CC1 and CC24 (brightness) in GPO

[Chinablu]

I've been able to simultaneously send GPO two midi controls: CC1 ("volume") and CC24 (brightness) via modwheel. I did the trick in Logic Pro using two "transformers" in the environment (see picture in http://www.geocities.com/chinablu2/images/transformer.jpg). The first transformer converts CC1 to CC24. The second transformer gets its input from the first one and converts CC24 back to CC1. Furthermore, I set the CC1 slider in GPO to an arbitrary -30% (see picture in http://www.geocities.com/chinablu2/images/gpo.jpg), so that the volume never falls below a realistic and audible level. As a result, you (proportionally) control either volume and brightness from modwheel at the very same time: as CC1 increases, CC24 increases (and viceversa) too and the sound becomes more and more brighter. This emulates in some way a sound morphing and can possibily add to your orchestral simulations a more naturally changing timbre and bring even more life in them.

I did not find any other way to do the trick, so far, but any other suggestion simpler than mine will be welcome, of course!

Hope this helps,
Chinablu

PS - You must use the X-Custom presets in GPO.
PPS - You can add a third transformer to limit the output value of CC24 within a user-definable range between 0 and 127 (from 0 to 48, 24 to 64 or any other interval you like). This can be useful to avoid an unnatural "wah-wah" effect due to a too wide cutoff range. Let me know if you wish further explanations. Thank you.

[billp]

China,
Thanks for this. I haven't had time to respond to this or to try it out, but it sounds intriguing. I'm surprised you haven't gotten any other posts on this. I'll be trying to do something similar in SONAR with midi plugins--Markleford has a few that I think will work together to do something like this.

[Chinablu]

Thank you, Bill. Perhaps few of us are using Logic Pro on Mac, but it's worth an attempt in Cubase, Sonar etc. because one can improve his/her orchestral simulations taking advantage of the X-Custom patches. Routing Midi controls in Logic is relatively simple (the "Tranformer" objects do the trick), but I'm quite sure that a way to obtain the very same result exists in Sonar too. BTW, in my setup a third Transformer has been added and set to "Exponential", so that the brightenss curve in GPO has a non-linear behavior and the sound becomes (exponentially) brighter as you increase CC1 with the modwheel (take a look at this picture: http://www.geocities.com/chinablu2/images/exp.jpg). Let me know if you discover anything new!

:) China

[billp]

China,
I had time for a quick test tonight. I used one of Markleford's plugins and drove the mod wheel (expression) and the brightness control simultaneously with the mod wheel on my synth. It's interesting...I can see that it does need to be proportionalized a bit. I didn't have time for that tonight...maybe tomorrow.

I think its a great idea and worth pursuing a bit more.

[Chinablu]

I think its a great idea and worth pursuing a bit more.

I tried a simpler solution assigning the GPO/Kontakt slider to Velocity and the modwheel to CC24. To me, this gives a pianist a more familiar feeling: the keys behave as on a piano and the modwheel adds timbral life to otherwise static notes. CC24 in Kontakt responds abruptly, but with a little practice some interesting results can be reached...

:) China

[Chinablu]

Bill, you can try this: http://www.geocities.com/chinablu2/sounds/mend.mp3

It's musically horrible (my rendition, not Mendelssohn, of course!), but note that crescendos and diminuendos in the Violas are emulated only by mean of keystroke velocity and CC24 assigned to the modwheel. CC1 has not been used at all.

:) China

PS - It would be nice if Kontakt player could route more than one midi controller. Logic Pro built-in sampler, EXS-24, can do it. In EXS-24, user can route up to ten midi controllers to filter cutoff, resonance, ADSR, pitch or any other parameter he wants to.