MPE Initial Channel Pitch-Bend Value Hold - Help Request

Reasoning behind design of script;



I am a sound designer who uses a Linnstrument as an MPE controller, and I use the ASM Hydrasynth as a versatile tool for MPE sound creation. When designing sounds that are of a percussive or plucked nature, I have found that the MPE (X) pitch parameter's continuous control data (from one’s finger on the X axis) often tends to make these types of sounds feel unnatural (or worse if one adds FM into the mix). For example, if one were to hit a bell, the pitch would not change after it has been struck with a mallet, or if one were to pluck a stringed instrument the pitch would not bend unless one moves his or her fingers along the bridge (it is much harder to hold one’s finger in one place with an MPE controller than on the bridge of an instrument). Unfortunately, due to the sensitivity and responsive nature of these modern MPE controllers it is very hard to keep the pitch from changing after hitting a note (before the release stage of the envelope). Fortunately, due to the sensitivity and responsive of these modern MPE controllers, they are very expressive and cool! One of course, could always turn off the X-axis and avoid this problem, but then one would be hitting all of the notes at perfect pitch every time... I believe that the ability to be able to play notes off key adds to the beauty and character of sound, and a level of expressiveness not attainable from a standard MIDI Keyboard.



Solution to this Conundrum;



Once a note is played, the initial channel pitchbend value is held, and any further stream of values sent from the controller is ignored.



Logic and implementation of script;



After much trial and error, and with the assistance of AI for some of the coding, I have come to a working solution as follows;

Initially, unique variables are set for each channel independently (L0*-LF* depending on which channels are to be affected)



For each channel independently, the following occurs;



1 – The channel’s first pitchbend message value sent from the controller is passed through unaltered. This is a channel pitchbend value of 0 on whichever note is being played (eg E#4), and this is sent by the Linnstrument to reset the pitchbend value of that channel as the new note is played. This occurs before the note on message.

2 – After a note-on message is received for that specific channel, the next channel pitchbend value is allowed to pass through, is then stored, and is repeated 5 times, at a 1ms interval. It is repeated to ensure that the sound generator receives and reacts to the value.

3 – All further pitchbend messages and values on that specific channel are ignored, until a note-off message specific to that channel occurs.

4 – Once the channel specific note-off message is received, all counters for the variables which pertain to that specific channel are reset to their initial state.





After a few days of trial and error, employing chat GPT4 to help me write the code, I have arrived at the script which will be the next post in this thread. This is an abridged version that includes only channel 3 and 4. In my current working script, I have repeated the code for channels 2-16, changing the necessary variables. Channel 1 is the manager channel used for global messages, and thus not affected by the script.



As one might imagine, it is quite laborious to duplicate the script for each channel, then to surgically alter the pertinent parts of the code specific to each channel up to 15 times when tweaking the code (unfortunately AI is a lazy stubborn Ox, and I have to do this manually). I would like to achieve a script that is more concise, efficient (or at least shorter), and that takes “Design Intent” into account, so that is can be modified more easily in the future. I will likely change which channels are affected (2-8 for MPE Lower Row, 9-15 for MPE Upper Row etc..). As of now, my working script affecting channels 2-16 contains 24,968 characters (It does work though, which is an amazing feat to me, due to the fact that person with 0 programming knowledge was able to achieve this). I am also struggling with sending the code from my Windows PC to my Ipad, as I am unable to figure out how to avoid having to manually select all of the text on the Ipad by scrolling the selection bracket down the pages of 20,000+ characters (the double tap “select all” prompt does not exist for me in this instance, perhaps because I am emailing the files in .rtf format, which maybe Apple does not like or something). Aside from the design intent factor, I would also like the code to be optimally designed/written as I am a bit of a perfectionist who doe’s not like redundant convoluted things, and because I also intend to share the script with others.

Thank You very much in advance for your help.