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

[SteveElbows]

Well, if your controller sends MPE and your plug-in understands MPE, the host should have to meddle as little with the data as possible.

Again, I could be totally wrong about how Bitwig Studio handles this. I do however think that when I tested our implementation with a Linnstrument or an Osmose within BWS, I had to switch MPE Mode off to get the data that I was expecting from the controller. I might be remembering this wrong though.

Thanks for the explanation. I'll get back to you with further technical detail on this in the coming days.

In the meantime, to give a broader view of how I've seen things up till now:

There are DAWS that dont really meddle, and support MPE mostly by just letting all of the channels through.

There are DAWs that meddle, for a number of different reasons, and once you are dealing with one of those you often need to let them do it their way, including enabling their MPE options, for reasons I'll also get into another time. Bitwig is certainly one of those.

[SteveElbows]

I did a brief Bitwig test with that conversation in mind:

When using VST plugins, I got best/easiest results by enabling MPE inside the synth and by pressing the use MPE button for that plugin instance in Bitwig.

When using CLAP plugin versions, Bitwigs own MPE button didnt exist. And since there are problems with recent Bitwig versions and these CLAP plugins that others already discussed, I cant test this further at the moment.

The VST setup described above meant I didnt need to mess with any pitch bend range settings inside the u-he plugins. I did need to set channels stuff in bitwig to 'same' as previously discussed by others.

Only tested briefly using Push 3 as a controller, not sure when I will get a chance to test with other MPE controllers but I'd expect similar results really, especially where they use bitwig controller scripts taht are MPE-aware.

[Fannon]

Just a side note: With Diva it's getting a bit difficult to add modulations for the MPE sources, because there's only so much ways to modulate already. Usually I have to exchange one modulation (e.g. Modwheel) with another (Pressure).

With MPE it would be really great to have a more flexible mod system, e.g. like in Hive 2. Is that something that could come in the future with Diva 2?

[humpo72]

Please do, I can't get anything MPE working on Diva or Hive 2 with Ableton Live 11.3.13 & Push 3.

Im sure it's something I'm doing & my lack of general MPE knowledge but I have set it up as per the instructions.

I know it works correctly as the stock Ableton instruments & Serum work fine with MPE.

I've just started to try Diva and Hive with Ableton & Push 3.

Works fine and as expected for me so far.

I didnt do anything special really, and I didnt need to manually mess with pitch bend settings. All I needed to do was setup CC74 as instructed, switch MPE on in the synth plugins own GUI, and switch MPE on for that synth plugin device instance inside Ableton. Perhaps that last thing is the one people might forget to do, due to it being within a right-click menu inside Ableton?



When I say I didnt need to mess with pitch bend settings, I mean that I was able to leave the synths pitch bend settings at their default values, eg 2, and just switching on MPE mode in both Ableton and the synths own GUI was enough to get the right bend range. When I slide a finger on the Push 3 pads, the pitch playing on the pad my finger ends up on after sliding is the same pitch as if I triggered a new note from that pad in the first place = proof that correct bend range is being used.

Thanks Steve, that's exactly what I was missing. all working fine now

[SteveElbows]

Thanks Steve, that's exactly what I was missing. all working fine now

Glad to help.

By the way, some plugins such as Serum have the ability to instruct the DAW to switch on MPE mode by default for their plugin instances (and in Ableton this is shown by the letters MPE being shown in the devices top bar). This is probably why you werent aware of the step of manually enabling it in Ableton.

I'm not a plugin developer so I've forgotten how this is achieved and havent thought about whether there are any downsides or not. Perhaps it might reduce future support questions to offer such functionality in the u-he plugins, but of course this is not for me to weigh up and decide.

To give a few other examples using Ableton and just testing very quickly:

Arturia plugins in the V collection that do support MPE dont seem to auto-activate the DAW-side MPE.
Arturia Pigments does.
Surge XT does.
TAL Sampler doesnt.

[Urs]

We decided we wouldn't because it could possibly break existing projects.

[Tj Shredder]

Wouldn't this only happen when I load a Synth into an empty slot? Old projects should always keep the last setting...

[Viktor [TUC]]

But it can only know the state of parameters that have existed before. For new parameters, no state is saved in the old project files.

[Tj Shredder]

But you could check if a parameter is set. If not present in the preset or the DAW state, set it to the default of the ancient version…
That way its never a problem to enhance versions with additional parameters…

[sj1]

Hi. Trying the VST3 version of the Bazille MPE beta (in Bitwig 5.1b6) I am able to get nice pitch glides as expected. Yay!

However, when mapping Control A to filter cutoff (with Control A as CC74) I only get modulation of the cutoff on every 15th note I press.

Can anyone suggest whether I need to somehow adjust my configuration (Linnstrument, etc.) further, or whether I have found a limitation in the beta product?

Thanks.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Will duophonic mpe support come along with mono/legato? Duo is what im most looking forward to with bazille and diva. Arturia ms-20 has duo mode with mpe, it's very cool.

[Urs]

There's no definition if duo and MPE. The duo phonic voice is still just one voice, with one single value for Pressure, one for PitchBend and another single value for CC#74. We have no architecture to somehow make these two separate values each for a single voice, i.e. we can't apply Pressure differently for highest and lowest note on, say, filter cutoff when there is only one filter with one cutoff involved.

[Echoes in the Attic]

There's no definition if duo and MPE. The duo phonic voice is still just one voice, with one single value for Pressure, one for PitchBend and another single value for CC#74. We have no architecture to somehow make these two separate values each for a single voice, i.e. we can't apply Pressure differently for highest and lowest note on, say, filter cutoff when there is only one filter with one cutoff involved.

Oh darn that's too bad. I wonder how arturia did it. It just kind of works as you'd expect. Maybe sort of a 2 voice mode that split the oscillators by hi and low notes to mimic traditional duophonic? Not sure. Oh but also cypher also does it. It can do duophonic and even triphonic modes with separate expressions while splitting the oscs per note. Maybe worth checking out? With fm and ring mod, duophonic is especially awesome with mpe because you get all those cool variations in distortion when the pitch changes except with mpe you can also bend the pitch per note of course.

[Tj Shredder]

It would require a different architecture. Polyphonic oscillators and monophonic filters and vca. Now how to deal with polyphonic modulators which are sent from your controller? You need to define extra rules for that and code it… (average or first or last values). This will be complicated to implement if its not designed like that from the beginning…
Or you trigger all envelopes with the first note and ignore adjacent gates? But that would eat the resources of all voices even when they are not played… Or its even more complicated…
There is no easy solution I am afraid…

I wonder how arturia did it.

Which Arturia synth has that mode?

[Urs]

Yeah... I do get the idea of individual pitch tracking in duo mode, but that also may require quite the additional infrastructure. We haven't even figured following the key <-> event <-> voice assignments for legato yet, and adding a secondary dimension to it, e.g. highest key vs lowest key, is quite the challenge.

So for now we stick to what the MPE Specs say. There's no truly monophonic or duophonic mode, there's just poly with either multiple or single voices per channel.