Pitch Bend for all instruments

Yes please PitchBend ;-)

Have you looked at ‘Fluid Pitch’ from PitchInnovations.com?

I recently purchased it but haven’t yet had a chance to try it.

Another request for pitchbend.

I don't really see why you wouldn't enable it...

Just yesterday I wanted to warp the BBC orchestra but I had to fiddle about with a plug in to do it. It would have been so much quicker to just use a pitch wheel.

If someone's bothered that it makes things sound a bit odd or spoils the sample quality, they won't use it (why would they be using pitch bend on an orchestra anyway?). Some of use would welcome that for more experimental work.

If pitch bend lowers the quality of the sound I really would prefer it not to be implemented.

People on this forum may not all be looking for orchestral realism...at least not at all times. We're moving into a time where composers are wanting to play in the space between orchestral and synthetic. I think Spitfire needs to be aware of this as you address these kind of questions.

I need to do glissando (a lot of them) with Eric Whitacre Choir, and have spent hours wondering why the pitch wheel does not work. Very disappointed that there is no option. I agree with some of the posts above, that it's better to have it included, and if people don't like it, they won't use it.

For my part, I need this feature for a commission I'm working on, and I'm not sure how to tell them that I can't deliver. Other sample sets, not EWC, seem poor by EWC standard. (Devastated).

The simplest approach would be to enable us to add a pitch-bend modulator within Kontakt. That way only those who wish to make use of pitch bend would be taking the self-informed risk of audio quality.

If you automate the Spitfire plugin's "global tune" parameter using host automation - that's instead of MIDI CC - then you get around the 127 value restriction: you can create automation points with a resolution 0.01 semitones; and you may get a bit more resolution when the DAW is following a curve between two points. Either way, sounded totally smooth to me... if pretty drunk!

Notes below on how to do this in Logic - I tested with Logic and BBCSO violas legato, FYI. I don't have any Kontakt instruments to check with, but it supports host automation too so I think same principle should apply...?

That's all you need if you're drawing the pitch bend in your DAW, but a superficial Google suggests most DAWs let you assign the pitch bend wheel to a host automation parameter if you want to play-in the data. I haven't tested this. (Doesn't have to be the pitch wheel... but connecting the controller to the DAW via a MIDI CC limited to 127 values will only recreate the original problem.)

A few Logic-specific points for anyone who's unsure of the difference between host automation and MIDI CC:

In automation view (in either track or piano roll editors, choose "Mix", "Show Automation" from the menu), there's a drop-down to let you select the automation parameter or MIDI CC that's being displayed. The drop-down has "AUTOMATION" and "MIDI" sections. If you select the plugin's name (e.g. "BBC Symphony Orchestra") from the "AUTOMATION" section, followed by the parameter name (e.g. "Global Tune"), then you're using host automation. If you select anything under MIDI (e.g. Pitch Bend, or a MIDI control number) then either it won't work at all (e.g. Pitch Bend), or it'll be lumpy (because MIDI CCs can only take 127 values.) Incidentally, when editing/drawing in automation points, hold down the Control key while dragging each point to get fine-grained control of the value.

Hope that helps someone; sorry probably too late for @Breezereef!

Here to ask for pitch bend to be enabled as well! love your plugins but it really is a major downside and would be amazing if that could be fixed! I don't see it as disrupting the integrity of the sound at all, merely just an effect in itself which can be used for many interesting things - hope for it to be tweaked soon for the 'strings' plugin in particular - thanks a heap!

Hi @Max58, @cityshwimp, @GNP - in case you missed it, I posted a way of getting pitch bend working earlier in the thread (four posts above this one.) I'm interested to know if it works/doesn't work for you - but appreciate there's a separate point for Spitfire about whether or not it should work "out of the box".

Hi @GNP, no problem and thanks for letting me know. Which DAW are you using?

It could be a DAW-specific issue, but just to make sure we're on the same page, here's screenshot from Logic Pro with the BBCSO plugin in front. In the first region you can see I've tuned down and up by 1 cent. In the second, I'm sliding down 10st - which is unrealistic, but chosen to make it visible - and it sounds totally smooth. I've stopped it part-way through to check that both DAW and plugin are sliding one cent at a time: sure enough you can see '-3.72st' in Logic's automation lane, and the same when hovering the mouse over the plugin's "Tune" knob.

If you replicated this picture in your DAW and it still sounded lumpy, I would wonder if the data's being sent via a MIDI CC# (which will quantize the data and make it sound jumpy); or possibly if your DAW was scaling the data strangely... though I thought they were fairly consistent these days.

Hi @GNP - that's great. Should be no problem to perform the pitch bends yourself rather than drawing them: I suggest mapping a MIDI controller to the automation parameter in the DAW, but - crucially - restricting the parameter's range so the controller's 127 possible values aren't spread too far apart. (This is pretty similar to attaching a MIDI CC# to the "Tune" knob in the plugin, except you don't have the scaling there: those 127 controller values are spread over knob's 6 octave [+/-36st] range... that's a minimum change of more than 56 cents, so very lumpy.)

I expect other DAWs work similarly, but in Logic Pro, I would select the Spitfire track and open "Smart Controls" (from the menu bar "Window", "Open Smart Controls") to reveal the pane highlighted with a blue border below. If the inspector isn't visible, click on the "i"-in-a-circle button (top-left of that pane) to reveal the inspector:

In the above, under "Parameter Mapping", I've selected "Global Tune", so that's the knob that appears with a blue halo. Then I've set "Range Min" and "Range Max" to -/+2.00st, which is what the pitch-bend wheel would be by default... so just over 3 cents per controller value. Under "External Assignment", click on "Learn" to assign your controller, and you should be good to go!

Of course, the smaller the range, the smoother it'll be, so if you only need +/-1st (or even -0.63 to +0.64st for maximum smoothness) then go for it. If you need a wider pitch-bend range, that's still fine as long as you can tolerate it being a bit lumpy during recording: your DAW almost certainly has a tool to smooth out the curves afterwards, so it'll be nice and smooth for playback.

Hopefully that makes sense and works for you...