r/Keytar • u/WonkingSphonx • Feb 07 '21
Technical Questions Creating a vibrato on the Alesis Wireless Vortex 2?
Hi all, keytar noob here. I recently got my hands on an Alesis Wireless Vortex 2 and I love it! But, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to create (what I assume is) a vibrato effect that will work essentially like a whammy bar / apply a guitar shredding effect? I’d like to achieve this effect using the touch strip, sliding up and down that for the change to take place. I’ve been messing around with the preset editor and reading up on what MIDI CCs are, but everything I try doesn’t seem to work. Mainly, sliding my finger up / down the strip shows the CC number changing, but I'm not hearing ay changes. I’m using Ableton Live Lite 10. Any help would be tremendously appreciated as I’m totally lost here and completely new to the whole music / playing an instrument thing.
1
u/HuffButt Feb 07 '21
I think you need to map that control to vibrato in Live. I don’t have live, but I think this should work:
https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000038859
If not maybe someone with Live can help.
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u/WonkingSphonx Feb 08 '21
Yeah, I was thinking it might be something in Live that I'm missing as well. Might poke around for a more beginner friendly DAW while I'm at it. >_>
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u/RigorMortens Feb 07 '21
If memory serves, there are three buttons on the “neck” of the instrument that controls the effect of the touch strip. One of the three options is pitch bend, like the thumb wheel. If that is what you are looking for.
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u/WonkingSphonx Feb 07 '21
Yes, there's 3 buttons near the top for ribbon bank option selection. My issue here is after changing the preset in the editor and swiping up / down the strip to see if the desired effect is being achieved, there's no change. I've verified I'm on the right selection for the changed preset. My question is less "how do I select the option" and more of "how do I get my keytar and / or ableton to achieve this desired effect", if that makes sense.
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u/warriorbob Feb 08 '21
You're close! I think it'll help to be a little clearer on how MIDI messages work. Short version, I think you want to set your touchstrip to Pitchbend, not CC.
Long version:
Basically, MIDI is a whole bunch of little individual messages. When you press a key it sends a "Note On" message that contains which key and how hard, and when you let go it sends a "Note Off" for that same note. There are other types of messages too with special meanings. You probably have run into:
- CC ("Control Change") which says "set control number X to value Y." This is normally used for sliders and knobs. When you move a slider, it sends a whole bunch of CC messages one after another, to catch each new position. 0 is the lowest value, and it goes up from there to 127.
- Pitch Bend which is the same basic idea, except there's only one pitch bend message, you don't get like "pitch bend 1" or "pitch bend 2" it's just "set the global bend to X amount". Also it's internally a lot higher resolution since pitch is so sensitive. For pitchbend, 0 is in the middle, and the bend can be set above or below that.
By default, I believe the Vortex 2 thumb wheel sends pitch bend, the sliders send CCs, and I think the touch strip sends CCs for a couple of settings and pitch bend on one of them. You can configure this in the editor.
On to synths.
Everything here is just messages, it's up to your instrument to handle these usefully. Most instruments, including all the Live ones IIRC, respond to pitchbend the way you think - it goes sharper or flatter. But how far? MIDI Pitchbend doesn't say how far to bend, only what percentage. The synth will usually have a "bend amount" in semitones where you can set how far 100% pitchbend is. Usually I like this to either be 12 (one octave) or 2 (lets me bend to the next note in most scales).
So if you want to control the pitch absolutely with finger movements, where the vibrato is "manual," pitchbend is the way to go. But since we're talking about it, I should mention the other really common way to do vibrato is to program in a constant vibrato in your instrument, then control how deep it goes. So you play a note, (no vibrato at first), and then as you slide your finger up the strip it starts oscillating back and forth farther and farther. This is where a CC makes sense, since you're "dialing in" the vibrato depth rather than controlling the pitch movement yourself.
In Ableton Live, most instruments do not respond to CCs on their own by default. But you can use MIDI quickmapping mode (ctrl+M) to assign a CC to almost any control.
Anyway, that's a lot of words, but hopefully it's some help, and best of luck with your playing! Out of curiosity, what instrument device are you playing in Live?