Pitch slide on VST's

I’m a bit tired of this, so I’m finally going to ask it : how do you quickly and easily use pitch slide up/down with VST-instruments?
And it doesn’t work with Instr. MIDI Control’s pitchbend slider because it either doesn’t do anything at all or it slides just a tiny amount.

So for example, how do you quickly slide from E-2 to E-4 (from position 00 to position 08, say) using a VST-instrument and this without using a midi keyboard?
Thanks.

It depends on how the plug-in works. Some work using the midi pitch and portamento controlller, others are in need to use vst automation for that and some do not support it at all. Draw the pitch or portamento controller as you`d do it with a filter in the track automation.

how do you quickly and easily use pitch slide up/down with VST-instruments?
And it doesn’t work with Instr. MIDI Control’s pitchbend slider because it either doesn’t do anything at all or it slides just a tiny amount.

Unfortunately, the pitch bend behaviour is almost entirely dictated by the VST plugin (or MIDI device) itself.

In the MIDI spec, there is no command to explicitly say “pitch bend from note X to note Y” or “pitch bend from the current note to note Z”. The amount of pitch bend applied is simply some positive number or some negative number. The synth itself defines what the actual pitch bend range is and how it responds to that positive or negative amount of bend, whether it’s +/- 3 semitones, or +/- 3 octaves, or whatever.

The only thing Renoise can do is tell the VST plugin “hey, I’m pitch bending up by 50% now” or “hey, I’m pitch bending down by 25% now” and so on. Whatever the VST plugin actually does with that information (if anything) is entirely out of our control.

Nevertheless, if the VST plugin at least offers some control over the pitch bend range, then it should be quite trivial to get useful results. For example, if the VST allows you to set a pitch bend range of +/- 2 octaves, then you could start playing your E-2 note with the Instrument MIDI Control device’s pitch bend set to 0%, then automate it up to 100% to achieve the E-4 note.

Each synth may react differently, so it will just take some trial and error.

I’m mostly using Native Instruments’ Massive. It has a pitch setting but when I change it in Renoise through *Instr Automation, the slide is choppy.

I can attach an LFO to it (it being the VST’s OSC1-PITCH setting) but then I lose control over the notes to pitch to.

Hm the choppiness using *Instr Automation isn’t THAT bad. Now I have to find the right numbers to make it pitch eg 1 octave. Trial-and-error is afoot.

So much work for a simple slide-to-note, how does eg Ableton Live do it?

Thanks for answering guys, I was afraid it would be different with each VST instrument.

I have Massive too, the setting is under OSC in the synth settings > Pitchbend. You can set a max of 2 octaves up and down. I use “Inst Midi control” in renoise to do the pitchbend. If you want one octave up then set up to 12. You can then use the midi control to bend up 100% and you’re at +1 octave. The pitchbend amount is saved with the synth patch, some will be set to zero or +/- 1 semitone. That may be why it appears to be doing little or nothing…

Another option is glide, takes the guesswork out of what percentage amount to bend to get to a certain note, you just enter the note and let massive glide up to it from the previous one. (If you only want glide on at certain times you can macro the Time and then control that macro from renoise).

Thanks, I found it too now! I tried the glide option but it’s a bit limited in that it doesn’t do a slow glide to note over a number of pattern positions.

On another note (hm), one strange thing I found is that envelope data doesn’t get pasted along with notes in a pattern. And the copy/paste in the automation window doesn’t work either, nothing happens when I hit paste.

On another note (hm), one strange thing I found is that envelope data doesn’t get pasted along with notes in a pattern. And the copy/paste in the automation window doesn’t work either, nothing happens when I hit paste.

If you want to include the graphical automation data (envelopes), you have to at least use the “copy track” function (SHIFT + F3).

Anything less than this (copy selection, column) will not include the automation.

Or you can CTRL/CMD-drag in the matrix. This will copy a matrix slot, and also include any envelopes.

Finally, you need to set keyboard focus (alt-click or middle click) in the automation window before you can use keyboard shortcuts.

Using the mouse, you can of course bring up the context menu which will offer the same shortcuts.

Does this mean I can’t create automation data on pattern positions 0-15 and copy/paste these to positions 16-63?

Seems a bit of a miss that you can’t copy/paste this with Alt-F4/F5 (copy/paste selection).

Does this mean I can’t create automation data on pattern positions 0-15 and copy/paste these to positions 16-63?

Seems a bit of a miss that you can’t copy/paste this with Alt-F4/F5 (copy/paste selection).

You can do this with the mouse, not shure about the key commands though.

You can do this with the mouse, not shure about the key commands though.

How do you do this with the mouse? All I can do with it is change the automation values.

How do you do this with the mouse? All I can do with it is change the automation values.

You push and hold the left mouse button while dragging to select in the automation window. Then you right click the selection and copy, then you right click where you want to paste it and choose either paste or paste continuously.

Yep it works, thanks!

Dunno what I did wrong before though.