer.

Hope this helps.

Andy

I´m working with Logic. But maybe there´s something wrong, cause I activated "chase pitch bend", but when I start a song after the last pitch-bend event, it is not recognized.
To all Logicusers: Is that right? Or could I have set something wrong?



Concerning the master-tune: Highest amount is 460 hz, but it needs to be 466,1 Hz. So unless I want my Violins to be out of tune, the master tune doesn´t work.

[DG]

@andysmi said:

Also, each instrument has a different range for keyswitches... do you just have a different macro for each different keyswitch range?

- Andy

All my instruments have the same keyswitches (starting at C-1). I use another, smaller keyboard for all the controllers and keyswitches, which have labels on them, in case I forget which one is which. [:O]ops:

DG

[Felix Bartelt]

At least I got the pitch wheel working now and regognizing all pitch changes, without the need to start before the last automation point.

Seems like there is no real good solution. So this leaves the question to me, why VLS set the master tune region from 420 Hz till 460 Hz instead of 467 Hz to allow a pitch of half a tone.

I´m still hoping for an update about this!

[Conquer]

I guess the answer is that VSL didn't think people would need to retune the samples by as much as a semitone (perhaps because in real life orchestral instruments are rarely that far out of tune) and therefore provided a rather narrow 'fine tune' control. Personally I would like to have greater overall control of the tuning and feel it's a pity the pitch bend range is limited to one tone (200 cents).

[Felix Bartelt]

Maybe they´ll fix that in an update?

[PaoloT]

On a side note: being able to master tune between A415 and A466 Hz would allow perfect matching with acoustic baroque instruments. These are the standards around which baroque ensembles have standardized. (The big organ made by Gaetano Callido in 1792, I could work on on last summer, was tuned A466, probably after a recent restoration).

Paolo

[MMKA]

I know you are searching for a solution in VI.
In VIPro there is a possibility to adjust all keys (all a's, all b's flat, all b's and so on) until a semitone higher or a semitone lower (from - 100 cents until + 100 cents). So when you set all the keys a semitone lower and adjust the midi settings in the VIPro midi settings of all the slots (!) of the instrument, you get an "new" instrument. 
In VIPro it is also possible to adjust the range of tones, so you can get the highest tone of the instrument by adjusting the range. This works fine, only it takes some time to make all the midi adjustments of the slots, depending of course of the amount of articulations.