Forum Archive

I like midi instrument mode because Im able to make better use of pico controllers with 3rd party instrument software than using AU plugin, as discussed in another thread.

I have observed that blowing sends midi cc17, the strip sends cc16. Note, velocity & pitch are obviously sent, and moving the keys to the left sends mod wheel cc.

This is a fairly good start, and Im assuming that future software will enable this stuff to be configurable by the end user?

In the meantime, and bearing in mind that midi isnt ideal for making the most of the pico, Id rather like the following to be implemented:

Sucking send midi cc messages, a different one to blowing, eg cc18
Can moving the keys to the right send something? I can see why you have implemented the mod wheel in midi the way you have, ie key in neutral position = mod 0, because unlike pitch, having the midi mod value in the middle when keys are neutral would not be good for a lot of instruments, but present solution prevents the keys being used to full effect with midi. So as a compromise send a different cc by moving keys to the right? I know that would still be a bit weird because you couldnt adjust the mod value at the same time as this new cc, but its still better than the present non-use of keys right.

Of course when I start thinking about it more I end up wanting full configurability, eg to be able to send something other than pitch with keys up/down, and to be able to send different cc messages from different keys, but thats beyond the scope of this initial midi feature request.

I know the forums have been somewhat bombarded by posts in recent days but I was wondering if there is a reason my midi questions arent meeting with a response. I know Im being impatient but as Im eager to start getting all sorts of different software instruments hooked up to the Pico, I need to know whether my midi controller requests are something you can implement fairly easily with the workbench software or whether each controller can be tied to only one midi cc, rather than 2 separate cc values depending on whether the value of a particular pico controller is positive or negative.

Cheers

Ta muchly for the response, thats music to my ears.

I assume you guys are real busy at the moment but if things calm down a tad at some point then I would like to request a preset which features the stuff I mention in this thread, so I dont have to wait for workbench to come out. Maybe an alternative factory setup that has more than one midi output instrument, on different midi channels, some of which dont send pitchbend or mod via keys, but rather more general cc messages, plus send something when sucking. Actually its a tough call whether keys etc should be sending completely different cc's when moved to the right rather than left, or whether to just send a cc that is set to a middle value when key is neutral, and goes up and down depending on whether moves left/right or up/down (as happens with sending parameters to AUs). There are clearly too many permutations for you guys to make presets to suit all users, but any alternatives would be most welcome.

Hi Steve

Jim has been working on the next big thing we're introducing, which is Belcanto scripts that are runnable from the Browser by tapping on them. This will enable you top do many of the things you're asking about here without having to go nearly as extreme as the Workbench. There are a few that may neednminor software changes (I don't think we have an agent that splits the yaw signal by direction as yet, for example, but its not a hard one to make). Jim thinks he'll probably put up our first public 'unstable' release of this next week - 1.0 is now bugfix only and will stay as the stable branch while we take 1.1, with its new features through unstable and testing releases. The unstable releases will be available from the downloads section as soon as we make them. Are you OK to wait until later next week to give that a go, or would you like us to make you a setup before then?


John

In the meantime if its possible to say whether any of the following will be possible with 1.1 Belcanto scripts, it would help me a lot:

Replace pitch-bend with other cc

Have neutral yaw etc position send the middle value of a controller, and moving in either direction moves that value up or down (instead of the separate cc's stuff Ive been going on about here)

Send different cc's from different keys

Make the scroll keys do something else


Part of the reason Im interested in some of these features is that I would like to make various realtime 3d visualisations that reflect the state of each key on the pico, and for that I need output which is unique to each key. Im prepared to wait quite some time for that to become possible, and I dont want my requests to get in the way of stuff that is more important to more people. The only thing Im really crying out for ASAP is to be able to send something other than pitch via yaw and mod via roll left.

Hi Steve

Jim has been working on the next big thing we're introducing, which is Belcanto scripts that are runnable from the Browser by tapping on them. This will enable you top do many of the things you're asking about here without having to go nearly as extreme as the Workbench. There are a few that may neednminor software changes (I don't think we have an agent that splits the yaw signal by direction as yet, for example, but its not a hard one to make). Jim thinks he'll probably put up our first public 'unstable' release of this next week - 1.0 is now bugfix only and will stay as the stable branch while we take 1.1, with its new features through unstable and testing releases. The unstable releases will be available from the downloads section as soon as we make them. Are you OK to wait until later next week to give that a go, or would you like us to make you a setup before then?


John

I've been tinkering with Alchemy, and I've come to think that there's a lot of richness in what the Pico "ought" to be able to do that isn't achievable without changes on both sides of the rather narrow MIDI interface. In particular, I'd like to be able to get information from all three axes of movement through from the Eigenharp to Alchemy on a note-by-note and bend-by-bend process. Looking over the various extensions to the MIDI protocol there seems to be an idiom for this: send a CC immediately before a note event, and have the receiver latch it. The requirement would then be for Alchemy to be able to latch (ideally arbitrary) CCs - but in any case pitch and mod - at press/release/aftertouch time [which I think would be a generally useful ability on their side], and for Eigend to send these CC's for the y and z axes immediately preceding polyphonic aftertouch messages, as, in effect, little packets: [pitch,mod,on] {[pitch,mod,after]}, [pitch,mod,off].

That would allow us, via Alchemy's modulations, the effect of full polyphonic instrument control, even through the AU interface, and would not, I think, be 'wrong' in the eyes of an instrument that didn't understand the convention (though of course it would be an even higher bandwidth stream than the present one).

Or - maybe there's already a way of doing this, but I haven't figured it out yet?