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MIDI-OX >> Mapping Questions >> Controlling cutoff and resonance with pitch + mod
(Message started by: SveinT on Jun 9th, 2003, 5:43pm)

Title: Controlling cutoff and resonance with pitch + mod
Post by SveinT on Jun 9th, 2003, 5:43pm
Hi,

I'm totally new to this so please be easy on me  :)
This could very well be the wrong forum for this question for all I know, if so, sorry, but what I want to do is to control the resonance with my keyboards Modulator (the input i get is CC: Modulation), and the cutoff with the Pitch Bend. I guess most of know what effect i want to achieve, and just to let you know right away, my keybord don't have any of those controllers built in...
I have tried various methods involving Cubase 5 and whatnot, but I just can't get it working right. If you have a solution please explain quite thoroughfully as I don't know much about this...planning to learn though as it looks very interesting!
If Midi-OX cant do it (is there a thing it can't do?) and you know a solution that involves other programs please let me know anyways...

Thanks in advance

PS: I have an old Roland D-20 which I use for midi controller ( :-/), and I can't get it to transfer volume information...anyone has any idea about this? (I know it is a long shot ;) )

Title: Re: Controlling cutoff and resonance with pitch +
Post by Jamie OConnell on Jun 9th, 2003, 10:31pm
Mapping Modulation to resonance is a fairly simple operation with MIDI-OX.  I have a Phatboy that uses a NRPN (161 dec.: MSB=1, LSB=33) to control Resonance.  Is that the controller you had in mind?  If so you can map it directly using MIDI-OX  Data Mapping.  You'd map from CC:1 to NRPN:161 :


Ch Message V1Min V1Max V2Min V2Max C|Ch Message V1Min V1Max V2Min V2Max
* Ctrl        1     1     0   127  | * NRPN      161   161     0 16383


NOTES:  Although the range of the Modulation is 0 - 127, each NRPN has a range of 0 - 16383 (using both MSB and LSB of the Data Entry controller).  The MIDI-OX mapping convention is to specify the entire range, even when you're only sending MSB of the Data Entry.   After you turn the Map on and wiggle your Modulation Wheel you should get output like:


000BC777  A90 MU1    B0    63    01    1  ---  CC: NRPN MSB      
000BC777  A90 MU1    B0    62    21    1  ---  CC: NRPN LSB      
000BC777  A90 MU1    B0    06    14    1  ---  CC: Data Entry MSB
000BC780  A90 MU1    B0    63    01    1  ---  CC: NRPN MSB      
000BC780  A90 MU1    B0    62    21    1  ---  CC: NRPN LSB      
000BC780  A90 MU1    B0    06    09    1  ---  CC: Data Entry MSB

Title: Re: Controlling cutoff and resonance with pitch +
Post by SveinT on Jun 10th, 2003, 8:02am
No, I don't think that was exactly what I had in mind...
What I'm trying to do is controlling resonance and cutoff with the modulation wheel on my Roland D-20 keyboard. I came up with one solution yesterday, but I encountered one big problem which ruined the whole idea...Have a look:

   8173  1  --    238    56    48   15  ---  Pitch Bend
   8181  1  --    238    61    59   15  ---  Pitch Bend
   8190  1  --    238     0    64   15  ---  Pitch Bend

Becomes:

   8181  1   2    190    21    59   15  ---  CC: 21 (E-MU)
   8190  1   1    190    21    64   15  ---  CC: 21 (E-MU)
   8190  1   2    190    21    64   15  ---  CC: 21 (E-MU)

I got this by mapping Ctrl 1 1 * * to Ctrl 22 22 * * , and
by mapping PitchB * * * * to Ctrl 21 21 * *.
The problem is the it's not applied to the current playing tone, so it only changes it for the next tones to be played. Thus I can't change the way a tone that is currently bein played sounds like....I hope you understand and thanks for your quick answer!

Title: Re: Controlling cutoff and resonance with pitch +
Post by Jamie OConnell on Jun 10th, 2003, 11:19am
From what you presented, I take it that your device does not use NRPNs to change Resonance and Cutoff, but instead uses  CC:21 and CC:22?  If so, that's actually easier to map, but you may have some trouble using the bend wheel as a source.  This is because the bend wheel has 14 bit resolution (range: 0 - 16383).  But if you just map the Pitchbend MSB, you can map it into a controller (sort of).  In fact, your map for Pitch bend looks correct.  Of course, the pitch bend center point will equal a controller value of 40 hex (64 dec.).

There isn't much that can be done about the target hardware not responding in real time to the change in controller value: that would be a hardware deficiency.  What is the target device?

I used to have a D20 before it was stolen.  As I recall, it can't issue Volume (CC:7) at all, although it will respond to it.  The volume slider only affects the D20 internally.



Title: Re: Controlling cutoff and resonance with pitch +
Post by SveinT on Jun 10th, 2003, 1:49pm
Thanks again for your reply, but as I said earlier I have no idea about this. I am using Soundfonts on a computer as target, and I dunno wether my mod wheel and pitch bend sends NRPN or not....I know that a computer can respond with those midi filters in realtime however (have tried with cakewalk).
No, my device doesn't use CC21 and CC22 as signal...what appear in MIDIOX is pitchbend (as source) and CC:1 Modulation. I mapped the pitch bend into CC21 because that's the controller for cutoff isnt it? And 22 for resonance? Thus i mapped the modulation to resonance...
So, Pitch Bend -> CC:21
CC:1 Modulation -> CC:22

Furthermore, I have tried realtime controls with cakewalk and those worked, supposedly another method involving Cubase also works but I couldn't get it to work. Please have a look at this page: http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundfont_knowledge_base.html
under "controlling filters in realtime". I don't know how to route my keyboard to control Cakewalk however, so im stuck there too..

You are right about the 40 hex part yes, it does give middle value (64), but isn't that the normal setting anyway? Otherwise I will issue that in other ways so it's not really a problem...

I would buy a better controller, but I find it a waste of money as the D-20 is doing it fine...maybe I will buy a MIDI foot controller so I can switch banks, control sounds and everything by my feet (nice while playing live  ;) )
Again, thanks a dozen for your help so far!

Title: Re: Controlling cutoff and resonance with pitch +
Post by SveinT on Jun 10th, 2003, 3:55pm
Ok, getting a bit further now...
I get cutoff to work by using NRPN data 16277 with the values from the pitch bend. This works in realtime, however I can't get the resonance to work (16278). I'm not 100% sure about the numbers as I have no idea about NRPN, but I got those numbers from the StudioWare file in Cakewalk. In Cakewalk it works like charm, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong. This is the settings for the sliders in cakewalk:

Kind: NRPN
Number 16277
COF=($2000 + CutoffFreq)

Kind: NRPN
Number 16278
FILRES=($2000 + FilterRes)

I dunno if those tell you anything...
Another thing I'm wondering about is that I'm trying to make the pitch wheel send a reset ctrl signal when at value 64 (in the middle position). I put pitch wheel 64 64 64 64 -> ctrl 121 121 0 0 . Shouldn't that work? (it doesn't now...). It works if I send the signal manually from the signal send panel (the leftmost icon in the longest row in midiOX). By sending the signal it resets the cutoff values so sound is good again...I realize I'm trying to do things a bit complicated, but at least I'm learning  ;D

Well, thanks again for the help so far!

-edit-

Ok, got it working now...I'm extremely sorry for not paying more attention to your first reply, it's just that I don't think I completely understood what you meant. I do now however, and it seems like I had the wrong number if you look above in this post (16278 should've been 121). It works like a charm now, only the reset control thing left to figure out :)
Again, thanks a bunch!!

-2nd edit-

Ok, this is embarrasing...I thought it was working but it seems like it wasn't after all...weird, but I think my hearing is the thing to blame...sorry. Got any more suggestions? Where can I get a list over NRPN numbers and what they do btw?

Supposedly AWE cards use these values for NRPN:
127      21      0      127      Filter Cutoff
127      22      0      127      Filter Resonance

(http://www.webmassiva.com/developer/nrpn/awe.txt)
Using the NRPN calculator I get (MSB 127, LSB 21) 16277 and (MSB 127, LSB 21) 16278...it should work :\

Title: Re: Controlling cutoff and resonance with pitch +
Post by Jamie OConnell on Jun 11th, 2003, 10:22am
CC:21 and CC:22 are non-standard (officially they are 'undefined').  Emu uses these for their own purposes, but I don't know of any others.

NRPN stands for Non Registered Parameter Number. By their very nature, NRPNs are also manufacturer specific, and there is no standard master list.  Each device can do whatever it wants with any NRPN.

It'd be nice if that reference text on the AWE site had some column labels.  I don't have any specific information on AWE.



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