How to use D-beams most effectively?

[aMUSEd]

I'm enjoying using the twin D-beams that come with my V-Synth - you can assign them freely so they can do interesting things like time stretching and granular effects or to make a 3D version of an XY pad. However I've found they have one important limitation and I can't personally think of a way it could be otherwise but wondered if there was a workaround musicians (especially people used to using these things live) might know about. The problem is as soon as you have assigned them to work with a set of controls - lets say cutoff and res - once I place my hand in the beam it's very responsive which is great but I have to keep my hand there once engaged because as soon as I take it away it sets the controls to zero. I can see why that would happen but its annoying and reduces the usefulness of these in any practical or musical context other than fun and I can't see how live performers would be able to work with D-beams unless there was a way to avoid this resetting to zero every time.

[The Chase]

It would be nifty if you could link a sustain pedal (or button) to freeze it while you use or rest the D-beam hand.

My problem with the D-beams is how steppy they are. On the V-synth or 201, if you link it to an oscillator's pitch or the cutoff of a self-resonating filter, the pitch seems to be stepping by semi-tones when you try to play the D-Beam like a theremin.

[aMUSEd]

I've not found it to be steppy myself. It's great for time/pitch stretching.

[aMUSEd]

beaump

[Bridgetown Breaks]

I've found it works best, and most effectively, under the influence of psychotropics.


P

[justin3am]

See, I never use the D-beams for things that I would like to latch to a value. I alsways use the X/Y pad and hold button for those jobs. I do like to use the D-Beam in conjunction with a self-oscillating filter to emulate a theremin. I do this commonly with the filters in FF's Timeless because the filter gets fed back to the delay line. Fun stuff.

Sorry, I don't really know a way to get the D-Beams to latch to a value, if only it had a hold button as well.

[spuddle]

Actually I have this problem on the Joystick on my Ztar as well. Due to the spring, it just resets back to the middle which is perfect for left and right pitch bend but up and down modulation isn't so great as I typically don't want it to be in the middle.

My friend and I are starting to code and design VST plugins together. One of my ideas is to make a "latch type" MIDI plugin that would indeed latch onto a CC or MIDI message and hold it there until told otherwise.

Currently I have 3 "modes" in the implementation of this but any other ideas or suggestions would be very welcome.

• 1. "Sticky" Highest Value Mode - The plugin scans the incoming MIDI CC message stream and holds the highest value reached, for example you are waving around and reach a high of "102", the plugin holds this parameter at 102 until you either hit > 102 or reset it.
  2. Latch Mode - The CC message is free-form until you hit the "latch button" or the CC assigned to that. Then the plugin holds at the value you were at when you hit latch.
  3. Duration Hold Mode - When you hold a CC at any value for a user-definable length of time, this mode would hold at that CC value until you hold at another value for that same length of time. This could also have a "CC value range" setting for shakey hands. i.e. if you had a range of 5 and held values for a length of time that didn't go beyond 5 steps, then it would "hold.

[spuddle]

Perhaps I'll make a new thread for it.