Acoustic Samples B5 - Hammond Organ VSTi

[vic_france]

(deleted)

[evilantal]

No no. I don’t want several pedals. I only want that the message I send via one pedal, shall affect the B5 on the midi channel (upper, lower, bass) that I choose. That is how other wannabe Hammond programs have implemented it and that is the way to go.
I am sorry that you insist that my request is without ground.

Yeah, ok. I get what you're saying...

Say, you have upper manual assigned to MIDI channel 1, lower manual to channel 2 and pedals to channel 3. You send CC64 messages on channel 1. Then you only want the manual assigned to that channel to respond to the CC64 messages and not the other two.
Likewise, if you send CC64 on channel 2, you only want the lower manual to respond.

That sounds like a perfectly normal way for a plugin to behave...

In the present implementation all three manuals respond to the CC64 messages regardless of what channel they are sent on. Am I right?

[drawbar]

No no. I don’t want several pedals. I only want that the message I send via one pedal, shall affect the B5 on the midi channel (upper, lower, bass) that I choose. That is how other wannabe Hammond programs have implemented it and that is the way to go.
I am sorry that you insist that my request is without ground.

Yeah, ok. I get what you're saying...

Say, you have upper manual assigned to MIDI channel 1, lower manual to channel 2 and pedals to channel 3. You send CC64 messages on channel 1. Then you only want the manual assigned to that channel to respond to the CC64 messages and not the other two.
Likewise, if you send CC64 on channel 2, you only want the lower manual to respond.

That sounds like a perfectly normal way for a plugin to behave...

In the present implementation all three manuals respond to the CC64 messages regardless of what channel they are sent on. Am I right?

Yes, you nailed it.

A side comment about “difficulty” of implementing:
B5’s upper/lower/bass sounds accept note on/off messages only on the midi channel that they are sent. For instance upper=midi 1, lower=midi2, bass=midi3). Not all manuals sound at the same time when you are playing on channel 2 for instance. That would be crazy. How difficult would it then be to recognize another kind of message (cc64) only on the channel that it is being sent on?

Folks have for instance keyboards that have different zones. Although you of course have only one sustain pedal, you can program on which zones sustain is active. You have even all freedom to activate cc64 on all zones if you find it musically useful, even though I doubt it.

If anybody finds these suggestions useful, please express your opinion. Maybe we can then have this corrected.

In a DAW you might perhaps try a workaround by activating several instances of B5, but it would probably be rather taxing with the cpu/disk resources.

I would not be so active writing in this thread if B5 would not be so excellent sounding plugin. I hope all success to it and be still better.

[Spitfire31]

You could, of course, put a MIDI filter in front of the B5 in your DAW and filter out CC64 on the channel(s) that you don't want it.

/Joachim

[drawbar]

You could, of course, put a MIDI filter in front of the B5 in your DAW and filter out CC64 on the channel(s) that you don't want it.

/Joachim

Thanks for the suggestion, but this will not work because no matter on which midi channel you send cc64, the behavior of B5 sustain is *global*, and the message affects all “manuals” (upper sound, lower sound, bass sound). That is just the root of the problem.

Much of the power of MIDI comes from the fact that you can program on which midi channel(s) you send specific midi commands (note on/off, prg changes and the whole bunch of CC's). Plugins should make as full use of this protocol as possible, giving thus creative options to users. Note sustain is one of the most used functions by keyboard players - even on software organs -and you should not cripple it unnecessarily.

[thysm00]

You could, of course, put a MIDI filter in front of the B5 in your DAW and filter out CC64 on the channel(s) that you don't want it.

No this would not work at all, every CC64 that comes in is redirected to all 3 keyboards whatever the MIDI channel.

That sounds like a perfectly normal way for a plugin to behave...

Not really, i remind you that this is a B-3, so there is no sustain pedal on the original machine and 3 keyboards linked to a common series of tone generators. Sustaining the notes can mean sustaining MIDI data or sound generator, we decided to choose the sound generator.


Drawbar, I guess i did not understand it this way though and i understand that this would be useful, the question is how many users actually need that.
In our model, making the pedal respond only to one MIDI channel is extremely easy, but making the organ only sustain the notes of the corresponding keyboard is not.
As i explained, we use the same sounds as the source and modulate the volume depending on what is pressed/released. Doing what you want would mean filtering the new sustain and release data based on the midi input and the state of the sustain pedal, so not for some notes depending on the keyboard which can make a mess.
I'm not saying it's not doable, because it is, i'm just saying that it is complex, and does not make sense for everyone.
Just take the opposite solution when you think of the sustain pedal as the "tone generator" hold, then all tones need to be hold at all times, for all keyboards, then how do you do that when the MIDI pedal is on one channel? You press 3 pedals for the 3 manuals?
What about when you play in split mode on one single channel?

So adding your suggestion is not easy, will take quite some work and also some thorough testing and raises many other use cases that will need to be addressed and will require new buttons and knobs on the interface.

[drawbar]

Hi thysm00, thanks for bearing with me. I love your product.

Would you please still comment on my earlier question:

A side comment about “difficulty” of implementing:
B5’s upper/lower/bass sounds accept note on/off messages only on the midi channel that they are sent. For instance upper=midi 1, lower=midi2, bass=midi3). Not all manuals sound at the same time when you are playing on channel 2 for instance. That would be crazy. How difficult would it then be to recognize another kind of message (cc64) only on the channel that it is being sent on?

--

Mind you, I'm not a programmer, just a random modest player.

Would you still consider to implement sustain via midi data, not by the whole tone generator? That would make possible different commands on upper/lower/bass sound possible, just like the case is with note on/offs?

[drawbar]

(double post)

[Spitfire31]

You could, of course, put a MIDI filter in front of the B5 in your DAW and filter out CC64 on the channel(s) that you don't want it.

No this would not work at all, every CC64 that comes in is redirected to all 3 keyboards whatever the MIDI channel.

Sorry, didn't consider that.

/Joachim

[thysm00]

I'm glad you love it

Would you please still comment on my earlier question:

That's what i'm trying to explain, when you press C3 on the upper manual and then C3 on the lower manual, it uses the same source and just modulates the volume, just like on the original B-3.
So basically if you play both C3s and then press the pedal for the upper manual, il will also sustain the part for the lower manual and then nothing works anymore.

Would you still consider to implement sustain via midi data, not by the whole tone generator? That would make possible different commands on upper/lower/bass sound possible, just like the case is with note on/offs?

Actually no, doing that is just what i would need to do to make the library work as you want it to And this is what would take me quite some time and risk introducing bugs.

[drawbar]

@ thysm00,

Ok. This has been a useful discussion. I appreciate the fact that you recognize that some people would find channel selective sustain option useful. Likewise I respect your professional opinion that B5 architecture being what it is, fulfilling this request would be time consuming and perhaps even risky.
So be this development worthwhile or not apparently depends naturally on how many customers deem this feature important.

Anyway, to clear things further, here is yet an answer to your earlier question:
--
thysm00 wrote: ” I'm not saying it's not doable, because it is, i'm just saying that it is complex, and does not make sense for everyone.
Just take the opposite solution when you think of the sustain pedal as the "tone generator" hold, then all tones need to be hold at all times, for all keyboards, then how do you do that when the MIDI pedal is on one channel? You press 3 pedals for the 3 manuals? ”
--
Typically on developed keyboards - and certainly in all developed DAWs - you can program on which channel(s) particular CC command is active. So of course you will not need many pedals for sending one CC to whatever midi channels.

[PhilMuller]

thysm00,

Is there any chance you will offering B-5 as a Kontakt instrument in the future?

Phil

[vic_france]

As regards this sustain pedal issue (I tried posting a suggestion earlier, then thought better of it and deleted it.. now I guess I'm not "thinking better of it" again )..
Is this something one would be likely to want on a regular basis? (I know that Vintage Organs in Kontakt 5 handles the sustain pedal as requested here.. but presumably because the sound generators are not "shared" across the keyboards?).
If you really need to have this available, just load two (or three) instances of B5 into separate slots of UVI Workstation. Only real inconvenience.. each instance will have its own FX chain / Leslie etc.
But..
If Acoustic Samples could be persuaded to include a "Master FX" module for UVI Workstation, then just switch each instance of B5 to "D.I." and use the Master FX on the Multi (there is already a Rotary FX module in UVI, but it can't hold a candle to the one in B5 )..
probably also need to control the volume pedal from there, instead of per slot (unless your DAW allows you to set up a flexible CC routing system)
And then maybe, Acoustic Samples could supply a customized UVI Multi, with each keyboard loaded into its own slot (but I guess there'd still be no way around each slot having its own GUI as opposed to "sharing" a global one?)

[thysm00]

thysm00,

Is there any chance you will offering B-5 as a Kontakt instrument in the future?

Phil

No, sorry, not even the slightest chance First, because we do not use Kontakt anymore for copy protection reasons that almost killed our company a while ago and second because it simply can't be done in kontakt script, we use many features of the UVI script that are way more powerful than what Kontakt can offer.
Also, UVI actually made a rotary speaker simulation (we helped with measurements) not especially for us, but they made it when we asked for it and it is way better than what is included in Kontakt.

[thysm00]

I know that Vintage Organs in Kontakt 5 handles the sustain pedal as requested here.. but presumably because the sound generators are not "shared" across the keyboards?

They just stack samples which creates all kinds of phasing problems given the fact that many frequencies are common to many notes and it gets even worse with multiple keyboards, try playing the same note on the lower and upper manual with the same registration at the same time, it never sounds the same twice because of the phase problems.

If you really need to have this available, just load two (or three) instances of B5 into separate slots of UVI Workstation. Only real inconvenience.. each instance will have its own FX chain / Leslie etc.
But..

This could actually work, but it's not doable for us as it would mean distributing our little secrets on the Leslie But you could do that with a third party Leslie FX.
It would use a bit more CPU, but not more ram as the samples are shared.