Sustain mode like CS-80?

[Chris-S]

Hi,
are there any synth plugins (non CS-80 emulations) which have a sustain mode which is applying pitch bend on held notes only? How about MPE able synth, can they do it?

Demo at 25:45:

youtube

[bluesawsq]

Kontakt can do both of those sustain modes easily in a few lines of ksp script code. No MPE needed.

[zerocrossing]

Kontakt can do both of those sustain modes easily in a few lines of ksp script code. No MPE needed.

MPE does open things up a bit, though. velocity, per note bend, aftertouch, z position and release velocity sure do make for an expressive instrument.

[Tj Shredder]

Shall I make a little plugin for that? Midi itself doesn‘t do it, as the sustain is defined differently. But you can mimic it with some memory of played notes in the moment you hit the sustain pedal and only send the corresponding note offs after you release the sustain pedal…
With MPE you need to be aware, that after 15 - the number of notes held, the same midi channel is used again, and the notes played will overwrite pressure and timbre values…

[bluesawsq]

Kontakt can do both of those sustain modes easily in a few lines of ksp script code. No MPE needed.

MPE does open things up a bit, though. velocity, per note bend, aftertouch, z position and release velocity sure do make for an expressive instrument.

Yes, of course MPE adds more expressiveness, but it's also more complex to control. And I'm not sure if it's still possible to emulate the CS-80 sustain modes with MPE only.

Those sustain modes are kind of smart allowing you to play expressively with less controls. The held notes and released notes are automatically detected and treates differently. In sustain mode I, the pitch bend is applied only to held notes. And in sustain mode II, the released notes are automatically cut when playing new notes. Is that possible in MPE?

And it's not really about the sustain pedal. The same effect is applied also when playing notes with long VCA release times without using the sustain pedal at all.

[olepro]

SQ8L / Ensoniq SQ80 does that

[zerocrossing]

Kontakt can do both of those sustain modes easily in a few lines of ksp script code. No MPE needed.

MPE does open things up a bit, though. velocity, per note bend, aftertouch, z position and release velocity sure do make for an expressive instrument.

Yes, of course MPE adds more expressiveness, but it's also more complex to control. And I'm not sure if it's still possible to emulate the CS-80 sustain modes with MPE only.

Those sustain modes are kind of smart allowing you to play expressively with less controls. The held notes and released notes are automatically detected and treates differently. In sustain mode I, the pitch bend is applied only to held notes. And in sustain mode II, the released notes are automatically cut when playing new notes. Is that possible in MPE?

And it's not really about the sustain pedal. The same effect is applied also when playing notes with long VCA release times without using the sustain pedal at all.

I wasn’t imagining using a sustain pedal to emulate that. I was thinking you’d just manually hold down the notes you want and just slide your fingers to the notes you want on the notes you want to change. It’s true you can’t get as many notes going, but it’s ultimately the same effect, and so much more. More complex? Sure, but if I can do it, I think anyone with decent keyboard skills could get up to speed pretty quickly. My weapon of choice is the Roli Rise. 49, but at some point I’ll probably add an Osmose if it ever goes into regular production.

[MTorn]

Pitch bend on sustain only is a fun and expressive performance trick. With some practice, you can do nice slinky "pedal steel" type of bends. It does seem like very few synths (hardware and software) implement it though.

As mentioned above, Ensoniq SQ80 and software emulations (including the Arturia one) does it. The old Yamaha DX7II did as well, but I'm not sure about the DX emulations.

However, many synths with a full featured matrix modulation can still make it happen. You set the normal pitch bend depth to zero, and instead assign the bend wheel to pitch manually in the matrix, but here's the trick: you scale THAT modulation with an envelope. By setting that envelope to full sustain and a pretty short release (while the main amp envelope has a long release), the pitch bend effect goes away on key-up.

You can set the release time to taste, either to snap the pitch back to zero immediately on release, or gradually bend the note back to zero.

[Chris-S]

Thanks, works great.
Patch for Vital.

Sustain Mode like CS-80.zip

[bluesawsq]

SQ8L / Ensoniq SQ80 does that

As mentioned above, Ensoniq SQ80 and software emulations (including the Arturia one) does it.

I'm not familiar with SQ80, but quick test on Arturia SQ80 V with pitch bend set to HELD keys only produces different result than CS-80 sustain mode 1.

In SQ80 V the notes that are sustained using sustain pedal, but finger released on keyboard, are treated as HELD notes, i.e. the pitch bend will bend also notes held by sustain pedal. In CS-80 sustain 1 mode the notes held by sustain pedal are not affected by pitch bend /ribbon. I prefer the CS-80 operation.

Thanks, works great.
Patch for Vital.
Sustain Mode like CS-80.zip

This Vital preset seems to behave the same way as SQ80 V. It's a nice trick but not exactly the same as CS-80 sustain mode 1.

[bluesawsq]

Kontakt script for CS-80 sustain modes 1 and 2. Contains also independent controls for up and down pitch bend ranges.