no aftertouch during playback

Hi,

I am experiencing problems with aftertouch during playback using halion instruments, the initial touch is working fine but I cannot hear the aftertouch when I played my midi device. I am using an electone, Stagea, so aftertouch should be working fine and I can see the midi instructions for aftertouch being written during recording. Anyone knows what exactly is the problem? Thanks in advance.

  1. Are you hearing the aftertouch while plying it live (i.e. is the aftertouch only missing on playback?)?
  2. If you are not hearing the aftertouch, even when playing live, are you certain that the preset that you are using in HALion is set to respond to aftertouch?
  1. No, the aftertouch was not there when I played live
  2. I cannot find any knobs or buttons that enables or disables aftertouch in the HALion SE interface. I am using the french horn preset, I assume that aftertouch is available for this preset? Please pardon my noobness as I am still new to cubase.

Be aware that HALion Sonic SE offers very little in the way of editing functions (as opposed to the “full” HALion Sonic :wink: )… even if those presets were originally created on the full version.
Is the preset you are referring to called “[GM 061] French Horn”? If so, then, no it isn’t set up for aftertouch.
Ideally, which parameter would you like to control by aftertouch? (I am guessing the “Tone Color”, seeing as how volume is already controlled by expression pedal (CC#11), and vibrato by the modwheel (CC#1).

But there is a way to “cheat” this (so long as you have the “full” version of Cubase)… you can convert your incoming aftertouch into any CC# number, via the track’s Input Transformer (the “crooked arrow” icon near the top of the track’s Inspector), then right-click on the HALion Sonic SE’s visible parameter of your choice, and “MIDI Learn” that transformed CC#.

Here’s a screenshot of how you should set up the Input Transformer (I chose to use CC#3)…


Then just right-click on a knob on the HALion Sonic SE’s GUI, and play a note from your keyboard, applying some aftertouch.

I followed your instructions for the input transformer but I cannot find the “MIDI learn” option, is the “visible parameters” you are referring to refers to the knobs in the HALion sonic SE’s GUI? There I found the option “learn cc” when I right clicked the knobs. There are apparently two kinds of knobs, one is controlled by the horizontal touch and the other by the aftertouch when I click the “learn cc” option. I tried the “learn cc” and it kind of captures the aftertouch which kind of worked now although I still find something lacking… btw I am using cubase artist. I have also tried other presets like strings, flute and organ and all of them do not have aftertouch… :neutral_face:

Me, being a dullard, have forgotten for the moment but could aftertouch be affected by the fact that the sysex filter is on by default in Pref’s? Long shot as I doubt Vic France would miss that trick.

You’ve basically gotten it all right :wink:

Yes.

There I found the option “learn cc” when I right clicked the knobs.

Yes, that’s it.

There are apparently two kinds of knobs, one is controlled by the horizontal touch and the other by the aftertouch when I click the “learn cc” option. I tried the “learn cc” and it kind of captures the aftertouch which kind of worked now although I still find something lacking… btw I am using cubase artist. I have also tried other presets like strings, flute and organ and all of them do not have aftertouch… > :neutral_face:

I don’t know what you mean by “horizontal touch”… no keyboard has that (well, to be exact, the top keyboard of Yamaha’s GX1, from the 1970s, offered that, but that machine cost over $50,000 even then… I don’t suppose that is the keyboard you are using? :stuck_out_tongue: :wink: )
If you are finding it “lacking”, might that be down to the way (i.e; the “curve”) that your keyboard is sending?

@Conman,
No, SysEx has nothing to do with this… aftertouch is a channel message :wink:. Here, it is simply that (most of) the presets in HALion Sonic SE are not set up to use aftertouch.

Thanks for the replies :smiley: , the aftertouch is working but perhaps because I expected HALion instruments to sound like my electone that’s why I am a bit disappointed. Btw I am using Yamaha electone stagea, there is this horizontal touch which mimics how vibrato would sound when you press down the keys and oscillate your finger left and right, that is why when I use HALion presets, I need to switch off the pitchbend or else the pitch will go haywire.

Wow! That is indeed the same system as on the old GX1! (so, in fact, it transmits MIDI pitchbend? )
If you would like to make use of that in HALion Sonic SE (but its range is too wide), you will see that, for each preset, in the Voice/Pitch section, you can set independent ranges for up and down. But the increments are coarse (1 semitone steps).
So… you can use the Input transformer to help out there too! :slight_smile:
In this screenshot, I have simply used a 2nd module of the same Input transformer as earlier (I chose to divide the incoming pitchbend by 8)…

Thanks and yes, it transmits midi pitchbend