Microtones in a M4L-patch

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purpureus
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Dec 21, 2014 11:54 am

Microtones in a M4L-patch

Post by purpureus » Sat Apr 06, 2019 8:56 am

Hi there!

I'd like to send some microtonal chords to a instrument in Ableton Live via a M4L-patch I made using the cage.rm-object.
Notes are send to the instrument via ezmidiplay very well, but it does not play the microtones.
I guess it's a problem how the Live-Instrument receives midi-data.
Does someone of you have experience with this type of microtonal playout in a M4L-patch?

a big thanks in advance!

best,
H

Tj Shredder
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Jul 30, 2017 11:09 am

Re: Microtones in a M4L-patch

Post by Tj Shredder » Sun Apr 21, 2019 7:49 pm

I have a related problem. I wanted to send Midi to a VST in Max. But looking inside bach.ezmidiplay, the pitch bend is only sent to a midi port and not routed to the outlet. It also seems, that the midi won't have the necessary resolution to drive for example a MPE capable synth for polyphonic microtones (bendout does only 7-bit resolution, whereas xbendout would be apropriate). I guess bach.ezmidiplay has to be modified to do that correctly...

danieleghisi
Site Admin
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Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2010 1:25 pm

Re: Microtones in a M4L-patch

Post by danieleghisi » Mon Apr 22, 2019 9:43 am

Hi guys,

I'm not an expert in M4L scenarios. As you know MIDI is not designed for microtone playback, unfortunately, hence bach.ezmidiplay just detunes some channels. If you need very precise resolution, this is far from possible (the best it can do I think is 8-th tones).

Nevertheless, if you need any custom playback system (e.g. differently handled pitch bend), my advise is to build your own, it's really easy (bach.ezmidiplay is overcomplicated by some ancillary issues to deal with all cases): just use something like [bach.playkeys cents velocity] in combination with the standard MIDI Max objects you need.

d

Tj Shredder
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Jul 30, 2017 11:09 am

Re: Microtones in a M4L-patch

Post by Tj Shredder » Mon Apr 22, 2019 10:11 am

14-bit pitch bend is sufficient even for a pitch bend range of 96. All MPE capable synths are prepared for that (with a standard pitch bend range of 48). After I learned enough about all the objects within bach.ezmidiplay I could probably adapt it to deliver proper microtuning to VSTs and Midi. It will need some time and then I'll share it here...

danieleghisi
Site Admin
Posts: 1347
Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2010 1:25 pm

Re: Microtones in a M4L-patch

Post by danieleghisi » Mon Apr 22, 2019 10:14 am

My advise is almost to do the opposite: [bach.ezmidiplay], at its core, is [bach.playkeys] connected to a [makenote] and [noteout].
All the rest is infrastructure to deal with specific cases and microtones.
I'd honestly start from [bach.playkeys], [makenote] and [noteout] and build up from there.
But you're of course free to inspect [bach.ezmidiplay] and see why each subpatch is there ;-)

Tj Shredder
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Jul 30, 2017 11:09 am

Re: Microtones in a M4L-patch

Post by Tj Shredder » Mon Apr 22, 2019 10:29 am

Thanks for the advice. I'll look into it, I guess its better to use midiout instead of the specific objects in that case anyway...

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