Re: midi pitchbend

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 5:38 PM, Michael Peters <mp@mpeters.de> wrote:
> a simple midi question:  when I bend strings on my midified guitar, or 
> make
> a glissando, the VST instruments seem to only get regular temperate 
> tuning
> midi notes - a C, a C#, whatever, but nothing in between.

That is MIDI Note events. So called Note Numbers, going from the
lowest note as number 1 up to the highest as number 128 (or spanning
from 0 to 127 depending on the original programmer being German or
American). Every number equals a corresponding half note, every fret
on your guitar.

> Is there a way to somehow tell VST instruments, or synths, exactly what I
> played, and make it play the exact pitch that I played? after all, there 
> is
> a pitchbend command.

MIDI Pitch Bend is a totally different event than MIDI Note Numbers.
In your case either the guitar doesn't send PB data or it is being
filtered out somewhere on the way - or the VST doesn't support Pitch
Bend (less likely).

Many MIDI controller instruments (like your guitar in this situation)
offers the option to send only MIDI Notes and that is often called
"Chromatic Mode" or you may chose to have it send both Note Numbers
and Pitch Bend. The reason for this is that a guitar has six strings
and not every guitarist likes to have a bend on the E string bend
notes played on the A string "out of tune". Usually one plays MIDI
guitar over six MIDI channels, giving each string its unique MIDI
channel and then you apply six synths to play back those six channels.
This way Pitch Bend created on any of the strings will only affect the
synth playing back the Notes data from that string.

There is another thing to keep in mind as well: the synth's setting
for "Pitch Bend range". When using a guitar you want to set the
synth's PB Range to one octave, 12 steps. That setting will make the
synth follow bends of strings.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.perboysen.com
http://www.youtube.com/perboysen