MPE support public preview revision 15139 (ACE, Bazille, Diva, Hive)

[tasmaniandevil]

Hi everyone,

the title says it all, we are finally getting full MPE support, and we need you to let us know if it works with all the hosts and MPE controllers out there. So this preview is for all the MPExperts out there.

Once these betas are tested and all niggles are ironed out, the next official updates will include:

* MPE support
* CLAP support
* Note Expression support (CLAP only)
* native Silicon AAX support

Downloads:

ACE MPE beta 15139 Mac
ACE MPE beta 15139 Win
ACE MPE beta 15139 Linux

Bazille MPE beta 15139 Mac
Bazille MPE beta 15139 Win
Bazille MPE beta 15139 Linux

Diva MPE beta 15260 Mac *updated to work in Cubase 13.0.20 and Studio One 6.6
Diva MPE beta 15261 Win *updated to work in Cubase 13.0.20 and Studio One 6.6
Diva MPE beta 15152 Linux

Hive MPE beta 15139 Mac
Hive MPE beta 15139 Win
Hive MPE beta 15139 Linux

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Some general notes

Update: Diva is now available as well.
First, you might wonder "hey, where's Diva".
We will add the Diva MPE beta asap, we just need to do some more checks and polishing after implementing the AMD performance fix to ensure everything still works as expected.

Your second question might be "ok, but what about Repro".
ACE, Bazille, Diva and Hive all share the same voice circuit, so they should all behave identically.
We first want to make sure we have a solid implementation in one voice circuit before tackling the next one.

These betas also include native Silicon AAX versions for all the Mac Pro Tools users.

Attention: If you are using Pro Tools on Windows, there is a slight possibility that Pro Tools crashes while it scans for new plugins. We haven't gotten to the bottom of this yet, as we cannot reproduce it on our test machines and Avid could not help either. The solution that helps affected users is to reinstall the plugin one or two times, then Pro Tools will suddenly scan the plugin without problems. It's weird, I know.
If you are having problems with this, you can also contact our support so we can help.

After our recent Diva update some Linux users reported problems with the registration dialog.
This is hopefully fixed and the dialog should work in all kinds of Linux environments.
If you are experiencing problems with dialogs on Linux while using these betas, please let us know.

This Hive beta also fixes some problems in FL Studio, it should now work with or without the FL wrapper options for buffer handling.

And the AU plugins will get scanned without problems in Digital Performer 11.

Besides MPE, we also added Note Expression support. Please note that this currently exists only in CLAP, and not in the VST3 version.

The CLAP versions also improved quite a bit over the previous betas.
The problem with the last Bazille CLAP beta revision 13510 when using parameter modulation is now fixed.

As always, these are beta versions, so don't install them if you are in the middle of an important project.

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Now on to MPE

MPE support works in all plugin formats, CLAP, AU, AAX, VST2 and VST3.

MIDI channel 1 is reserved as the global channel, so global Pitch Bend and Mod Wheel should come from this channel.

CC74 should get assigned to CtrlA. This can then be assigned as a modulation source inside the presets.

MPE will currently work with polyphonic presets only, as we haven't gotten around implementing the special MPE mono mode yet. Thus mono and legato presets, as well as arps and sequences are not supporting MPE right now.

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MPE setup

To use the plugins in MPE mode:

* set the track's MIDI to All or Any, so it sends MIDI to all channels of the plugin
* on the plugin's MIDI table and preferences pages, set Ctrl A to CC74
* set the plugin's Pitch Bend Up and Down values to "MPE" and lock them (this option is not always needed, depending on your setup)
* set the voice mode to Poly and lock it (mono modes are not supported yet)
* activate the MPE button in the plugin (in Bazille and Hive, this button exists only in the original skin right now)

We are thinking about setting up an FAQ page with steps for how to configure different hosts and MPE controllers for use with our MPE compatible plugins. If you got some tips on how to best set up the plugin, your host and the controller for MPE, feel free to share them here. We can make this a community effort.

I'll start by sharing how we got it working in Bitwig 5 with the Seaboard Rise:

Using the VST3 plugin:

* activate the MPE button in the plugin and on the Bitwig track
* set Channel All > Same in the track settings
* don't activate the P.Bend > Expr. option in Bitwig, otherwise Pitch Bend won't be available as modulation source in the plugin
* in the device panel settings under the MPE button, set the per voice Pitch Bend range
* in the plugin, set the global Pitch Bend range to your liking (if set to MPE, it will use the per voice range set in Bitwig's device panel)

Using the CLAP plugin:

* activate the MPE button in the plugin (no need to activate it in Bitwig)
* set Channel All > Same in the track settings
* don't activate the P.Bend > Expr. option in Bitwig
* set Pitch Bend Up/Down to MPE in the plugin
* now the global Pitch Bend range is 2, and the per voice range is 48 semitones
* alternatively you can use the plugin's Pitch Bend range to set the the global range
* the per voice range will remain at 48

This might change if Bitwig updates their MPE CLAP implementation.

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Please try to use the plugins in as many hosts and with as many MPE controllers as possible, and let us know if you come across any oddities.

We'd also like to hear the plugins in action, so if you got some nice MPE performances to share, don't hesitate to post them in this thread.


Let's play,
Tas

[killmaster]

This is great to see! It doesn't appear that Bazille has an MPE "button" like the other 2. Just MPE Pitch Bend range setting. Is this correct?

[Howard]

This is great to see! It doesn't appear that Bazille has an MPE "button" like the other 2. Just MPE Pitch Bend range setting. Is this correct?

In the original GUI only, to the left of the data display

[tasmaniandevil]

This is great to see! It doesn't appear that Bazille has an MPE "button" like the other 2.

* activate the MPE button in the plugin (in Bazille and Hive, this button exists only in the original skin right now)

[killmaster]

Thank all, found it, had gearporn skin loaded!

[OdoSendaidokai]

YAY! That's amazing! Thank you very much.

[Fannon]

Very nice!

One remark / observation: I'm now a bit confused what happens via Note Expressions and what via MPE as MIDI CC over different channels. In Bitwig, it doesn't seem to matter whether I use CLAP or VST3, the timbre, note pitch and pressure are recorded in the "Note expressions" view in Bitwig.

This is actually nice, because there it's easy to see what happened and also to adjust it later. But I also noticed that the resolution of such changes is very low and not "curved" (I guess you'll do a bit of interpolation on your side?).

So to me it looks like Bitwig is always recording the pressure, timbre and micro-pitch expression as such, no matter whether MPE is used or not?

2023-11-07 18_14_55-Bitwig Studio - New 1.png

[Urs]

I think that in MPE Mode, Bitwig takes the Note Expressions and turns them into MPE messages instead.

Conceptually, for us, MPE and NoteExpressions are somewhat mutually exclusive. They internally use the same mechanism(s) to achieve very similar things, i.e. Channel/Note based Pitch Slides, Pressure and MIDI A (CC74/Timbre). If MPE and NoteExpressions are combined, they'll simply stack up with our design, but they may be addressing different voices. That is because MPE works a bit differently in that only "active" notes are being affected by channel messages, while Note Expressions are more precise in targeting individual notes on whatever channel.

Trust me, it took myself a whole while to wrap my head around it and come up with a solution that does both, without breaking the time and space continuum.

[runagate]

Does any DAW other than Cubase implement Note Expression? I certainly wish more implemented it.
Presumably, the difference is that MPE has no choice but to round robin in response to live incoming notes, as no controller could really be mapped in a way that makes sense for NoteExpressions but I wonder if MIDI CI could do that with something that has a touch display... certainly once I'm off work I'll be thinking about this all night lol. I certainly am still working on how to get per-note articulation choice at time of note trigger someday.

Very exciting U-he news!

[Fannon]

Trust me, it took myself a whole while to wrap my head around it and come up with a solution that does both, without breaking the time and space continuum.

Good to know

Ok, so Bitwig always records / displays them as Note Expressions. But only if MPE mode is active (incl. Channel All -> Same), it arrives as MPE and the u-he plugins interpret them in MPE mode? And if MPE is not setup AND I use the CLAP plugin, the same information will be treated as Note Expressions?

If they're so mutually exclusive - do you have a preference which mode works best or makes more sense to you? It sounds a bit like note expressions are more flexible (and more in line with MIDI 2.0?).

Does any DAW other than Cubase implement Note Expression? I

Bitwig obviously did it, too.

[Fannon]

Some quick feedback:

I have troubles to get Timbre (CC74) work on Reaper 7. When I record it, CC74 is there, but it's not reflected as long as the MPE button is on.

If I set it off, I could get it to work if I assign CC 11 number to Control A or B? This is really weird, I don't understand what's going on there. I'll attach screenshots. (I'm using a Linnstrument btw.)

[Howard]

Control A must be set to CC74

[tasmaniandevil]

I have troubles to get Timbre (CC74) work on Reaper 7. When I record it, CC74 is there, but it's not reflected as long as the MPE button is on.

Please have a look at the first post of this thread, there is a section about MPE setup.

[Fannon]

Control A must be set to CC74

Yes, I tried this first and it didn't work. It started working when I set it to 11 and disabled MPE, which totally confused me. (The screenshot shows the settings that did work, even though they are obviously the wrong settings to set)

But I couldn't reproduce this today, maybe I messed something up. Reaper + CLAP seems to work with MPE enabled + Control A to CC74. Still can't get VST version to work, but same settings, same MIDI input with CLAP version do work.

If I enable the MPE button, wouldn't that set Control A to CC74 anyway (ignore the setting)?

[tasmaniandevil]

If I enable the MPE button, wouldn't that set Control A to CC74 anyway (ignore the setting)?

CC74 is not automatically being set when you switch on MPE mode (CLAP internally always maps Ctrl A to CC74, other plugin formats don't do that).
Generally Ctrl A/B are preferences you have to deliberately set.

If you set this only in the preferences section of the plugin, the change won't affect the currently loaded plugin instance, since you can set Ctrl A/B to different CCs for each loaded instance of the plugin.

Go to the MIDI table page, set Ctrl A to CC74 there to change the setting for the currently loaded instance. Then press the "Set as Default" button. This will make the current setting the default in any newly loaded instance.