EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

Use an expression pedal and configure it to send cc #7.

James Richmond

> I'm quite a lousy keyboard player so I've never used a volume 
> pedal before.
> Today I did a session with a player who needed to do a lot of volume
> swelling and was used to doing it with a foot volume pedal 
> connected to the
> master keyboard.
> We were using some Miroslav Vitous EXS orchestral instruments 
> that I have
> translated from my Sample Cell CD Roms.
> We could not get the EXS to receive any Vol Pedal info.
> I tried the same pedal on my other modules and it worked fine.
> I loaded up the Sample Cell version and it also would not respond.
> So...........does this mean that Vitous doesn't expect any 
> one to use volume
> pedal control or won't the EXS or Sample Cell respond to a 
> Volume pedal via
> the master keyboard.
> Basic stuff but there you have it my learned compatriots.
> Phil Buckle.

Thoughts from the mind of Richmond, James (James) ** CTR **, 10-04-2002:

>  > We were using some Miroslav Vitous EXS orchestral instruments
>>  that I have
>>  translated from my Sample Cell CD Roms.
>>  We could not get the EXS to receive any Vol Pedal info.
>>  I tried the same pedal on my other modules and it worked fine.
>>  I loaded up the Sample Cell version and it also would not respond.
>>  So...........does this mean that Vitous doesn't expect any
>>  one to use volume
>>  pedal control or won't the EXS or Sample Cell respond to a
>  > Volume pedal via the master keyboard.
>
>Use an expression pedal and configure it to send cc #7.

Ehrm... isn't a volume pedal a pedal that sends CC7 ???

To Phil: the samples have nothing to do with it.  Every EXS 
instrument should be able to respond to CC7 messages, imo.  It's the 
EXS's resonsibility to turn the volume up or down, regardless of the 
sample being loaded.  Unfortunately I can't check, since my EXS demo 
expired and the order I placed hasn't arrived yet :).

What you could do for starters is connect a Monitor Object to Logic's 
Physical Input and check to see that indeed controller 7 arrives when 
pressing the volume pedal.  Maybe check the midi channel too...

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

not necessarily.

A volume pedal can be a simple pot in a pedal.
I once had a tech support issue for someone who couldnt control one of his synths.
He bought a Boss Volume pedal that had audio in and audio out on 1/4 inch jacks.
He could control the volume of his rd800 (i think) becasue he was attenuating volume this way. He couldnt understand why the volume pedal wouldnt work with his jv1080.

James

> Ehrm... isn't a volume pedal a pedal that sends CC7 ???
> 
> To Phil: the samples have nothing to do with it.  Every EXS 
> instrument should be able to respond to CC7 messages, imo.  It's the 
> EXS's resonsibility to turn the volume up or down, regardless of the 
> sample being loaded.  Unfortunately I can't check, since my EXS demo 
> expired and the order I placed hasn't arrived yet :).

on 4/10/02 11:38 PM, Hendrik Jan Veenstra at h@... wrote:

> Thoughts from the mind of Richmond, James (James) ** CTR **, 10-04-2002:
> 
>>> We were using some Miroslav Vitous EXS orchestral instruments
>>> that I have
>>> translated from my Sample Cell CD Roms.
>>> We could not get the EXS to receive any Vol Pedal info.
>>> I tried the same pedal on my other modules and it worked fine.
>>> I loaded up the Sample Cell version and it also would not respond.
>>> So...........does this mean that Vitous doesn't expect any
>>> one to use volume
>>> pedal control or won't the EXS or Sample Cell respond to a
>>> Volume pedal via the master keyboard.
>> 
>> Use an expression pedal and configure it to send cc #7.
> 
> Ehrm... isn't a volume pedal a pedal that sends CC7 ???
> 
> To Phil: the samples have nothing to do with it.  Every EXS
> instrument should be able to respond to CC7 messages, imo.  It's the
> EXS's resonsibility to turn the volume up or down, regardless of the
> sample being loaded.  Unfortunately I can't check, since my EXS demo
> expired and the order I placed hasn't arrived yet :).
> 
> What you could do for starters is connect a Monitor Object to Logic's
> Physical Input and check to see that indeed controller 7 arrives when
> pressing the volume pedal.  Maybe check the midi channel too...
I can see that the pedal is sending midi by looking at the lights on my
MTPAV.
How do I get the EXS to respond? Other midi instruments respond by ticking
the volume box in the parameter panel but EXS does not have one.
Phil Buckle.

How do I get the EXS to respond? Other midi instruments respond by ticking
the volume box in the parameter panel but EXS does not have one.
Phil Buckle.
***********
create an "instrument" and cable it in the EXS24... after that u will see
the function in the "Instrument" in the arrange window"....
Igor

Thoughts from the mind of Richmond, James (James) ** CTR **, 10-04-2002:

>  > Ehrm... isn't a volume pedal a pedal that sends CC7 ???
>
>not necessarily.
>
>A volume pedal can be a simple pot in a pedal.

Hey, give me _some_ credit...  I'm not _that_ dumb :-).  Sure, a 
volume pedal for a guitar is a different beast.  But Phil wrote in 
his original message:

>I tried the same pedal on my other modules and it worked fine.

... so I assumed we were at _least_ talking "midi pedal" here.

>I once had a tech support issue for someone who couldnt control one 
>of his synths.  He bought a Boss Volume pedal that had audio in and 
>audio out on 1/4 inch jacks.  He could control the volume of his 
>rd800 (i think) becasue he was attenuating volume this way. He 
>couldnt understand why the volume pedal wouldnt work with his jv1080.

Funny story :-).

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

Thoughts from the mind of Phil Buckle, 11-04-2002:

>  > What you could do for starters is connect a Monitor Object to Logic's
>>  Physical Input and check to see that indeed controller 7 arrives when
>>  pressing the volume pedal.  Maybe check the midi channel too...
>
>I can see that the pedal is sending midi by looking at the lights on my
>MTPAV.

Did you try my suggestion, above?  Sure it sends midi, but *what* 
midi?  That's what you need to figure out first.

>How do I get the EXS to respond? Other midi instruments respond by ticking
>the volume box in the parameter panel but EXS does not have one.

Don't be stubborn :).  First hook up the Monitor, and then we'll see...

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

I must indeed agree with Darcy (Phillips), it IS a massive oversight not
having a standard thing such as CC11 implemented into the EXS (and other
softsynths), especially considering the fact that using CC7 is a pretty
lousy workaround because a) it doesn't default to value 127 (which
expression does) and b) you will loose overall volume control.
What I am doing is using a special VST plugin (some kind soul custom coded
it for me) which is exactly doing what CC11 does - default value is all the
way up and there's some smoothing parameter which makes eventual "stepping"
inaudible. I'm just using a transformer to route *whatever* CC into it. The
plugin is PC only, if anybody wants it though, I would gladly post it.

Btw, as said above, this is not a problem of the EXS alone, there's hardly
any VSTi responding to expression - I really wonder how developers can
overlook such a basic thing which is a widely used standard in the MIDI
world since ages. We can only hope that future updates change something with
that (btw, the same is true for essential other things such as CC's 71 and
74) - in the case of the EXS I think we won't be dissapointed... (I'll have
to leave any wild guesses to yourself...).

Regards,
Sascha

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sascha Franck [mailto:saschafranck@...]
> plugin is PC only, if anybody wants it though, I would gladly post it.

Sascha,

I would like a copy of your plug-in, Many Thanks.

D. Harris

Sascha,

Thanks for the vote of support on this issue! Darcy

At 09:22 PM 4/10/02 +0200, you wrote:
>I must indeed agree with Darcy (Phillips), it IS a massive oversight not
>having a standard thing such as CC11 implemented into the EXS



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thoughts from the mind of Sascha Franck, 10-04-2002:

>What I am doing is using a special VST plugin (some kind soul custom coded
>it for me) which is exactly doing what CC11 does - default value is all the
>way up and there's some smoothing parameter which makes eventual "stepping"
>inaudible. I'm just using a transformer to route *whatever* CC into it. The
>plugin is PC only, if anybody wants it though, I would gladly post it.

You don't happen to have the source code...?

>btw, the same is true for essential other things such as CC's 71 and 74

What are those supposed to do?

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

Hendrik Jan Veenstra wrote:

[About the relative volume plugin]
> You don't happen to have the source code...?

No, but it should be very simple, the programmer needed like 5 minutes for
the first version (seems to be some default thing in the VST SDK) and
another 10 to add some smoothing and program individual versions for
mono/stereo purposes.
I'm sure Merlijn (the programmer) would gladly give out the source coude
though. merlijn@...

For the PC folks, it's here: www.saschafranck.de/4helpers.zip - included are
a mono and a stereo version plus one simple temposyncing panner (that I use
quite a bit) and a syncing tremolo (that I used before LA5's new tremolo
came up).

> >btw, the same is true for essential other things such as CC's 71 and 74
>
> What are those supposed to do?

GM (or even MIDI) standard for Resonance and Cutoff control. And while the
ES1 follows these conventions the EXS doesn't... uhm!

My opinion on all these issues is that ANY virtual instrument should allow
ANY CC to ANY parameter routing, using some learn/adjust routine. A perfect
example of what things should be like is rgcaudio's Pentagon
(www.rgcaudio.com, sorry, PC only, Windows folks should get the demo
IMMEDIATELY, and while you're there, get the free Triangle II as well,
awsome monophonic freebie for basses and leads!) which not only is one of
the best sounding virual analogs around (plus it's a brilliant vocoder too)
but also has the best and easiest to use CC implementation, it even writes
tweaked data to both the old and new automation, something not even Emagics
own synths are being able to do, no matter how hard you fool around with
transformers.

Regards,
Sascha

Sascha, Hendrik, Darcy and others

Reading the various posts no one came up with this solution that works
fine for me. Or did I overlook it? In that case, sorry. Anyway...

I use pitchbend to control CC96 in the active instance of EXS24, loaded
with, let's say strings. CC96 is controlling a EXS parameter called
"Level Fixed". It acts as a surrogate Expression. Well, not quit, but it
controls volume apart from CC7.

The reason I find this useful is because CC96 defaults to -16dB. When
pitchbend is in the middle, the volume is somewhere halfway the dynamic
range. So there is room for crescendos and diminuendos, moving pitchbend
up and down. 

The obvious drawbacks are of course that pitchbend, if needed, has to be
recorded in a separate run and the left hand is busy.  The level changes
are not allways very smooth, but that is merely a matter of a steady
hand on the pb controller. If someone could come up with a "control
value damper"...

Regards,
Herbert

(thanks to Hendrik who helped out with the proper transformer settings.)


Ps. And yes: I second the request to Emagic to implement CC11 in the
next release. (And a true intuitive file management, sigh...)

Thoughts from the mind of Herbert Boland, 11-04-2002:

>If someone could come up with a "control value damper"...

"Damper" as in "sustain pedal", or as in "smooth out small random movements"?

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

>If someone could come up with a "control value damper"...

Hendrik Jan asked:
"Damper" as in "sustain pedal", or as in "smooth out small random
movements"?

Smoothen fast movements e.g. force a natural evolving crescendo like
that of acoustical instruments. So when the pitchbend controller
(modwheel, expression pedal, what have you) is moved fast the controller
values will lag behind a little bit. And values are interpolated to have
smooth transitions as well. I guess this would work best for string,
brass ensembles and the like.
Herbert

Well, you have mine as well. I wanted to get further into orchestration. Now
I feel I have to hesitate or stall until I am certain I can get the results
I want. Using volume with its audible volume stepping is a joke. I wish that
plug-in replacement was also available for Mac. I'd jump on it. Thanks for
speaking up, Darcy. I think you speak for a lot of us. -Jer

> From: Darcy Phillips <darclist@...>
> Reply-To: exs-users@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 00:07:22 -0600
> To: exs-users@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [exs] Volume Pedal to EXS
> 
> Thanks for the vote of support on this issue! Darcy

Thoughts from the mind of Herbert Boland, 11-04-2002:

>  >If someone could come up with a "control value damper"...
>
>Hendrik Jan asked:
>"Damper" as in "sustain pedal", or as in "smooth out small random
>movements"?
>
>Smoothen fast movements e.g. force a natural evolving crescendo like
>that of acoustical instruments. So when the pitchbend controller
>(modwheel, expression pedal, what have you) is moved fast the controller
>values will lag behind a little bit. And values are interpolated to have
>smooth transitions as well. I guess this would work best for string,
>brass ensembles and the like.

Impossible to do in LA's environment, I'm afraid...
-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html