[Feature request] Generate Pitch Bend with expression pedals

I am certainly not the only one to use a Fishman triple Play or Midi Guitar to generate midi notes from my guitar which are sent to one or several expanders, mainly synths or grove boxes, all this being managed by MC8 ?
And I appreciate the expression pedals extensions by Morningstar, but there is one missing feature : Pitch Bend can’t be done because it needs a dedicated midi message, named … Picth Bend :wink:

As many of my synths are desktop versions without keyboard, they don’t offer pitch bend and modulation wheels. Modulation is easy to manage with an expression pedal connected to MC8 because there is a CC dedicated to it (CC 1), but pitch bend is a different story as MC8 does not emit the pitch bend midi message.
I have searched the web for a solution and found the old Midi Solutions Pedal Controller but it is limited to one midi channel, needs power, and is expensive.
I asked @james and he told me there is no demand for this.
All the ones using Ableton and virtual instruments would also benefit from a way to send bend effects by mid from their MCxxi.
So if, as me, you are interested in this feature, thanks to support it by a positive comment.
May be am I the only ?

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We can possibly add this in the future, but you asked if it will be in the next update to which I can’t give an answer yet because we have a backlog of things to clear

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Pitch bend with expression pedal would be so nice with your new Notes features to build drones, The sooner the better.

If you need some help for converting expression pedal signal to pitchbend, Bome proposes this algorithm to convert CC7, you just have to mod it to accept exp pedal % rather then 0-127 CC value
tt=qq<<7
qq=qq|tt
taken from Expression pedal CC to Pitchbend - Bome Forum
:wink:

Actually, the expression input resolution is 128 steps, so I’m not sure how well it will work if we translate it to the pitchbend 8191 * 2 resolution. That means (8191 * 2) / 128 = 128 which is the pitchbend value change per step if you set min/max to the largest possible value for pitchbend (8191)

That’s the way adopted by many companies, because it’s only due to actual midi limitation on 7 bits.
And according many feedback, that’s ok (see Midi Solutions dedicated pedal literature), because we don’t expect to repro with our foot what we can do with our fingers, so 128 slots equally distributed is Ok to reach a good effect :wink:
And to complete this, let’s also consider that each device includes its own pitch bend precision setting (often by pattern) which often leads to a very smaller range of values than the high 8191 theory standard (who can do the most can do the least).

My thoughts on this now is that it needs 3 parameters:

  1. Value of Pitch bend below zero (-8191 to 0)
  2. Value of Pitch bend above zero (0 to 8191)
  3. MIDI Channel

where 1 and 2 is just like the min and max. Am I missing anything here?

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Would be perfect, you mean associated with expression pedal position ?

Yes, so if pitch below 0 is -100, and pitch above 0 is 8191, the full sweep should go from -100 to 8191

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Added this is today’s update

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Thanks but I will not test immediately if I have to integrate the Counter step feature and update all my presets :frowning:

Is there any tutorial on how this Pitch Bend works? I would like to use an Expression pedal to bend pitch on the Source Audio C4. I am using Midi CC currently. just exploring different approaches.

Thanks!

Source Audio C4 does not understand midi Pitch Bend, you must continue with CCs.

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im curious how to get this working - how do i add it as a preset? was thinking of doing one as a pitch bend up and one as a pitch bend down.

There is a Pitch Bend message type under the Expression Preset that you can use:

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