I was wondering if anyone had success with controlling soft synths with 14 Bit CC? Using 7 Bit faders worked fine with the plugins I tested but with many modern synths 128 steps is a little too coarse. I tried both Padshop 2 Pro and Serum. In Padshop when I learn CC with a 14 bit slider the movement is miniscule. In Serum it is the other way around: a quarter of the Electras slider range means a full knob turn in Serum. Beyond that quarter the Serum parameter jumps back to 0 and loops around.
Hi, I need a bit help with this one. After talking to @Kai01W I installed the Serum plugin and dozen of other plugins. I am using Logic as the DAW. So far I have not been able to find how and if it is possible to send 14-bit CC messages to the plugins.
I am more of a hardware synth person. Does anybody here have any experience with plugins and 14-bit CC?
Electra sends 14-bit CC as two 7-bit CC messages, with LSB being MSB control change number + 32. Supporting it on CC #0 to CC #31. I hope this is what MIDI standard says.
Will be very happy with any input on this topic. Thanks!
I’m sending 14 bit CC to Repro One hosted within Logic without problems. Bits set to 14 bits. Byte Order is MSB first. Min Midi Value 0 Max Midi Value 16320. This just happens to be copied from a Circuit Mono Station template I setup in Electra. I’d previously used the Circuit Mono Station as a controller for Repro 1.
Can’t comment on Serum as don’t own it
But as a way of working if you can map a soft synth to an actual hardware synth and have that controlling it in a manner that you like then just learn the hardware synth to electra to reproduce that
I can confirm that it works, I use 14bit midi with diva for cutoff and resonance all the time. Of course it needs to be configured for 14bit midi in the plugin as well
I believe the plugin has to support it, as markus stated Diva actually supports this and can be setup in the midi configuration page of the plug in, and I can verify too that Electra One works with Diva via 14bit CC.
Regarding Serum, it seems that to get a 14bit message to any parameter within Serum from an external controller, you’d have to route either the Pitchbend or modwheel (which if im not mistaken are 14bit per the midi standard) from within the Serum to control a specified parameter in Serum. It doesnt seem like any other parameters are set up for 14bit control, except those two.
Just gonna throw this out there because I gave up on 14bit CC MIDI.
After experimenting with 14bit CC in different set ups lemur, bcr2000 and elektra one. i’m just not convinced that its worth the trouble!
My reasons for not liking 14bit CC…
Additional CC management. each knob uses 2 cc slots! and unless you are manually mapping the knobs in your software (right-click midi learn) you have to either manage this in your controller scripts if doing any sort of custom implementation.
*14 bit encoder knobs take a long time to turn. There is more data to churn thru, even with the elektra one smooth potentiometer implementation would take a long time for me to dial something in.
*127 values is pretty sufficient for “most” cases. My midifighter twister encoder knobs spin at 1/3 the resolution and then pressing in for full 127 values. most of the time the 1/3 resolution of 127 is sufficient.
*VSTs generally already get interpolated…so the resolution is less important as internally the “steps” are smoothed out. Note: different VSTs interpolate at different speeds. Some are relativly instant others have a bit of time(1ms?) before they reach the final value, Diva Does this for instance where as the TAL-UNO-LX is closer to instant)
*Acceleration implementation rarely feels natural. I’ve tried this on the BCR2000, which has 3 levels of acceleration and it just gets confusing and unpredictable.
*Using Lemur to generate 14bit CC seemed again cool in theory BUT i found i needed to make the sliders about double the size that I wanted. And even then it didn’t add much value for control.
Where i see value in a high resolution knob is maybe for selecting in a frequency spectrum from 20hz-20khz. Having a high resolution knob here would be great in theory. Then again how do you determine the speed at which it goes across the spectrum? Try accelerating the knob and you start getting confused as to how to navigate it as its inconsistent based on the speed.
Anyways… my two cents on the subject. Would love to hear other perspectives or how others are working/leveraging 14Bit CC and software which is why i posted to this thread.
Handling 14bit values is a non-trivial task. There is no simple way to have a true 14bit reading without excessive noise (of the value) at a reasonable cost in hardware. The magic has to happen in the software. I tried to push this a bit further in the latest release of the Electra Firmware by implementing variable acceleration rate.
My personal feeling is that it has become way more usable and predictable. I still do see ways to improve, however, I am not sure how much priority it should be given. Has anybody tried 14bit controls with the 0.9.12 firmware? If so, any opinions or suggestions on that?
I’m also curious what would be the difference in noise from a pot in an analog circuit? Would that be subject to the same problems?
I should also state, i’m trying to support 14-bit midi and the capabilities of the electra one. Just in my experience so far, the results have not been encouraging.
I’ve tried it for a 2hrs jam session last week, didn’t notice anything special or worrying.
But I took the Elektra with me for vacation (currently en route to Korsika ), in order to finish the mapping for the mks80 and play some music with soft synths and will report.
Let me know if i can help with the mks80 template, my favorite synth of all time, though the unit i have needs some much needed love cosmetically, it functions perfectly.
Been using 14bit midi cc’s inside ableton, controlling volume, pan, other mapable parameters in Live’s interface directly. Very plesant to have it work so smoothly with the increased resolution as opposed to just 127 values, no issues at all, and the variable acceleration is a nice touch.
That’s very kind of you!
I’ve managed get one parameter working (cutoff) which means that after decades I seem to have at least some grasp on sysex
If you have any “ready” sysex strings for the mks80 that would be awesome and much appreciated.
And yeah, the mks80 is fantastic, I got one 3 weeks ago after searching for over a year for one which is in the EU (import taxes) and still achievable. Plus I wanted a rev5. That thing is a beast
I use a mcu pro plus xt plus C4 for ableton mixer duties but for other parameters: did you write a remote script or just map it? Didn’t know that mapping in Live supported 14bit
Rev 4 here with the non-roland (curtis) VCO. I really wish roland would resurrect this unit, seeing as theyve been having analog nostalgia on/off in recent years. I know… wishful thinking, but it has to be one of their best units, bar the Juno series. A beast it is, I actually prefer this over the sound of the jupiter 6 and 8.
I actually dont have anything programmed for it yet, will pull it out of the rack tomorrow, as it needs the internal battery replaced anyway, and hook it up to Electra and see what I can come up with, will post any results soon as I can.
), in order to finish the mapping for the mks80 and play some music with soft synths and will report.
