Bitwig 2.4 MPE fixed?

[pdxindy]

Unfortunately, this latest build has regressed in terms of the way it handles the TEControl BBC2/Swan combination. Although I might be the only Bitwig user who cares about that!

In what way has it regressed?

[Reckon104]

I use the breath controller to control the expression parameter on the swam saxes. Now that parameter gets "stuck" occasionally at a certain fixed point, instead of going to zero and waiting for my next breath to begin. I'm fairly certain it was working in the last build perfectly.

[Bommie]

Unfortunately, this latest build has regressed in terms of the way it handles the TEControl BBC2/Swan combination. Although I might be the only Bitwig user who cares about that!

Not at all. I would like a TEC Control for SWAM instruments in time. I use Roli at the moment but for wind instruments nothing beats breath controller. How did it make it worse?

[Bommie]

Disregard the regression comment for Breath Control. Just read that now. I hope they fix this soon.

[Bommie]

I am curious about others experiences with Bitwig. I bought it a couple days ago and thus far have had some challenges.

Firstly, the midi channel issue, which I know is being "fixed" with the next upgrade, is still present, and, frankly, it concerns me that it took so long to add this very basic functionality (at least it is for me and the way I use midi). For a company that touts MPE compatibility, that one has to download a script to get this to work (and I'm still having trouble with it even after downloading) seems, well, bizarre. I hope that the ver. 2.4 actually puts this issue to rest.

However, I am having other things crop up. Basically several different "buggy" behaviors when using MPE (or should i say "force(d) mpe". I won't bore everyone with the details, but I must say, coming from Reaper (which works completely flawlessly for me as far as MPE goes) I am thus far not impressed.

What has been mentioned above about the necessity for 48 pitch bend range also sounds distinctly sub-optimal. I hadn't even encountered that, but I haven't tried recording on it yet. If that is true, it alone might have been a deal breaker for me had I known about it.

I am not trying to bash this product. I am really just curious to know others experiences with it, so that I can know whether to cut my losses now in terms of the time I will need to spend learning the software, or trust that this will all work out as the new version rolls out and I get more familiar with Bitwig.

My main goal is to have a very solid, reliable platform for live performance.

I appreciate any shared experiences that might help me decide how to move forward.

BTW, this is my first post, but i have been a lurker and some of you may have seen some of my linnstrument videos under my name "stephen barnard".

thanks for reading.

Hi Stephen,

The big hang-up for me with Bitwig's MPE implementation thus far has been the fact that you can't play more than one incident of the same note simultaneously. That was a non-starter for me. Presumably, hopefully, that will be fixed with this pending update. If so, I think it will make for a viable live performance platform. That said, I'm just curious why you would want to use it at all, given that you've had success using Reaper already. And correct me if I'm wrong, but does UVI Falcon not work standalone as well?

I'm actually curious what you think of Falcon as an MPE synth... Is it easy enough to configure?

Cheers!

I like Falcon with MPE and Bitwig. It's not too hard to set up in a patch or starting a sound on your own. I haven't found any difficulties playing MPE with my Seaboard Rise and I am on 2.3.5. Some instruments only go up to 24 pitch so you have to change it in the Roli Software when recording.

[Tj Shredder]

If you get the new 2.4 beta 4, you will never need to change the PB range on the Linstrument/Seaboard again, you can adjust within Bitwig, very convenient. Now MPE is working wonderfully...

[BobDog]

Apart from repeated notes on the same channel (channel per row) don't work anymore when MPE is enabled for plugins or the HW Instrument. A new note on the same channel from the linnstrument creates a new note on a new channel in BW.

I have reported the bug.

Works fine without MPE turned on.

[BobDog]

edit mistake

[Roger_Linn]

I just tried out Bitwig 2.4 beta and it still has a number of problems. Here's what I just reported to Bitwig, so that you all will know what they are already aware of:

* The track inspector’s Channel From and To fields don’t seem to work correctly unless both are set to “All”. If set to anything else, only the lowest channel of the selected range is passed.

* In the track inspector, if PB>Expression is on, the P. Bend Down and Up ranges only work on the Common channel (usually 1) and have no effect on the MPE Per-Note Channels as they should.

* When using an external plug-in synth, the PB Range field in the synth’s inspector doesn’t seem to have any effect on the outgoing bend range. It only seems to change something if you set it to “1” but otherwise it seems always internally forced to “48” regardless of the setting in this field.

* In the MPE implementation, Y-axis (CC74) control is always changed to a relative value, interpreting the starting value as 64 (no change), with further movements added to or subtracted from that initial value. Is there a way to change this to an Absolute mode so that the actual received value is passed through to the synth? If not, I recommend either 1) adding an Absolute mode and selecting it by default, or 2) changing your implementation to always-absolute mode only. The reason is that absolute/relative mode is normally a function of the synth, not the DAW or controller, because some sounds use absolute Y-axis control and others use relative control. For example, let’s say you want a picked guitar sound and wish to use Y-axis to determine the initial pick position between bridge and neck in order to play a thin or more full tone. With the current implementation, this would be impossible.

[pdxindy]

* In the MPE implementation, Y-axis (CC74) control is always changed to a relative value, interpreting the starting value as 64 (no change), with further movements added to or subtracted from that initial value. Is there a way to change this to an Absolute mode so that the actual received value is passed through to the synth? If not, I recommend either 1) adding an Absolute mode and selecting it by default, or 2) changing your implementation to always-absolute mode only. The reason is that absolute/relative mode is normally a function of the synth, not the DAW or controller, because some sounds use absolute Y-axis control and others use relative control. For example, let’s say you want a picked guitar sound and wish to use Y-axis to determine the initial pick position between bridge and neck in order to play a thin or more full tone. With the current implementation, this would be impossible.

When you add the expressions modulator, there is an option in the inspector to set Timbre to Relative or Absolute.

[BobDog]

I have been having a look at what they have done in beta 4 as far as a VST plugin sees from the midi being sent to it.


With MPE off and "PB->Expression" off in the inspector:

Channel 0 : Works as expected, PB range from physical linnstrument setting.
channel 1-15 : Extra Poly pressure message for each channel pressure message for each note, PB range from physical linnstrument setting.


With MPE off and "PB->Expression" on in the inspector:

Channel 0 : pitchbend removed.
channel 1-15 : pitchbend removed and extra Poly pressure message for each channel pressure message for each note.


With MPE on and "PB->Expression" off in the inspector:

channel 0-15 : PB range mapped to value in MPE settings. Multiple notes on same channel get new channel number.


With MPE on and "PB->Expression" on in the inspector:

channel 0-15 : PB range mapped to value in MPE settings. Multiple notes on same channel get new channel number.

[BobDog]

[quote="BobDog"][/quote]

[BobDog]

And from BW/recording point of view:

The PB range recorded is set in the script for the Linnstrument, so with the standard script this is always 24.

If you use an alternative MPE script you can set the range in the controller and BW will then use that as the range it uses for recording the expression data.

Beta 4 also displayed the "MPE" button in the device inspector irrespective of if the plugin reports it supports MPE via the ::canDo("MPE") call.


So as it stands if you don't use channel per row mode the "MPE" button seems to work pretty well now.

If you use channel per row then you need to have "MPE" off and "PB->Expression" off and use 24 range with the standard script, or if your plugin doesn't support 24 you need to use another script. Timbre, pitch and pressure are all recorded fine so I am not really sure whet the "PB->Expression" button is meant to do if using an MPE controller.

[Tj Shredder]

* The track inspector’s Channel From and To fields don’t seem to work correctly unless both are set to “All”. If set to anything else, only the lowest channel of the selected range is passed.

I never interpreted this as a channel range, it is routing midi channels from to. (You cant set both to "All", only "All" to "Same")
This is actually very useful to create MPE Layers and way more useful than having a range, which you could still achieve by using the channel map and channel filter devices...

* When using an external plug-in synth, the PB Range field in the synth’s inspector doesn’t seem to have any effect on the outgoing bend range. It only seems to change something if you set it to “1” but otherwise it seems always internally forced to “48” regardless of the setting in this field.

I can't reproduce this, here it works as expected. I set the PB range to the max of my plug-in and it will scale the Linnstrument PB to that. Now I leave Linnstrument always at 24 and adjust to the range of the synth... Works perfectly...
I am very happy with the MPE implementation at the moment...
I still have to get my head around how I map the only expressive VST3 synth on this earth (Halion) to all these internal/external/MPE controller flows though...
(I guess Steinberg will fail miserably with their attempt to force everybody to VST3...)

[Roger_Linn]

And from BW/recording point of view:

The PB range recorded is set in the script for the Linnstrument, so with the standard script this is always 24.

If you use an alternative MPE script you can set the range in the controller and BW will then use that as the range it uses for recording the expression data.

Beta 4 also displayed the "MPE" button in the device inspector irrespective of if the plugin reports it supports MPE via the ::canDo("MPE") call.


So as it stands if you don't use channel per row mode the "MPE" button seems to work pretty well now.

If you use channel per row then you need to have "MPE" off and "PB->Expression" off and use 24 range with the standard script, or if your plugin doesn't support 24 you need to use another script. Timbre, pitch and pressure are all recorded fine so I am not really sure whet the "PB->Expression" button is meant to do if using an MPE controller.

I should have mentioned that my test was conducted while turning off BW's remote control of LinnStrument's settings, which as I understand it is merely remotely setting LinnStrument's Bend Range to 24 and therefore shouldn't make any difference. I don't see the merit in BW setting it remotely because LinnStrument users may prefer a different bend range, especially given that the MPE spec now uses 48 as default. My understanding is that in order to achieve BW's real-pitch editing, all that should be needed is simply to 1) set BW's Input Bend Range in the Track Inspector to the same as your controller, and if using a plug-in synth, also 2) set BW's Output Bend Range in the Synth Inspector to the same as your synth. I don't see the need for anything more than that, or at least it seems that should be BW's main function. Am I missing something?