MPE pitch expression editing like Bitwig

[JamesO512]

I have asked before for a feature that would allow vertical snapping in the automation envelope lane for the purpose of such things as bending notes to other exact notes easily. Then I recently discovered the micro-pitch expression editing feature in Bitwig. It is amazing! It is really the best way to handle note bending that I've ever seen. Reaper should have this! I am going to buy Bitwig just for this one feature and to support a company developing such forward-thinking features.



Here is a video someone made showing the feature:

https://youtu.be/47Gp4jRfIb8

I recommend trying the Bitwig demo to see how this works.

It is really great to be able to handle pitch bends right on the piano roll! This is how it should be done! Every DAW should have this! And with MPE growing in use, Reaper really needs a good way to edit this data.

I don't know why most of the DAWs out there pay so little attention to implementing good ways to program pitch bends. Bending notes is such an important part of music! Singing, lead guitar, and so on, are full of this and it is a huge part of emotional expression.

COCKOS, PLEASE GIVE US THIS FEATURE IN REAPER!!!

[mschnell]

The Video states "only Bitwigs instruments". But of Course there also is Roli Equator, which is a fantastic MPE synth.

But speaking of MPE, same does not only provide per note pitchbend, but also per Note definition for any CC. I have a Roli Seaboard which sends PB, After Touch, and two CCs in MPE mode.

-Michael

[gofer]

Originally Posted by mschnell

But speaking of MPE, same does not only provide per note pitchbend, but also per Note definition for any CC. I have a Roli Seaboard which sends PB and two CCs in MPE mode.

-Michael

True and it would be very cool to see that kind of "on the note" editing for pressure and CC, too (I think Bitwig offers it, not sure right now).

But in case of pitchbend it is a real necessity, because with a pitchbend range of +-48 semitones it's practically impossible to edit the data on Reaper's pitchbend lane. A 2-semitone-glide is barely visible in the lane, not even beginning to speek of vibrato gestures. Editing them with Reaper's toolset? Naah don't try that if you want to stay sane.
I get by pretty well with pressure and CC74 but in case of MPE pitchbend all kinds of workarounds are needed to do any useful edit at all in Reaper. A lot of stuff, like creating a meaningful vibrato I wouldn't even try - kind of possible with Juliansadders MIDI scripts, but not an enjoyable task.

[JamesO512]

Originally Posted by mschnell

The Video states "only Bitwigs instruments".

I am not sure why he said that. I've been playing with the Bitwig demo and it works fine with Serum, Diva, Repro, and so on, if setup properly. Maybe there was some limitation in that older version of Bitwig featured in the video. That was 2.2. The current version is 3.2.

Anyway, it is a fantastic feature! And since you can so easily edit the pitch bend information by hand, you don't need an MPE controller to use it for programming synths on the piano roll.

An interesting thing I also discovered was that I can use my old Wacom Intuos2 tablet with Bitwig's wonderful virtual keyboard (the one that looks like a Linnstrument) as a pretty decent controller. It can utilize my pen pressure just fine. So I can make gestures with the pen to do nice expressive bends and pressure modulations and such things. It is almost like having a monophonic Linnstrument. I don't have a touchscreen for my PC, but it seems that it is designed to work with them and probably allows multi-touch. Pretty cool!

[denis_prophet]

As far as I know, Cubase also supports MPE, and there are already third party plugins that support this. The new MIDI 2 standard includes this and many more features. Ideally, if REAPER supports the MIDI 2 standard, that would be awesome. Maybe it will, but I don't think it will be soon.

[tpunk]

I thought the same thing before.
I didn't know Bitwig, so I was surprised that it already had that feature.

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=228581

Of course, editing each note would be great, but I would be happy if I could do this kind of editing as much as I can now, so I hope that I can edit the current pitch bend editing in this way as it is.

[mozart999uk]

+1 from me. I use a Roli and would love to see a Cubase / Bitwig style way of editing pitch data and poly at (or the roli equivalent).

Please devs..

@justin is this on the cards for some point in the future?

[mozart999uk]

Originally Posted by gofer

But in case of pitchbend it is a real necessity, because with a pitchbend range of +-48 semitones it's practically impossible to edit the data on Reaper's pitchbend lane. A 2-semitone-glide is barely visible in the lane, not even beginning to speak of vibrato gestures. Editing them with Reaper's toolset? Naah don't try that if you want to stay sane.

I get by pretty well with pressure and CC74 but in case of MPE pitchbend all kinds of workarounds are needed to do any useful edit at all in Reaper. A lot of stuff, like creating a meaningful vibrato I wouldn't even try - kind of possible with Juliansadders MIDI scripts, but not an enjoyable task.

Just ran into this problem. I couldn't edit a small pitch variation at all because a semitone pitch bend when dealing with +-48 is so tiny!

Please devs. Can you work on this? Don't drive me back to my old DAW just to use my Roli. I couldn't bear it 😂

[mozart999uk]

Just seen this about the new ableton release and MPE:

https://youtu.be/OP6EKAggYyE

Justin and Schwa do you think you could let us know if something like this will ever make it into reaper?

Thanks

[mschnell]

Funny. In the Video he not even uses MPE, as he only presses one note at the time :
-Michael

[mozart999uk]

I'd be happy just being able to edit MPE data successfully in monophonic lines :-)

[mschnell]

Theoretically you could split an MPE recording in multiple one-channel Midi items, edit them as in monophonic lines, and merge them afterwards

-Michael

[mozart999uk]

That would make some of it easier.😁 Although the resolution for pitch data when it's set to 48 is still an issue.....

[mschnell]

How should a midi editor care about the pitch bend resolution of the synth ?

-Michael

[mozart999uk]

What I mean is, if you set a roli keyboard to +-48 semitones (the default), record some midi and then try and edit the per-note pitch information, there isn't the resolution on screen / in the editor to be able to make adjustments. Even slight adjustments to the envelope result in big jumps to the pitch.

If you have a subtle slide into a note and you want to fine tune that, you're pretty much stuffed unless you have ninja mouse skills......

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by mschnell

How should a midi editor care about the pitch bend resolution of the synth ?

By being able to zoom into the lane vertically.

[mozart999uk]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

By being able to zoom into the lane vertically.

That would be the simplest solution for pitch definitely. Well put.

However, I think long term we also need a more slick way of selecting / editing MPE data per note - at the moment, as far as I can see, you need to find out what midi channel a note is on, then filter it in order to be able to edit cc data.

If you're playing chords, it's a complete nightmare....

[EvilDragon]

It helps to use the Channel note coloring mode, at least to some extent.

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

By being able to zoom into the lane vertically.

OK. Plus using a combination of Note an Pitch.

But in fact this is not dedicated to MPE. A single-voice performance with approprite usage of Pichtbend would offer the same issue with a single channel.

-Michael

[EvilDragon]

Sure, it's not dedicated to MPE, it's a general workflow improvement that is missing.

[mozart999uk]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

It helps to use the Channel note coloring mode, at least to some extent.

Is there an action that filters / shows only notes and CC by the selected notes channel?

[EvilDragon]

Unsure if somebody wrote such a script, but there's no native action for it (apart of course using the MIDI filter).

[mozart999uk]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Unsure if somebody wrote such a script, but there's no native action for it (apart of course using the MIDI filter).

Ah ok. Thought that might be the case. :-)

[Regisfofo]

This is the thing I miss the most with reaper... Being able to edit easily poly after touch performances... (pretty similar to mpe, but not exactly the same I know...)

[mozart999uk]

I'm really hoping this is getting noticed. There's been no word still from devs.

If they are not planning to do anything about this it would be great to know as then I could look at another DAW as MPE is forming a bigger and bigger part of my work all the time.

[UknownSource]

coming from bitwig

biggg + 1!!!

[VVV]

It's great, but maybe it's impossible to implement something that work with any vsti?
It would already exist otherwise.

[n997]

+1, in this thread as well.

This would also pave the way for someday supporting per-note controllers of MIDI 2.0.

Originally Posted by VVV

It's great, but maybe it's impossible to implement something that work with any vsti?
It would already exist otherwise.

In Bitwig, there's a per-plugin setting labeled "Use MPE" that appears to control whether the plugin receives MPE data, and also a pitchbend range setting next to it. When the pitchbend range setting matches the one in plugin itself, the per-note pitchbend automation corresponds visually to MIDI pitches on the piano roll.

If this kind of per-note parameter editing view is added to REAPER, I'd suggest that it can displayed in MIDI editor at all times, but whether a particular plugin receives it is activated in each FX's MIDI settings (Plug-in pin connector > I/O).

Also, such view (not related to pitch) could also be useful for editing "plain old" MIDI 1.0 Poly Aftertouch data.

Not sure what other technical complications might be involved, but per-note editing in Cubase, Bitwig, and nowadays Live serve as proofs of concept.

[Malfunction]

Any scripters up for the task?

[Malfunction]

Originally Posted by mozart999uk

I'm really hoping this is getting noticed. There's been no word still from devs.

If they are not planning to do anything about this it would be great to know as then I could look at another DAW as MPE is forming a bigger and bigger part of my work all the time.

We are the developers.

[mozart999uk]

Originally Posted by Malfunction

We are the developers.

Erm.....what? Eh?

[bywaterandblood]

I second this request. To be able to do per-note pitch bends by drawing envelopes would be huge.

[mozart999uk]

Another little bump.....

[Held]

I would like this too. This works with normal pitch bend as well for monophonic midi in Bitwig. You just need to match the pitch bend range in Bitwig and the VST.

[ferropop]

+1 with sugar on top

[bywaterandblood]

Currently, you can edit pitch but it is unusable because the zoom level of the CC lane is way far out. If they simply added zoomable CC lanes it would solve this issue. We may never get a Bitwig style overlay (that's way too much of a UI ask), so I'm at least hoping for a zoom feature. I do however drool over Bitwig's MPE editing.

I had a lucid dream the other day that I had a Reaper session open and wanted to edit something in Bitwig. I right clicked a track and opened it as a subproject in Bitwig, which automatically had a bounce of the project's mix and the MIDI of the track I wanted to work on. I edited my bends and bounced the track back to Reaper with all the new MIDI and CC data. I woke up and was disappointed it was only a dream, so I tried and tried to go back to sleep, to no avail.

[mschnell]

Are cc and pitchbend lanes in the Midi editor really not zoomable ? This indeed seems like a shortcoming (but completely unrelated to MPE)
-Michael

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by bywaterandblood

Currently, you can edit pitch but it is unusable because the zoom level of the CC lane is way far out. If they simply added zoomable CC lanes it would solve this issue. We may never get a Bitwig style overlay (that's way too much of a UI ask), so I'm at least hoping for a zoom feature. I do however drool over Bitwig's MPE editing.

I had a lucid dream the other day that I had a Reaper session open and wanted to edit something in Bitwig. I right clicked a track and opened it as a subproject in Bitwig, which automatically had a bounce of the project's mix and the MIDI of the track I wanted to work on. I edited my bends and bounced the track back to Reaper with all the new MIDI and CC data. I woke up and was disappointed it was only a dream, so I tried and tried to go back to sleep, to no avail.

I think about this every day - the idea of loading up BitWig for MPE, having Renoise going for some weird tracker breakbeat stuff...

...the dream ends when you consider how much complexity this adds. When you load this project, you have to load other DAWs - load that DAW's version of the same project, hope the mapping stays the same, hope the plugins are scanned in both DAWs, weird PDC issues.

It's almost never worth it -- but the idea of bouncing out MIDI into BitWig then back to Reaper sounds like it could be fruitful.

[bywaterandblood]

Originally Posted by mschnell

Are cc and pitchbend lanes in the Midi editor really not zoomable ? This indeed seems like a shortcoming (but completely unrelated to MPE)
-Michael

MPE or not, I use my Roli to record performances and want to edit the pitch in Reaper. I can't do that and it's a huge disappointment.

[bywaterandblood]

Originally Posted by ferropop

I think about this every day - the idea of loading up BitWig for MPE, having Renoise going for some weird tracker breakbeat stuff...

...the dream ends when you consider how much complexity this adds. When you load this project, you have to load other DAWs - load that DAW's version of the same project, hope the mapping stays the same, hope the plugins are scanned in both DAWs, weird PDC issues.

It's almost never worth it -- but the idea of bouncing out MIDI into BitWig then back to Reaper sounds like it could be fruitful.

Well, when you open RX to edit an audio clip you are loading another program. Not that much different resource-wise. Yeah, it would a bit complex in that there's no way I can think of to automatically open a project with a set BPM, a bounce of the current mix, all the MIDI CCs synced up... Like I said, it was a nice dream.