Mind you, Continuum isn't meant to do piano. It's a revolutionary new thing that's meant for exploring microtonality. And since ernst's posts made me aware of his wishing into exploring that, I recommended it.

Anyone can play it, it's just a matter of time to getting adjusted to a slightly different controller. Like when you switch from piano to synth action keys.

I was indeed looking this Hakan Continuum up. That looks quite nice. And is full of possibilites. Actually I am a pianist, and keys are my interface (that much to limitations...) and this Hakan Continuum obviously has no keys, rather a long pad. Is it expensive?

It's unfortunately expensive. 3400$ for the almost 4-octave one, 5400$ for the almost 8-octave one. You can purchase the "pad" which has labeled black keys for reference separately. It's all explained on Haken's page. It's also limited to 16 note polyphony, because it sends pitch info one note per MIDI channel. But, it's not really intended to play piano. On the other hand, microtonality is its forté.

It's my dream to have one. Plus, it looks weird and beautiful.

http://www.cerlsoundgroup.org/Continuum...faces.html
http://www.cerlsoundgroup.org/Continuum...rices.html

You have a lot of examples of what can be done with it in the Examples section!

I was indeed looking this Hakan Continuum up. That looks quite nice. And is full of possibilites. Actually I am a pianist, and keys are my interface (that much to limitations...) and this Hakan Continuum obviously has no keys, rather a long pad. Is it expensive?

It's unfortunately expensive. 3400$ for the almost 4-octave one, 5400$ for the almost 8-octave one. You can purchase the "pad" which has labeled black keys for reference separately. It's all explained on Haken's page.

It's my dream to have one. Plus, it looks weird and beautiful.

http://www.cerlsoundgroup.org/Continuum...faces.html
http://www.cerlsoundgroup.org/Continuum...rices.html

You have a lot of examples of what can be done with it in the Examples section!

Or, if it does support it, it needs several other types of messages PER note (other than note on and off) to detune the sound. You're the only one here requesting such things as midi-cents, so IMHO I can't see this happening with Pianoteq.

Well, what the hell. I don't see it either. But my idea of a virtual piano is that it is not only smaller and cheaper but that it can do other things than a real one. It is a kind of hybrid entity, it's deriving from a physical conception and a sound that we love. But in itself the virtual piano is completely different. It has it's own reality. So it sould emancipate from the limited possibilities of a physical piano. What it already does where customers ask for it Why not follow this track of invention furthermore?
To the "detuning" of the sound or rather pitch: The midi note contains all information about pitch and this stays so even if you give it two digits more. In the state being you can regard the midinote as the pitch information 60,00 which is exactly what comes out of the synthesizer in Hz. Not about 60. Exactly 60,00. So it doesn't need more information to create 60,25. Only a string in the program. Or two...

I was indeed looking this Hakan Continuum up. That looks quite nice. And is full of possibilites. Actually I am a pianist, and keys are my interface (that much to limitations...) and this Hakan Continuum obviously has no keys, rather a long pad. Is it expensive?

I just realized - some pianos have four pedals - maybe that' what the fourth pedal is for.

The purpose of Pianoteq (at least as I understand it) is to duplicate the sound of an acoustic grand piano (and uprights too), I'm not sure why pitch bend is included.  In the version called "Violteq" it would be essential.

Glenn

Your only solution might be a Haken Continuum (as it doesn't have keys, right?) plus a Kyma Paca(rana) connected and doing marvellous stuff.

You don't even need Kyma, Max/MSP can do wonders when controlled by Continuum, too. The only caveat is the price of the darn thing.

Load up 16 instances of PTQ3 and set each one to a different midi channel (both Notes channel and Pitch Bend channel to the same channel), then you should have the separation you need, hopefully.

Hi EvilDragon...:There is of course a CPU liimit to your solution. Mabe you know, there is a saying: it's like shooting sparrows with a cannon.
But seriously, in all this involvement in tricks and workarounds I almost forgot to say that also the use of pitchbend on 16 detuned channels is a compromise for microtonality. And it's also a waste of midi-channels by the way. The best und really simpliest would be, if midi notes were not integers but decimals. If each Midi note would have two decimal digits it would contain enough information for all conceivable tunings. And it would be really simple.
For example a quartertone above 60 would be 60,5 and not 60 on channel 9. I have built an"hammond"  organ in Max/msp which is based on those midi-cent note information. It's working on one single midi-channel. And the decimals don't give the CPU any more work than Midi-integers. What causes CPU-sweat are voices -  and voices I don't need more than a welltempered piano does because I play mostly with my hands on a normal keyboard.
In fact that's my real wish to pianoteq: to learn midi-cent!!
But the pitchbend-channel-bond would be nice as well (for the start...).

Don't take following too seriously - it's meant as "tongue in cheek".

I was in the shop of my piano restorer/dealer friend yesterday pm, and we couldn't find one piano out of eight grands and four uprights that had pitch bend!!

However, one of the grands he just acquired (a 1926 Hamburg Steinway 170 model O that has a fabulous sound) has key bushings that will need replacing as the keys tend to wobble a bit.

We were wondering if perhaps this was intended to achieve pitch bends as those German piano builders don't seem to do anything without a purpose in mind.

Glenn

And by the way: this pitchbend-issue is a bug even within the dogma.

It's not a bug, it's a feature

Really, there are not THAT many instruments that exert polyphonic pitch bends of various degrees that would justify a polyphonic pitch bend midi message. Imagine how would a controller for such beast look like! Per-note pitch bend? On 88 keys? That's kinda ridiculous, if you ask me. I think polyphonic aftertouch is a decent substitute for that.

Anyways, that issue aside, there could be a workaround for you, if a little unorthodox.

Load up 16 instances of PTQ3 and set each one to a different midi channel (both Notes channel and Pitch Bend channel to the same channel), then you should have the separation you need, hopefully.

I don't know about the note-offs in that situation, but if they aren't separated by channel, that's also something that should be taken care of, Modartt. Note-on and Note-off make a pair and they should belong to the same channel they're played on.

I'm sorry if you got the feeling of me lecturing you, I was just stating that polyphonic pitch bend didn't have enough justification to be included in MIDI standard when it was created. And even today, I don't see much point in it, really, as it's rarely used.

I mean, it's bad enough that pitchbend doesn't work notespecific so it should at least seperate the channels. Please take this requirements of mine into serious consideration...!

First - pitch bend was never (in MIDI specification) note-specific, it is monophonic and applies to all notes on the same channel in the same way.

And, as we stated above, it WORKS in channel-specific way, you just have to set it up in the MIDI screen manually.