Hey there, I've been producing for a few months and I've learned a lot about synthesis and have great tools that help me automate velocity, panning, volume etc. I feel like I can in theory do anything. Except one goddamn thing. WHY ISN'T THERE AN EASY, FAST WAY TO DO SLIDES/AUTOMATE PITCH?! I think it's so stupid that no midi note editor except for FL studio has slide notes included in it, and those only work for native FL instruments. How do all dubstep do those bass wobbles? Automated LFO rates? How could you possibly have any control over that?
I mainly use Live with Reason rewired into it btw.

one intuitive and potentially very fast way to make automation curves is to use a controller fader. using one you can "record" the automation curve in your DAW.

i imagine this would work well for wobbles, too, if your fingers can keep up with the tune. i've mainly used automated LFO rates for wobbles though, they're easy to control but harder and more time-consuming to automate.

What makes you think those were done "FAST AND EASY".

My guess it's a lot of work involved.

You can automate slides and pitch in a multitude of ways.

You can record pitch wheel data and edit it as much as you like.
You can assign pitch wheel data to most other midi parameters.
You can assign portamento to the synth itself, and depending on the VSTi, h/w synth or h/w midi/CV converter you can then also edit via midi the overlap of held notes - which in some cases will affect the timing of the portamento. Even in my now ancient Kenton midi/CV converter, I can even automate portamento times and modes via midi (and I can automate midi differently within my DAW)
You can assign pitch LFO to any midi paramter you like, most often the mod wheel. Which is unusual not to be automatable in most instruments nowadays. You can automate the LFO depth, speed, intro and even waveform in many synths. In fact I'd have to say it's extremely unusualnot to be able to automate all of those in almost every VSTi.
You can automate aftertouch. And you can assign aftertouch to any of the above.
You can assign pitch to an envelope and automate the envelope both in depth and in ADSR parameters. You can assign the env depth to most midi control paramters such as aftertouch, wheel etc, even note number.

Seriously - there are so many ways to automate pitch changes, it's not funny. It's not that you can't do it, it's simply that you haven't yet found out how to do it.

I have found out how do to it, but not time efficiently enough. If I record pitch wheel data as you said, how can I then edit it? Also, how do I assign pitch wheel data to midi parameters?



Ofcourse there's work, but when writing a melody for example, what takes time is the creative process, not simply drawing some midi notes, you know?

You go into the piano roll and simply redraw it or edit it item by item. The most obvious way is to simply draw it with a pencil tool. And you can copy and paste sections of it. Just record a few bars and play your pitch wheel then pick the best slides and move them around to fit other notes.

Possibly it's just Live that isn't good enough with midi for that kind of thing. I haven't ever used it, but I have heard many say they aren't impressed with the midi side of things with Live. I've used Cubase for aeons now, but any equivalent DAW can do that sort of editing. Seriously, there are a shitload of ways of editing pitch.



Well, in Cubase I'd use the midi input transform thingy. Simply map pitch bend to any other midi CC. I've used my joystick on my Wavestation to mess with pitch in the past - and that's just assigning the X and Y midi CCs to pitchbend or to any other CC. It's a good way of controlling filters too - your X and Y mapped to filter freq and res at the same time amongst other things. TBH I dunno if Live can do that though. And if that's the type of thing you want to be able to do, you might have to look at a more serious DAW than Live (although I've heard Live is very good on the audio side of things).

And going back to the original post:


In Cubase and other DAWs you simply click automation record and play with your VSTi's LFO rate. Done. Then you can go in afterwards and edit down to individual moments if you so wish. Or redraw with a pencil or straight line tools, or copy and paste automation shapes. Or you don't even have to record the VSTi knob movements - you can pull up the automation page that covers LFO rate and draw in direct, for curves lines or parabolas.

The right tools for the right job. If you're using VSTi and not h/w, you can do all of that without even resorting to midi.

Really though...does Live not control automation on VSTi? If it doesn't then possibly you do need to consider shelling out on a better DAW.

What is midi CC?



In Live you don't automate in piano roll but I get your point.

Ofcourse it does, however I feel that it is stupid and time wasting to spend time doing slide notes outside of the piano roll with freaking automation. Why not just include slide notes in midi like in FL studio? Fl studio has the only piano roll that does this btw.

Because most people just don't do it that way. It's what portamento is for and that's usually set within a synth, not the DAW. And for good reason - so that you can play portamento live as well as sequenced. Portamento is considered a method of playing. Really, you're in a minority if you prefer to do it sequenced within a piano roll rather than within a synth. If you do all your music by sequencing, it still doesn't stop you using portamento - you just overlap midi notes. Doesn't take up any more time whatsoever. I actually find it an odd idea to set portamento within a DAW rather than the synth. Not a feature I'd ever use and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.



I still don't see how it's time wasting. You don't even need automation to slide notes. As I said, you can do it by simply utilising portamento and overlapping notes. You record it as you play - play the next note as you hold the previous one. How much quicker can that be? It's one key press same as when you play a note (which is exactly what you're doing). Same with pitch bend - record the wheel movements. It's that straight forward.



Midi Continuous Controllers. It's a prest list of commands to control stuff via midi like volume, portamento time, FX levels, foot pedals etc etc. Here's a list of them:

http://improv.sapp.org/doc/class/MidiOutput/controllers/cont rollers.html

That's what I'm saying. There a literally loads of ways of controlling pitch.
1. Via midi with CCs
2. Via midi with nRPNs
3. Via VSTi automation (which is by far the easiest way)
4. Via actual playing method - e.g. portamento.


It would help to do a bit of reading up on synths as well as DAWs. You can do exactly what you are asking already without dicking around inside DAWs. Even h/w synths can slide notes without even using a DAW. It's not time consuming either. As I said - look up portamento. Look up recording automation - all you have to do is twiddle the knobs inside your VSTi synths. You don't even have to edit the automation afterwards if you get it right 1st pass. TBH you're looking in the wrongplace. If you want to slide notes, look at your synths not the DAW. Same with "wobbles" etc. It's not anything specific to Dubstep. H/w synths have been able to modulate pitch via LFO since forever basically. Even basic old 70s analogues had mod wheels mostly used for pitch LFO. Patch a synth right and you don't need a DAW to mess with pitch at all.

Thus making synths without this feature useless, it would be better if MIDI had some kind of standard that included slide notes like in FL Studio, there is no downside to it.


I've seen many other cases of people wanting the same thing as I do. Plus, I think many people would agree with me if they thought about it. If you could do slide notes directly in the MIDI editor you would save time if you use any of the DAWs that have pitch automation outside of the editor.


You do not have the same control over the actual pitch bending rate. The way it is done in FL Studio works so that you can draw and edit notes, slides, the length of the slides, all within the MIDI editor in a very grapical logical way that is far superior to any of the ways you've suggested.
Also, when automating a pitch wheel the amount you've changed the pitch is usually displayed in cents, making you have to know exactly how many cents there is between the note played and the desired note.

True, but I've yet to see a synth that doesn't have portamento. There may be some on the market but to me if a synth doesn't have something so bog standard basic as portamento, then I won't be buying it.



You can control portamento time and mode and rate in every single synth I have. No sorry - my Wavestation doesn't do portamento, but it's not the kind of synth I'd use it with anyway. Every other one does though.

It sounds like FL does everything you want, so why the problem? other DAWs recognise that most people are cognisant of things like portamento. You get to choose which DAW to use by which features it has and you chose FL, I presume, because of things like your aversion to programming synths. So it suits you, then why slag off other DAWs with which nobody else seems to have a problem with porta. Personally I've never had a problem using portamento in every single synth I've ever owned going back 25 years.

And going back to your original post by the way...



It sounds like FL already does that. If it does VSTi automation (which you tell me it does), then it does, end of story. And for bass wobbles you don't even need automation - all you need is a mod wheel, or aftertouch. LFO pitch has nothing to do with portamento.