I was wondering if it’s possible to create a single MIDI route in a song so that on a particular MIDI channel, it’s possible to send to a rack the same MIDI note, regardless of which note I play. I want to do this (for instance) because I have a drum loop that I want to retrigger for every bass note I play. I could do this by setting up a MIDI route for every bass note that I need to play transposed by the correct amount to play the right MIDI note for the loop, but that would mean a lot of MIDI routes! (Not that that’s a huge deal of course, but it’s time consuming)
Is there some way to do this with the filters or bindings that I’m not clever enough to have worked out?
One place I’ve seen this was in a Kurzweil K-2600 controller and it allowed key mapping where you could create special tunings so it allowed you to set different keys to the same pitches. Not the same as you are looking for but maybe something like this could be a nice feature for C3 as a separate filter.
It’s funny you ask this now! I needed to do exactly the same thing at the weekend. I came up with two ways:
Use a binding from the “Note” event, and select “Any” as the note, and use “Note” as the action, with a fixed output note, going to a MIDI target. This will map all notes coming into the binding to the same note. You’ll also need a duplicate of that binding to handle note-off in the same way. If you want to only map a range of keys to one note, rather than the whole keyboard, I think the best thing to do would be to put the binding in a rack, and set up a route to it with a particular keyboard zone. If it’s something you do frequently, you could re-use the rack, transposing the MIDI output to whatever target note you need.
Use the MidiNoteMap plugin from the Piz MIDI Plugin Collection. This lets you map each input note to any output note, so you could set up some incredibly crazy note layouts! In your case you’d just set whichever notes you want to map, all pointing to the same target note.
As Dave says, this functionality could be a nice addition to Cantabile’s filters!
I think it’s one of those things most people would never use, but occasionally it’s incredibly useful, and not straightforward to achieve. It would definitely be a welcome addition for me, although I’d only use it in maybe 5% of my songs.
I use it in one situation, where my left hand is playing changing bass notes, while my left thumb is playing every other 16th note, on one key. A slightly exotic thing to do for a left hand. It turns out to be considerably easier to keep my hand spanning an octave, and set the range of keys the thumb falls on to all sound the same note, rather than getting my hand into shapes where it’s hard to maintain playing those thumb notes evenly.
As an aside, my Kurzweil PC3x has a set of possible “notemaps” as it calls it, for each zone:
Linear - just normal piano style
1 of 2 - Only sounding every other note
2 of 2 - Only sounding every “other” other note
1 of 3 - Only sounding the first in every three notes
2 of 3 - …
3 of 3
1 of 4
2 of 4
3 of 4
4 of 4
Inverse - turns the key ordering upside down
Constant - all keys play the same note - the one we’re discussing in this thread
The “x of y” ones I guess could be useful if you need more polyphony and want to distribute your playing across multiple sound sources. Not sure really how useful it is to have all those combinations though. They’re probably all provided because they’re easy to implement, rather than because they’re all desperately useful. The only ones I’ve ever used are linear and constant. But now I use my PC3x as a poor downtrodden “dumb” MIDI controller, with all the intelligence and zoning in Cantabile, adding that “constant” filter would be handy.
OK interesting. What I was thinking was a MIDI filter that maps note range X -> Y to note Z with perhaps a re-trigger option that controls if playing a second note sends a second note or simply holds the first.
Also, I’m assuming that implementing this as a filter would suffice? (as opposed to a MIDI route setting)
Good point about the re-trigger option. I guess you’d either want to re-trigger a new note, or extend the existing note so it plays until no more incoming notes are active. What you probably wouldn’t want is for sound to finish if you hold one key, then hold another, then release the first, which I guess would be the default MIDI behaviour.
Regarding filter vs route, my first thought was that it might also fit in nicely in the route settings, to map the whole key range to a specified target note. On the other hand, as it’s quite an exotic, not commonly required option, it might be better to keep it safely hidden away from the routes dialog, to avoid over-complicating it for the majority of use. And I would say it’s such an unusual feature that users wouldn’t get annoyed at not being able to have it state-driven. So I’d say do it as a filter.
Nice work Ade!! To make it more usable for everyone you could use Rack MIDI In instead of Main Keyboard (which on my system is missing). Then just route your MIDI controller to the rack. Nice use of midiForceToKey
I like that a whole lot more than my convoluted lash up LOL
(Although the plz midi approach will provide a state based solution - so best of both worlds)
@brad, (and the rest of you…) you’re amazing! I’m new to cantabile and fumbling my way around, but this forum and community is great, thanks for all your help guys, I’m really looking forward to getting dug in to cantabile and finding out what it can really do…
It works really well @brad, nice work!! The retriggerable option is also cool - introduces some interesting creative possibilities for playing fast repeated notes. Happy days!
@brad, I’ve noticed a two small problems with the new filter:
If I have learn mode enabled, focus one of the key range boxes, and play a note that’s outside the range, the note-off is lost, presumably because the note-off is set to the new target note. This leaves a hanging note.
If I have learn mode enabled, focus the target note box, and play a different note to the current target, the note-off is lost, and the note is left hanging.
