Pitch Bend constrained to scale

Feature Requests
#1

Something I really enjoyed about Z3ta+ is that it has this mode where the pitch bender bends notes by a number of scale degrees-- and will bend up or down to other notes in the scale (rather than a fixed interval). This means that you can have a pitch bend of a 3rd, and it will choose between Major 3rd (2 whole steps) or a minor 3rd (3 semitones) or whatever the scale dictates.

I started to mess with a combination of mod sources using OCT NOTE, PITCH BEND, and MOD REMAP, to see if I could get to this “the hard way”. Seems possible. But I wasn’t able to get there, yet.

I suppose this is a feature request, but I can see there’s quite a bit of other tidying up ahead of this one.

What a marvelous synth!

2 Likes
#2

I like the idea. I can imagine quantizing the timing as well as pitch of a bend to simulate arpeggios. Give the bend 2 octaves of range up and down and you can have some freedom of expression with an arp.

#3

How does Z3ta+ deduce the key of incoming midi data to know when to bend a major or minor 3rd? Or do you set the key beforehand?

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#4

don´t understand this complicated notes stuff.

but if you use global snap and modwheel together it keeps hitting exact notes (of an arp for example) in higher/lower octaves.

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#5

Z3ta+ lets you choose the scale in the synth’s GUI. Then you can choose the pitch bend mode. In this mode, the pitch bender range is set in scale degrees as opposed to a fixed number of semitones.

#6

Ok, so all incoming midi notes are also forced into that scale even when not bending I guess?

#7

That’s a good question. It doesn’t change the incoming note, so I suppose if it gets a note that is not in the scale it will bend to the nearest note (?) I don’t remember, and I don’t feel like launching Z3+a to figure it out.

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#8

Here ya go! (:
Pitch Bend Scales Template.zip (100.7 KB)

Here’s the recently made forum post as well:

#9

You use my template, and it won’t lock on to a certain key scale, it’ll use the Major/Minor scales of every note you press.

But you can also use @vcvr 's method to lock on to a key scale:

(Assign the scale you wish to lock on to in the Oscillator’s transpose Snap and make sure it’s set on “Global snap”)

#10

Here’s a pretty intriguing option to allow you to have scale constrained bends (both monophonic and polyphonic) for any plugin VI.

https://www.pitchinnovations.com/home/oi/

Still, it might be better and more stable to have it built-in to an instrument, but this looks like a reasonable workaround.

#11

Thanks for sharing that link. Plugin looks really interesting.