Yes, I think I saw the 16383 value in a preset (perhaps one of yours). When I was experimenting I stopped at a value that gave me an octave up because I didn't see a use for going further. I didn't really explore going through lower values because beyond a whole tone it didn't seem to work on my first attempts and since again it didn't seem so useful. I'm really just looking to expand what I can do for my own playing and sharing what I learn.
I know that Pitch Bend values are 14 bit values (require two bytes) and therefor are in the range 0-16383 with the value 8192 being in the middle (representing no Pitch Bend). The note that is produced is dependent on what the Pitch Bend range is set to. I'm not sure if its possible to change the range on Orba.
Some observations:
When I was first playing with presets I got the understanding that pitch bend was limited to just a tone or two. Having seem numbers in some presets that suggested this was not the case I decided to experiment to see if I could find the limits for myself. What I discovered in that was that I could only pitch bend down in pitch a whole tone but bend up a whole octave - I stopped at that point because I'd reached what I wanted to be useful. (I think it might be possible to bend down further if the starting point is at a higher value, but I haven't tested yet. This enabled me to create presets that could play chromatic scales, or play over two octaves without having to resort to using A+key 8. I use the snap trick, as it was described in earlier posts on this forum, to make each key act as two splitting it across the Y axis. Tilt was tried for this sort of thing but I found it unsatisfactory to use
In the Grapefruit Lead preset there seemed to be an octave jump created by introducing harmonics into the sound as an effect. I managed to get something like a a two octave range by tilting and chromatics on the Y axis of the key. The octave effect wasn't as good as I would like - but I think it could be improved. Pitch bend is better for the octave change. The harmonics method can work with tilt better than pitch bend will though.
(It is possible to have two pitch bend seeker entries in a preset - but it didn't help, although it is a curious and interesting thing to do!)
The technical bit: the value 8192 seems to be the value for the note playing as it should to go down, set that to ouMax and subtract 171 for each semitone down you want to go down for the inMin value. To go up, set 8192 as the inMax and add 171 for each semitone you want to go up. (I'll let you do your own maths.) I was not convinced that 171 equated exactly to a semitone - but since it seems to give the right result over 12 semitones it seems it is.
It is important to mention that these methods may not translate when exporting to midi devices. I don't do this myself so I can't comment on that.
When attempting to implement an idea Rusty Perez had I came across something else I rather like. (That conversation is in the Preset repository thread - the wrong place for it really - I apologise for that!)
I was aware that I could jump pitch by any amount I wanted so I knew I could use 4ths or 5ths but I hadn't considered that particularly useful. However I played with 5ths on a chord preset which was made with a particular recording as inspiration. While using 5ths on chord preset can add extra chords - which is useful - on presets with complex chords (ie: not just the usually triads) it can not only increase the number of chords but act almost as it's own, rather pleasing effect, surprisingly pleasing to me.
There is a minor tweak I need to sort out - notes played on the inner part of the key are sometimes quieter than those on the outside. I think that's just a case of removing a seeker from the preset or perhaps adjusting it, or the modSource entry. It's just something left in the source preset I've used some of the time.
I think I have posted presets using these methods but I will make a point of posting the ones I think work best as examples for others to experiment with, or just borrow the methods.
Has anyone discovered a way of reversing the direction of the Y axis in the radiate gesture, by any chance?
I suspect it's not possible (except perhaps by hacking the Orba programming itself which I wouldn't dream of doing).
I have been playing around with using pitch bend - but I can only get lower notes playing on the inner area of the keys and higher notes on the outer. This works well in some cases but it would be good to be able to do it the other way round which I feel would be better to use for other cases. (In particular, I have made presets that will play over two octaves this way, but I think it would be better to use if I could make the top octave play in the inner area, not the outer.)
If it were possible I think it might make some gesture effects better to use, as well.
Well strange noises ended in another personal holy grail discovered. It is possible to play over two octaves without resorting to A+key8.
It's not an ideal solution and I suspect won't work well on all presets (Not tried on sample based presets yet. I think they may be least likely to work well.)
Of course, it needs creating a modified preset.
@BJG145
That thought had already occurred to me.
But at least I am getting some understanding of how to get control of gestures and effects - which has been something of a holy grail in my mind.
I hope it's insured. ;-)
Just for your amusement - an example of the weird sounds the Orba can make when you start experimenting.
(Don't listen if you are of a nervous disposition!)
I'm attaching a preset (the artipreset file) which illustrate the glide features that snuck into the Artiphon Hand Pan preset, but were unused. (I mentioned them here earlier.) The settings here demonstrate the effect but I suspect using shorter time parameter values might offer a neat legato to some synth based presets (don't think it will work on sample based ones).
These drums and stems were also written with some programs, could they not be made available? Or wouldn't it be possible to somehow write a drum and stem and sample editor that could be used to import your own sounds and kits into all four instruments? But we really need a basic song editor. If this could be solved, then Orba 2 would make sense, but...
I was poking around in the preset file for Artiphon's Hand Pan trying to find how it played so strangely. Although I haven't really worked that out but I did note a row of settings in the synthPatch section that I have not seen before - the relate to Wave Guide and "gliding". It doesn't seem to do anything in the Hand Pan preset but by playing about with it in a synth based patch I got a really strange sounding glissando between notes! Well, that was quite a surprise!
I will play about with the parameters and see if I can get something that sounds reasonable and demonstrates what it is. When I've done that I'll post it here for anyone who wants to play with it.
I have been wondering for a while if a gesture might be able to control a wave guide parameter - because if so there are things that could be possible and useful for live playing. This hints that there might be a way of doing that which hasn't been revealed in any of the presets we have seen.
And forgot to add the actual preset! That's what keeping it down to one cup of coffee in the morning does to this old man.
As above I'm attaching a preset for an oriental zither style sound. Some minor tweaks to what I said above, but basically the same as described above. It seems to make a convincing sort of sound. The "true" pitch is near the centre, bending to a tone up towards the rim. (Not sure whether that could be reversed, but in this case it seems to make sense to me.)
The preset is based on my sample based "Madaharp" preset. So if you happen to have loaded that on your Orba you should only need to copy the preset into your Artiphon folder.
At some point I hope to have a blues minded synth based preset to add, but I have a couple of drum experiments and other bits and pieces, so I may just do a new batch of presets in one go.
I had a moment of inspiration this morning!
Initially I found using Pitch Bend problematical - it left me playing out of tune a lot.
@Subskybox found a good trick to use pitch bend to give two notes on one key (little or no bending sound). I found the most successful way to use it was to have the true note playing on the outer area of a key and the bent note a semitone lower towards the inner area. This works pretty welland my thanks to Subskybox for that - I have been able to create chromatic playing presets.
(I favour using a semitone down because it seems more useable than a semitone up.)
This morning I thought perhaps it might be possible to have a "safe" area by the rim where the true note would play in tune and then bend approaching the centre. My first attempt worked well - but then I thought perhaps there could also be a "safe" area at the inner area as well. Trying that out in also worked well.
As an experiment I tried this method on two presets - one using Teatro's Lyre samples which I set to play the "true" note at the inner area and a tone above by the rim. The sound is not quite right for the oriental zither type sound I was thinking of, and it would probably better using a pentatonic scale, but the principal worked well.
The other one was a synth based EGuitar preset (which JAMIX VcZ posted for the Orba 1 - which I borrowed for an Orba 2 preset) and went with the semitone down setting. This allowed something more like blues note bends.
Since both of these use borrowed content I won't post them but instead try and get round to applying these to something my own and post them.
For those who might want to try this for themselves these are the important parts of the Pitch Bend seeker for the bluesy version: "inMin="-0.5" inMax="0.5" outMin="8021" outMax="8192", and this for the zither one: inMin="-0.5" inMax="0.5" outMin="8192" outMax="8534".
It would be simple to adjust the inMin and inMax parameters to suit your own preferences, and the numbers for the out parameters should give you clues if you want to adjust the pitch values.
Subskybox
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