Topic: Pitch bend control: request
One of the most unique features of Pianoteq is that it allows us to achieve impressive timbrical results within extreme pitch bending ranges (- 2400 / + 2400 cents) as well, whether the retuning be set with string tension or full rebuild parameters of the instrument.
However, I think there are a couple of impediments which should be easily managed in order to furtherly improve artistic expression of pitch bend users as per the following points.
For convenience, in my Global MIDI Mapping preset, I just map the pitch bend action to the pitch-bend wheel on my controller whenever I want the pitch to be temporarily bent, as usual, while I assign the same action to the modulation wheel in the case I want the pitch to stay down or up longer so that I can free my left hand. My suggestion then is to:
1) give a chance through some option whereby you can control pitch bend in such a way that it will not restart from zero, rather, from the last value, whenever the same action is triggered by two different midi events (one ‘master’ and one ‘slave’, so to say). Generally speaking, the overall extreme range would better be kept that (for example, - 2400 / + 2400 cents) by the ‘master’ as it is not so meaningful to exceed an already extreme range. Only a summing value equal/minor than that must be introduced by the ‘slave’, which would allow to fine-tune within some range. So when I handle, say, the pitch-bend wheel (which mechanically goes back and forth to middle point/zero in itself), one might want to hear the pitch to both start from and end back to a normal value which is the last triggered by the master, not systematically zero cents.
2) aside from this first point and not necessarily on top of that, allow the user to choose between ‘new notes only’ or ‘continuous retuning’ as far as pitch bending is concerned (as for it already is for MTS-ESP, but without MTS-ESP).
3) admit a broader bandwidth of diapason when manually inserting the Hz value (just like it can exactly be in the case of .kbm file loading).
Any idea about? I am a bit aware of the reasons why the impediments occur but I'm currently lacking any sort of workaround for my scope. I hope my 'three-in-one' is some reasonable and not too complicated of a request. Please Pianoteq personnel, can you take into consideration and bring it to us with the next release? Very funny sound this pitch bend thing, it would be even more fun, were there no such impediments at ruining the magic. Thank you!