Stock pitchbend plugins

[vincentzaalberg]

 

Trying to solve this one last time.

Each time I assign the cents variable of either one of the stock Apple pitchbend plugins to the pitchbend wheel of my midi controller (using cmd+L) the plugins don't return to perfect zero. Instead they return to 0.2 (see pic), effectively making the synths out of tune.

Can anybody check if this happens with the pitchbend plugins on your system as well?
That way I can at least isolate the problem to my system/midi controller before I buy a new plugin. 

The other issue I have is that after assigning and closing the learn window the midi controller pitchbend wheel is no longer able to move the cents knob/fader on the plugins. Although it works fine when the learn menu is open. How do I make the connection permanent? 

I would appreciate if anybody can suggest a 3rd party pitch shifter that has a 2 octave range in cent increments as well.
TIA

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by vincentzaalberg

[des99]

30 minutes ago, vincentzaalberg said:

tock logic pitchbend plugins

Those pitch shift plugins are not Logic ones, they are Apple ones that come bundle on macOS.

31 minutes ago, vincentzaalberg said:

Can anybody check if this happens with the pitchbend plugins on your system as well?
That way I can at least isolate the problem to my system/midi controller before I buy a new plugin. 

The way to check is to use Snoize MIDI Monitor (https://www.snoize.com/midimonitor/) and observe the MIDI traffic coming from your controller when you move the wheel - then you can see whether you controller is sending a PB of zero pitch change, or whether it's offset and doesn't return to zero (which I suspect is the case).

[vincentzaalberg]

Des, you're correct the plugins are actually Apple's. I corrected my OP on that now.
Midi monitor is showing a reset to perfect zero (see pic, last line). So it's actually the plugins. Makes sense since they sometimes return to 0.5 instead 0.2 as well, weird right. Plus when I use the Logic pitch shifter which only has 50 cents of wiggle room to either side the knob does return to perfect zero. 

Question remains if on someone else's system the Apple pitch plugins also show this behaviour or not.

[scg]

I didn't spend a lot of time with it, but I didn't have any luck getting those plugins to center either. The behavior was actually somewhat squirrelly and seemingly incorrect even beyond that, but I'd have to spend more time with it to figure out what all was going on (and whether it was user error or not).

[David Nahmani]

Yes I can't get them to go to zero either. I wouldn't expect to though: pitch bend data is 14 bit data and it's not handled the same way as regular MIDI CC controllers. But even with a regular MIDI CC it's impossible to get AU Pitch to go back to zero remotely. Its pitch range is way too large to be accurately controlled by only 128 values. 

Even Logic's own Smart Control knobs can't dial the Pitch to zero exactly, at least not by default. You may be able to scale the Smart Control to reach the values you want but it's probably going to be a frustrating exercise (I was able to reach a zero value by scaling but only by targeting a tiny range of the Pitch knob). 

[vincentzaalberg]

Thanks for confirming guys!

[David Nahmani]

You're welcome! 🙂 

[vincentzaalberg]

des99, scg, David, were you able to let the assignment of the pitchbend wheel stick the the cents knob after closing the Learn window?
I can't get Logic to do that somehow...
 

[David Nahmani]

16 hours ago, vincentzaalberg said:

were you able to let the assignment of the pitchbend wheel stick the the cents knob after closing the Learn window?

As I said you may be able by scaling Smart Controls but IMO that's more work than it's worth. The pitch bend wheel is a special controller that sends special 14 bit MIDI data is designed to send pitch bend events, not to be assigned to a plug-in parameter in your DAW, which is why this is not the right tool for the job. 

[vincentzaalberg]

Oh that’s what you meant. I see. 
I’ll try another fader than. Sadly these faders won’t physically spring back to zero-ish at all, also making them unsuited haha. I’ll take a look at Smart Controls, thanks David!

[David Nahmani]

1 hour ago, vincentzaalberg said:

Sadly these faders won’t physically spring back to zero-ish at all, also making them unsuited haha. 

Yes indeed. Those pitch plug-ins aren't really meant to be controlled in real time like what a pitch bend wheel does in MIDI unfortunately. Maybe some 3rd party pitch plug-ins would give you the expected result using the Modifier MIDI FX? 

Unfortunately this does not work with Apple's plug-ins: