Fast Arpeggios And Smooth Pitch Bends On Vst Instruments

[Kizzume]

How do I do it? I know it can be done on samples, but what about vst instruments?

(EDIT: Fast arpeggios like what you heard on C64 music a lot)

[Fullofkittens]

For fast arpeggios you could just use a very fast LPB…

For pitchbend on vsts use a midi cc plugin and automate it?

[It-Alien]

regarding the smoothness of PB, you should check if the plugin has a PB range property; some of the plugins make it possible to define how much pitch difference there is between

C1 41 0000 <== full down pitch

and

C1 41 7F7F <== full up pitch

also, try if using the 3rd and 4th digits of the command column gives you smoother changes.

you can also use the MidiControl device as FullofKittens said, of course.

[anhelido (Angel)]

Mitch Murder posted a chiptune with arpeggios so you can check how it is done. It’s in this thread. Basically is the column effect 00xy.

EDIT: Sorry, I missed the “not sample, but VST” part.

[tmt]

For arpeggios i see only 2 options.

1. Render vst into sample
2. Use vst that have build in arpeggio with good controls. (like Synth1)

For smooth pitch bend you can use mono or legato playmode instead of polyphonic playmode.
Trick is that you need to place the note to different track to bend from first to second note.
Of course limitation is that you can’t have chords unless you get 3 or more instances of that synth.

Correction: Portamento works with arpeggio of course

[elfh]

wusik vm can be used for arpeggios with vst. it has arpeggiator midi fx plugin. workflow will be like this: load wusik as vsti into renoise, then load arpeggiator into wusik and load your vst into wusik. its free.

[Kizzume]

Thanks for the info.

So there isn’t really an answer to make smooth pitch bends without having a fast BPM…

I hope that in the future there will be an option in preferences that can be selected that makes pitch commands use pornamento.

As far as the arpeggio thing–it’s not really necessary, doing it by hand is fine if I really want that kind of thing, and it doesn’t take very long to do.

Again, thanks for the info.

[Suva]

You can automate the Midi Control Device PB slider, this will be smoother than pattern editor commands for sure.

[Kizzume]

@Suva

You can automate the Midi Control Device PB slider, this will be smoother than pattern editor commands for sure.

It seems like that would be rather tedious to do. Is there some method of adjusting automation that I’m unaware of? Finding the exact spot where I want it to slide via the automation screen with the mouse SEEMS like it would take a long time, but I might be missing something obvious. Can a midi controller input (like pitch-bend) be used to adjust automation, or must the mouse be used for it? Thanks for this info.

[Fullofkittens]

@Kizzume

It seems like that would be rather tedious to do. Is there some method of adjusting automation that I’m unaware of? Finding the exact spot where I want it to slide via the automation screen with the mouse SEEMS like it would take a long time, but I might be missing something obvious. Can a midi controller input (like pitch-bend) be used to adjust automation, or must the mouse be used for it? Thanks for this info.

Usually you can set the pitch bend range for a midi instrument, so just set the range to where you want to bend it to and then automate to the maximum.

P.S. I definitely think that recording CC info is the way to go with this, dunno if Renoise does it or not.

Automation has a big weakness that makes it a bad fit for pitchbending: you can’t jump between values.

[Kizzume]

@Bantai

You can MIDI Map (ctrl+m) an external MIDI controller to the PB slider from the MIDI Control Device.

Currently the MIDI Map function can only respond to CCs. The Pitchbend Controller on your MIDI hardware does not send CC data. If you must, you could translate the Pitchbend data to CC data through Bome’s MIDI Translator. Otherwise I’d say, just use one of the regular knobs or sliders instead.

Of course, eventually any Pitchbend data should be recorded to either automation envelopes or pattern commands depending on how you configured Renoise. It’s not a trivial issue, since it would involve automatically adding MIDI Control Devices (which track? which instrument? what about reusing existing devices?).

Well, it already works for pattern commands–the problem is that it just clips instantly to whatever pitch is on that line instead of pornamentoing to that pitch.

Usually you can set the pitch bend range for a midi instrument, so just set the range to where you want to bend it to and then automate to the maximum.

P.S. I definitely think that recording CC info is the way to go with this, dunno if Renoise does it or not.

Automation has a big weakness that makes it a bad fit for pitchbending: you can’t jump between values.

It would be very difficult to do–so I’m just going to stick with doing it the way I’ve been, writing the song first, PLANNING where I’m going to put the pitch bends and put in the appropriate notes, THEN expand the song about four times and increase the BPM to an insane number and then put in the pitchbends.

Again, this wouldn’t have to be done if there was an option to pornamento to the values.

Thanks for the info.

[tmt]

@Kizzume

Well, it already works for pattern commands–the problem is that it just clips instantly to whatever pitch is on that line instead of pornamentoing to that pitch.

I dunno what vst you are using but if it has portamento, it works automaticly if you set notes to different tracks. (can be same channel)
You can set the speed from the vst plugin. If notes are in same track, no portamento.
Then you need pattern commands (and automation device) to set the speed of portamento if you need different values.

Or did i misunderstood what you are trying to do?

[Kizzume]

I just want to be able to have SMOOTH pitch bends once in a while on a song without having to speed up the BPM to an extremely fast rate.

The effect command, which I can’t remember what it is right now, that changes the pitch, does it in such a way that when the song reaches that line, it INSTANTLY goes to that pitch. I wish there was a way to make it pornamento to that pitch instead of just going to it instantly–have some sort of toggle in the preferences that turns that option on or off. Sure, if the VST that I’m using has pornamento, I suppose I could find the automation toggle for the pornamento effect for that particular instrument and use it for just that moment, but that is a HELL of a lot of steps to do something that should be just part of Renoise already, and if the VST does NOT have that option, then a smooth pitch bend is just not possible without speeding up the BPM. Sure, I can cut to pitches (not really “slide”) if the BPM is going slow, but that is a pretty dead giveaway that it’s being done with a tracker program when people hear it.

Both Octamed AND MED Soundstudio didn’t have the nice ability to be able to use the pitch bend controller through midi to add in a pitch bend like what Renoise has, but there was at least a simple effect command that would do a pitch bend smoothy. To my knowledge, in Renoise this can be done with samples (I might be wrong), but it doesn’t work with Midi instruments nor does it work with VST instruments.

I guess this thread really belongs in the ideas & suggestions forum.

[Kizzume]

More than a year later… still nothing on this. Come on guys. Smooth pitch bends is a CRUCIAL option.

[maes]

i’m confused here… the 05 command lets you do slow pitchbends, no? do you mean lpb instead of bpm in your post btw?

edit: ok, seems you are not talking about samples in renoise but vsts. not sure then.

it’s “portamento” not “pornamento”, although the former sound funnier! <:

[danoise]

Fast arpeggios:
If the VST supports oscillator tuning (via the automation device), you can make your own arpeggio using the LFO device and a custom point envelope.
I made some stuff using the free triforce plugin that sounded pretty c64-ish (well, nintendo-ish). Only downside is, that you have to keep a device for each chord you want to make, and switch between them using the “effect bypass” command.

[insane (allie)]

I keep thinking when reading this thread: USE THE ****ING MIDI CONTROL DEVICE AND AUTOMATE THE PB SLIDER!!!

But people have abandoned it or something.