MPE support public preview revision 15139 (ACE, Bazille, Diva, Hive)

[Fannon]

FWIW, I have not been able to get MPE glide or Y-Axis to work using the CLAP plugin and Bitwig 5.1b5.

As another user already mentioned, there seems to be a problem with Bitwig 5.1 beta 5 which breaks our plugin's MPE mode. We are in contact with Bitwig so they can hopefully resolve this soon.

Thanks tas! Good to know they're working on it. I've also had reported it back to them when I noticed this but haven't heard back.

[tasmaniandevil]

Thanks tas! Good to know they're working on it. I've also had reported it back to them when I noticed this but haven't heard back.

Some Bitwig developers are in London for ADC this week, so they might not be able to respond immediately.

[1234Hi5!]

still broken in Bitwig 5.1 beta 6 as far as I can tell
couldn't figure out how to get MPE pitch slides to work in Ableton with push 3 either

[pdxindy]

yeah, MPE is broken in Bitwig 5.1 beta 6

[Fannon]

Thanks tas! Good to know they're working on it. I've also had reported it back to them when I noticed this but haven't heard back.

Some Bitwig developers are in London for ADC this week, so they might not be able to respond immediately.

Got the reply from Bitwig support now. But they kind of confirmed what I also noticed: It's just the Diva CLAP where MPE is broken, for other plugins (in both formats) it works fine. So it seems to be a Diva CLAP specific issue as it somehow behaves differently (e.g. even than Hive)

[tasmaniandevil]

Got the reply from Bitwig support now. But they kind of confirmed what I also noticed: It's just the Diva CLAP where MPE is broken, for other plugins (in both formats) it works fine. So it seems to be a Diva CLAP specific issue as it somehow behaves differently (e.g. even than Hive)

Interesting, thanks.
We'll have a look into this next week, when the developers are back from ADC.

[pdxindy]

Thanks tas! Good to know they're working on it. I've also had reported it back to them when I noticed this but haven't heard back.

Some Bitwig developers are in London for ADC this week, so they might not be able to respond immediately.

Got the reply from Bitwig support now. But they kind of confirmed what I also noticed: It's just the Diva CLAP where MPE is broken, for other plugins (in both formats) it works fine. So it seems to be a Diva CLAP specific issue as it somehow behaves differently (e.g. even than Hive)

ACE and Bazille CLAP versions both are not working for MPE in 5.1 beta 6

[Fannon]

Ok, I haven't tried ACE and Bazille CLAP. Maybe then it's something more systematic then.

Support also mentioned one interesting thing: They said that it's not necessary to set the Track MIDI Channel settings to "All -> Same", because the MPE controller script should do that automatically.

[pdxindy]

Support also mentioned one interesting thing: They said that it's not necessary to set the Track MIDI Channel settings to "All -> Same", because the MPE controller script should do that automatically.

That doesn't make sense to me. Most of my tracks are set to "All Ins". Should I specifically set the input to be from the Linnstrument for it to be set to "All -> Same" automatically? I've seen no evidence of it happening automatically.

I'll check in the studio (as soon as I finish breakfast).

[Fannon]

Support also mentioned one interesting thing: They said that it's not necessary to set the Track MIDI Channel settings to "All -> Same", because the MPE controller script should do that automatically.

That doesn't make sense to me. Most of my tracks are set to "All Ins". Should I specifically set the input to be from the Linnstrument for it to be set to "All -> Same" automatically? I've seen no evidence of it happening automatically.

I'll check in the studio (as soon as I finish breakfast).

Yes, had the same thought. I'll need to check as well. Maybe this is something you can define in your controller script. But if this is so, then the generic MIDI controller should have an option to define this as MPE controller?

I think the idea would be that this specific controller will send All MIDI channels to same MIDI channels and "override" what Bitwig is doing with this setting? To be honest, I find this all a bit confusing or at least under-documented.

[SteveElbows]

Please do, I can't get anything MPE working on Diva or Hive 2 with Ableton Live 11.3.13 & Push 3.

Im sure it's something I'm doing & my lack of general MPE knowledge but I have set it up as per the instructions.

I know it works correctly as the stock Ableton instruments & Serum work fine with MPE.

I've just started to try Diva and Hive with Ableton & Push 3.

Works fine and as expected for me so far.

I didnt do anything special really, and I didnt need to manually mess with pitch bend settings. All I needed to do was setup CC74 as instructed, switch MPE on in the synth plugins own GUI, and switch MPE on for that synth plugin device instance inside Ableton. Perhaps that last thing is the one people might forget to do, due to it being within a right-click menu inside Ableton?



When I say I didnt need to mess with pitch bend settings, I mean that I was able to leave the synths pitch bend settings at their default values, eg 2, and just switching on MPE mode in both Ableton and the synths own GUI was enough to get the right bend range. When I slide a finger on the Push 3 pads, the pitch playing on the pad my finger ends up on after sliding is the same pitch as if I triggered a new note from that pad in the first place = proof that correct bend range is being used.

[Urs]

It is my impression that Bitwig's MPE mode is for using MPE Instruments *without* an MPE Controller. Such that drawing Notes in the timeline and stuff automatically distributes voices across channels.

I could be wrong though, but I think it probably makes sense to have MPE Mode *not* enabled when using MPE Instruments like Diva with an MPE Controller.

[SteveElbows]

It is my impression that Bitwig's MPE mode is for using MPE Instruments *without* an MPE Controller. Such that drawing Notes in the timeline and stuff automatically distributes voices across channels.

I could be wrong though, but I think it probably makes sense to have MPE Mode *not* enabled when using MPE Instruments like Diva with an MPE Controller.

I dont understand what gives you that impression.

Perhaps you could explain from a technical point of view (as in the technical differences between MPE and non-MPE mode) why it makes sense to have MPE mode not enabled when using the likes of Diva with a MPE controller?

(my own background is that I am a long-term MPE nerd but mostly from the controller and pure MIDI angle/straightforward MPE MIDI control of hardware and software synths angle. So there are big gaps in my knowledge when it comes to aspects of plugin formats that arent straightforward MIDI-specific, eg the more abstracted per-note expressivity we start to see in some plugin formats and DAWs).

I'm tempted to think that there is some needless overcomplicating and overthinking going on somehow, but I'm also aware that even a relatively straightforward spec like MPE does get more complicated when certain scenarios and contradictory requirements are considered in full, so I'm aware that my criticism about needless overcomplication is probably unfair. But to get to the bottom of this I need the technical detail really.

[pdxindy]

Support also mentioned one interesting thing: They said that it's not necessary to set the Track MIDI Channel settings to "All -> Same", because the MPE controller script should do that automatically.

That doesn't make sense to me. Most of my tracks are set to "All Ins". Should I specifically set the input to be from the Linnstrument for it to be set to "All -> Same" automatically? I've seen no evidence of it happening automatically.

I'll check in the studio (as soon as I finish breakfast).

Yes, had the same thought. I'll need to check as well. Maybe this is something you can define in your controller script. But if this is so, then the generic MIDI controller should have an option to define this as MPE controller?

I think the idea would be that this specific controller will send All MIDI channels to same MIDI channels and "override" what Bitwig is doing with this setting? To be honest, I find this all a bit confusing or at least under-documented.

There's no option in the Linnstrument controller panel in Bitwig.

And you do have to set it to same to record multiple channels.

[Urs]

I dont understand what gives you that impression.

Well, if your controller sends MPE and your plug-in understands MPE, the host should have to meddle as little with the data as possible.

Again, I could be totally wrong about how Bitwig Studio handles this. I do however think that when I tested our implementation with a Linnstrument or an Osmose within BWS, I had to switch MPE Mode off to get the data that I was expecting from the controller. I might be remembering this wrong though.