Artiphon

Orba2Bass2 Tilt/Snap demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13dGpcaESps

Glad you liked those presets - your tilt/snap is amazing. I've not really got into recording stuff but that's obviously a big downside to it - but at least it enables better noodling about and playing along with other things. I suppose it's now a case of finding if there is a way to catch the tilt data as it's happening, and then finding if it can then be sent to the right place externally.

I did get round to having another try with your bezier curves but with no success - I'll have to take a look at your presets later.

We could really do with having an Orbasynth app for the Orba 2 - using the current version is very hit and miss. Apart from the problem that sounds on a computer are not the same as on the Orba, I find Orbasynth on the Orba 2 can often behave very erratically and becomes useless (other times it's OK) - but not ideal. 

Also I have noticed that the factory presets mostly use the same set of seekers - so I have resorted to sticking to them until I need to do something different.

@subskybox - OK I know I am probably insane for even imagining this would work, but I tried taking your Vibrato bass preset and adding the relevant seeker  from the other one (changing MPE Z to X) and found I could get both semitones up and down on the pads. It only worked when the finger was moved, and it was rather fussy about it, not entirely reliable, but it worked. I still don't quite understand properly why either of those presets work - but the result of the combination was sort of cool.

While trying to get to the Hazelwood chord preset I posted above,  two other presets appeared that I didn't want to delete.

The first is AlmondTree, which was the wrong sound for what I wanted - but I liked anyway. Cobwood however, was simply wrong - but the right sound. Again, I liked it with it's faults. You'll see if you try it, but you might just like it too! (I really do like flattened sevenths!)

@DavidBenton

  "I suppose it's now a case of finding if there is a way to catch the tilt data as it's happening"

You can record tilt for other sounds.. So it must be it records the controller messages that it is mapped to. Many sounds map to to a filter so that you can sweep a sound while playing. Maybe the Orba is simply recording the controller events and not the tilt data itself. Now that I think of it, that is the case because I decoded Base64 song data last year and found that to be the case. Pitch Bend requires 14 bits of data instead of 8 bits like normal controllers. Maybe this is why it doesn't record pitch bend. I'll check on Orba1 but I believe it did record then. 

I still don't understand how it all ties together but I believe MPE X & MPE Y refer to the X/Y movement on each pad. Something like this:

So I hooked up PitchBend to MPE X on Vibrato Bass 2 like this:

<SeekerEntry inputLength="Default" inMin="-0.025" inMax="0.025" outMin="8021" outMax="8363" seekerType="Controller" controller="Pitch Bend" triggerSource="Default Note Source" triggerRule="Source" metricSensor="Default Note Source" metricSelection="MPE X"
 maxRate="20"/>

Refer to inMin & inMax which define the hardware In range. When you put your finger down, you define 0. So when you start in the middle and go left/right you would be in the range [-1,1] which you see in plenty of Presets. Here I changed the range to [-0.025, 0.025] so that you immediately hit the min/max on each side. the min and max correspond to outMin and outMax which are 8021 and 8363. These are equidistant from 8192 which is considered the middle value for PitchBend (a.k.a. 0 PitchBend). Those numbers yield a semitone in each direction but the range could be increased. I can imagine an instrument where you wiggle your finger back and forth and it snaps between the root note and a maj/min third up and back. This would be the same technique as how old computers (e.g. Commodore 64) used to fake chords by alternating between various notes very quickly.  

I came to the same conclusion about MPE X and Y a while ago - it was one of the few things I got right in an earlier post in the knowledge thread. I added then that MPE Z corresponds to tilt. The outMin, inMax etc. I didn't get right at all, it seems!

I was going to try pitch bend on the MPE Z today - I'll report on how that works later. 

A package of two presets here using an Akai wind controller to make the samples.

First there's LazyAltoFlute. A Lead preset that is technically more a Bass flute  (I think a concert flute range would get a bit too shrill in the top octave.) It's very breathy -  just turned out that way.

The other is a Chord preset LazyFluteChords which I made just to make use of the existing samples. Just the Orba preset chords but with a flattened 7th chord on key 7 in the major - as is my wont.

Thanks to Ignis32 and Subskybox for their useful advice.

There really needs to be an app that simply lets us load the sound we want without them being altered by now. The drum section of the unit can have completely different sounds now but I still don't have the ability to easily load something like this myself. We should be able to load any sound we want and play it in an easy and simple way. Exactly why hasn't this been a thing yet? Are they waiting to release the orba 3 for that? Hacking these things although fun for a while, is not the way I want to have to do things. 

Two sample based presets for you folks. 

First, Madaharp, made with samples of a crude box harp similar to the Madagasian instruments. Sadly, it lost some of it's character in translation but it does play well.

Second, Delawney, a sampled harpsichord sound - compromised because the mechanical noises that characterise a true harpsichord sound had to be cut because they also didn't translate well. (I tried to make a chord preset with these samples but my Orba didn't like playing them.)

Since the latest updates the Orba app doesn't show the images for custom presets. I'd be interested to know if they do for you (or is it just me), and also, if not,  any fixes?

And now - a lead and chord present bundled together. Synth based, the lead sound, Bladetrotter, made me think of the soundtrack of a certain movie (you can guess) when it appeared in my Orbasynth ramblings. I thought I'd do some chords too while I was at it.

And finally a curve ball chord preset.

The aim was to create a  chord set that would work well to play "Couldn't Love You More" by John Martyn (the acoustic version). That's very specific - but it can sound nice for accompanying gentle acoustic songs with a limited range of chords.

The minor chords are aimed towards the "broken chords" that John used on minor key songs. These were tricky and perhaps an acquired taste- but can work well with a good bass line.

If you don't know the song this chord pattern for the Orba keys should help you make sense of it:

8-7-4-------3---- (three times)

6-5-4-------3--1--(two times)

You can throw in the chord on 5 if you want before  the 3's. It's not like John played anything twice the same much.

The chords on 2 and 5 are they obvious choices because they might as well be there.

Wow, just got my Orba2 and learning a lot! But want to thank you all for your input and zip files.