ACE, Bazille, Diva, Hive Updated - CLAP, MPE, AAX

[Echoes in the Attic]

I’m seeing different behavior between diva and Bazille. Maybe I’ve set something wrong, or maybe a bug? I’ll check again and I’ll post a video.

[Urs]

If it's different, it must be a bug. But as they were released simultaneously, they share the same codebase.

I'll try it myself if I find the time.

[Echoes in the Attic]

If it's different, it must be a bug. But as they were released simultaneously, they share the same codebase.

I'll try it myself if I find the time.

Sorry my mistake! I thought I had been using the VST3 on a project but I had in fact been using the CLAP version! Ok so the CLAP works perfectly with Mono Legato in MPE but the VST3's (and AUs?) have not yet gotten there. Understood. My sincere apologies, I thought the VST3 MPE updates earlier this year addressed that, but I guess I'd been using the CLAP all along.

Sorry for the false alarm!

[Urs]

So you're saying our CLAP and VST3 plug-ins interpret MPE differently on your machine? If that is the case, maybe check that you have the same versions of each installed.

To be clear, our MPE compatible plug-ins are fully MPE compatible regardless of plug-in format. There is no further "getting there" since they are all there already. Hosts may handle formats differently, I don't know, and we can not cater for inconsistencies in hosts, if that is what causes confusion here.

Sure, I would not rule out any bugs on our side either, but - if that's what seems odd to you - being monophonic per channel (aka 16 voice polyphonic, but only ever one voice per channel) is perfectly in sync with MPE specs.

[Echoes in the Attic]

So you're saying our CLAP and VST3 plug-ins interpret MPE differently on your machine? If that is the case, maybe check that you have the same versions of each installed.

That is correct. The Diva CLAP and VST3 are the same versions (1.4.8 ). In Bitwig I tested Diva on each of two tracks side by side using the same preset in Legato voice mode, one CLAP and one VST3. The CLAP device has no "MPE on" setting in Bitwig, it just works, but the VST3 is set to MPE on for the bitwig device and the default "All -> 1", but I've also tried "All->Same". MPE is set to ON in both plugins, full 48 bend mode set in MPE settings, leaving the legato voice mode active.

Testing with Bitwig midi clips and the screen keyboard, which rotates midi channels, much like a seaboard, Push 3 or linnstrument in channel rotation mode.

The Clap versions respect the mono/legato setting globally, and you hear one note at a time, while the note expressions are still tracked separately through different overlapping notes evne when the notes are silent. The VST3 on the other hand plays polyphonically, which makes sense based on your description that it is not legato across channels, only within each channel.

The CLAP behavior of Diva and Bazille is more similar to what I'm used to from the most advanced MPE synths on the market (such as Surge, Equator, Cypher, Strobe, Plasmonic, Vital, Noisy, Current, Generate/Pendulate, SWAM instruments, recent Arturia synths and from what I understand EaganMatrix with Osmose).

I could see the "legato within a channel" VST3 behavior being useful perhaps with a linnsturment in channel per row mode, allowing it to play like a guitar (mono on a string/row, but poly between rows). This is rare though I've never seen it before.

To be clear, our MPE compatible plug-ins are fully MPE compatible regardless of plug-in format. There is no further "getting there" since they are all there already. Hosts may handle formats differently, I don't know, and we can not cater for inconsistencies in hosts, if that is what causes confusion here.

I haven't really seen inconsistencies with hosts I've used, but I tend to test with Bitwig which seems to work in a pretty standard way. As far the VST3/AU "getting there", I was referring to getting caught up to the CLAP version, which I thought you were describing on the previous page when you said the following:

There is a concurrent concept where MPE is overall monophonic and the voice can jump between channels. We have not implemented this, and it is not mentioned in the MPE specs. It's a future goal for us to do this, but we currently work on other things.

You certainly know the specs better than me, I can only compare different synths and see what makes the most sense to play. It's too bad the MPE specs didn't specify how global mono should work.
What you describe as a future goal for you guys is how Diva CLAP works currently (as does that handful of other excellent MPE synths I mentioned above). I probably have about 30 MPE synths and they all allow global mono except that many others have problems with expressions in mono (e.g. gliding a note and cutting off a new note will make the new note pitch bent when it shouldn't be, or playing a legato note can not be pitch bent with glide at all, whereas non-legato notes can be, things like that). So I'd say it's pretty common for synths to glitch out and not know how to deal with overlapping note expressions in mono modes.

Anyways I'm surprised you didn't know know that the CLAP versions behaved differently than the VST3/AU versions in Bitwig, as I thought Bitwig was the main CLAP Daw. Let me know if you want me to send video comparisons. I'd be shocked it was only my machines, as I've used them on a few different machines, both windows and Mac.

[pdxindy]

I could see the "legato within a channel" VST3 behavior being useful perhaps with a linnsturment in channel per row mode, allowing it to play like a guitar (mono on a string/row, but poly between rows). This is rare though I've never seen it before.

As an aside, I do that fairly frequently with my Linnstrument.

[EvilDragon]

I can confirm the difference in MPE behavior between CLAP and VST2/3 with Diva rev 16519 in Bitwig at least.

Could it be that it's the lack of "Use MPE" button on Bitwig side for CLAP that causes this?


As far as I'm concerned, global mono in MPE mode should not be anyone's priority. It is not actually defined in the MPE specification so I wouldn't consider it any sort of obligation to do it "properly" - because what is proper is not clearly defined, as you already noticed per channel timbre and pitch bends can and will glitch out in this sort of situation, because it really doesn't make sense to cram polyphonic expression to a monophonic voicing mode.

The only thing that could potentially make sense is to allow global mono mode only over the global MIDI channel (but this flies contrary to MPE spec which specifies that no note events should be received over the global channel, IIRC).

[Urs]

Anyways I'm surprised you didn't know know that the CLAP versions behaved differently than the VST3/AU versions in Bitwig, as I thought Bitwig was the main CLAP Daw. Let me know if you want me to send video comparisons. I'd be shocked it was only my machines, as I've used them on a few different machines, both windows and Mac.

Ha. I suspect what Bitwig is doing is "CLAP", not "MPE" when it gets CLAP. As we support Note Expressions including Timbre, Volume and Pitch, I guess they send everything on the same channel, and thus not MPE at all. Note that MPE and Note Expressions may be used mutually exclusively, if a DAW maps MPE to NE, the DAW may use one or the other but not both at the same time. As a side effect I guess, if a DAW uses Note Expressions, it may choose to do so on a single channel, i.e. not iterate channels in any way.

Anyhow, if you have a track that sounds different for Diva's CLAP and VST3, I will happily log the actual MIDI to a file and post it here. I'm pretty sure that the overall monophonic instance only gets MIDI sent on one channel. That should clear it up

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It may be surprising, but I work almost entirely with AU using a non-MPE MIDI controller with a standard keybed. I reckon the last time I had to deal with MPE or CLAP was maybe two years ago. There are 9 developers in our company now, and much of my time is spent herding them.

If it wasn't a holiday weekend in Germany I'd have the issue looked into by Tas or Viktor, or any of the developers who deal with CLAP. I'd get them onto it from tomorrow if needed, but we're also in crunch mode, they may not immediately have the time to look into this.

[Urs]

I can confirm the difference in MPE behavior between CLAP and VST2/3 with Diva rev 16519 in Bitwig at least.

Could it be that it's the lack of "Use MPE" button on Bitwig side for CLAP that causes this?

I'm certain it uses CLAP, not MPE.

(We also support MPE in CLAP... but only if we get the MIDI for it)

As far as I'm concerned, global mono in MPE mode should not be anyone's priority. It is not actually defined in the MPE specification so I wouldn't consider it any sort of obligation to do it "properly" - because what is proper is not clearly defined, as you already noticed per channel timbre and pitch bends can and will glitch out in this sort of situation, because it really doesn't make sense to cram polyphonic expression to a monophonic voicing mode.

The only thing that could potentially make sense is to allow global mono mode only over the global MIDI channel (but this flies contrary to MPE spec which specifies that no note events should be received over the global channel, IIRC).

I'd be happy to support a global mono mode in MPE if there were clear specs. The problem that a voice would glitch if it switched channel is exactly why I have not dealt with it yet. There would need to be glide for all expressions/controllers, and Velocity is particularly weird due to its effects on envelopes. Furthermore I hope the Haaken patent on pressure weighted pitch does not mean that glide on Pressure is now patented or subject to licensing. Ah well, the world we live in.

[Gamma-UT]

Furthermore I hope the Haaken patent on pressure weighted pitch does not mean that glide on Pressure is now patented or subject to licensing. Ah well, the world we live in.

That would be insane...so entirely possible. It's a bit crazy they got awarded with it in the first place though the USPTO would award a patent for ham-sandwich preparation. I notice there isn't a European version of it.

However, it looks like the patent expires in less than three years and the calculations they use are a bit specific. So, good luck to Haaken fighting anyone over with that timeframe when one could implement a procedure using rates of change that's actually more "playable" in that you have real-time control over it (I haven't read the patent in much detail but that's the first thought that popped up).

[Echoes in the Attic]

I could see the "legato within a channel" VST3 behavior being useful perhaps with a linnsturment in channel per row mode, allowing it to play like a guitar (mono on a string/row, but poly between rows). This is rare though I've never seen it before.

As an aside, I do that fairly frequently with my Linnstrument.

Nice - and to be clear I meant it's rare for a plugin to support that, not necessarily rare as use case - I do that with guitars mostly with duplicated instruments (Kontakt/Omnisphere). But come to think of it, I guess it's probably kinda rare for hardware too? I don't think Seaboard or Push or Osmose can do something like that. Maybe splitting up key ranges, but that would certainly be less useful than rows per channel.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I can confirm the difference in MPE behavior between CLAP and VST2/3 with Diva rev 16519 in Bitwig at least.

Could it be that it's the lack of "Use MPE" button on Bitwig side for CLAP that causes this?

As far as I'm concerned, global mono in MPE mode should not be anyone's priority. It is not actually defined in the MPE specification so I wouldn't consider it any sort of obligation to do it "properly" - because what is proper is not clearly defined, as you already noticed per channel timbre and pitch bends can and will glitch out in this sort of situation, because it really doesn't make sense to cram polyphonic expression to a monophonic voicing mode.

I would argue that whether or not something is in the specification isn't really an indicator of usefulness. And while it's not clearly defined, I think it's quite clear from playing different instruments when it works or doesn't. Mono means you hear one note at a time. MPE means expressions are tracked per note despite what's audible. It's pretty black and white if these two things are working when you test different plugins.

The only thing that could potentially make sense is to allow global mono mode only over the global MIDI channel (but this flies contrary to MPE spec which specifies that no note events should be received over the global channel, IIRC).

I'm not sure how that list of synths I posted do it on a technical level, but it makes sense when you play them.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Anyhow, if you have a track that sounds different for Diva's CLAP and VST3, I will happily log the actual MIDI to a file and post it here. I'm pretty sure that the overall monophonic instance only gets MIDI sent on one channel. That should clear it up

Hmm, it's definiltey receiving different channels, but not sure how it's stored. I'll look into it!

If it wasn't a holiday weekend in Germany I'd have the issue looked into by Tas or Viktor, or any of the developers who deal with CLAP. I'd get them onto it from tomorrow if needed, but we're also in crunch mode, they may not immediately have the time to look into this.

No need to rush, I'm surprised you're even responding on a holiday! Step away from the computer sir!
And please whatever you do don't change the CLAP behavior!

[Echoes in the Attic]

Anyhow, if you have a track that sounds different for Diva's CLAP and VST3, I will happily log the actual MIDI to a file and post it here. I'm pretty sure that the overall monophonic instance only gets MIDI sent on one channel. That should clear it up

Hmm you might be on to something here and it's confusing me about how bitwig is handling midi. There is a setting for the track which lets you reroute midi channels. By default it is set to "All->1". I don't know why this is the default, but funny thing is it doesn't seem to matter when using a device set to MPE mode. If I change this to "All-> same" (which I would have thought means record the same midi channel, but it captures everything on channel 1 and still plays mpe fine on MPE enabled instruments). When I record an mpe midi clip with either setting, and then look at the midi clip and the channels, it seems to say it's all channel 1. However, when I play back with something like Omnisphere, where I can clearly see the different instruments on different channels being played by different notes, meaning that it is in fact receiving midi on different channels from a clip that seem to say it's using all channel 1?

Sorry I know this is not the place to get into Bitwig stuff. Just saying I tried to test your thoery that everything was actually captured/triggered on one channel. It seemed to be the case but then that was also the case with Diva VST3 where it was clearly triggering different channels (though the clip looked like it was one channel, same as my Omnisphere test). So I have no idea! I just know I'm recording the CLAP Diva the same way with the VST3, same like other instruments that are receiving on multiple channels. But again, kinda just curious at this point, so not at all implying it should be a priority for anyone to figure out!

[MrJubbly]

For some reason, I have the latest beta build revision 16744 of Diva (CLAP) installed on Win 11, rather than the official release of Diva 1.4.8 (revision 16519) on the main u-he website.

I know I must have installed the beta from the latest builds section of your site for a reason, albeit I genuinely cannot remember why I did that now.

Were there any bugs/features dealt with, by the 16744 beta, that have not yet been rolled out for the official release?