Pitch Wheel

Dorico
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1

Hi,

Does Dorico have a method of adjusting the pitch wheel on individual notes?

I just switched over from Finale. In Finale, I figured out how to tune individual notes to Just Intonation or Pythagorean by creating an expression that changes the pitch wheel to the corresponding value (e.g. -93 maps to 14 cents flat for the lowered third in a major chord). Is there a similar tool I can use in Dorico to create pitch wheel values that I can use on individual notes?

I am using Dorico Pro 5 Version 5.1.52.2153, Dorico 5 AudioEngine version 5.6.41.124 in Windows 10 with VSL Synchron libraries.

2

If the library you are using supports pitch bend then you could have a look at the Key Editor > Automation Lanes > MIDI Pitch Bend. Would that help?

3

Thank you for the fast reply!

According to the Dorico help, “The available range for MIDI pitch bend is -100% to +100%.” I tried it out, and I found that setting it to either -100% or +100% gives me the pitch bend range (down or up) that I set for the instrument. This range defaults to 2 (two semitones, or 200 cents) for VSL instruments, but I can change it to any integer from 0 to 12. Let’s say I set the instrument’s pitch bend range to 1, then -100 maps to 100 cents flat and +100 maps to 100 cents sharp. This is really convenient because Dorico’s MIDI pitch bend value of -14 gives me my desired 14 cents flat. Thank you for solving my first problem!

Now for my second problem: Dorico allows me to set the MIDI pitch bend to an integer between -100 and +100 , but I know that the true MIDI value is a 14 bit integer with values from 0 to 16383, where 8192 is no pitch bend. (Finale uses values from -8192 to +8191, where 0 is no pitch bend.) Can I access these 16384 values rather than the 200 that Dorico uses? I have one instrument where I need a much finer tuned pitch bend.

Thanks in advance!

4

Great, glad it is helping.

I believe that Dorico’s numbers there are percentage based, so up to -/+100% of your instrument library’s possible range. So in terms of possible depth of range, all should be possible. Wondering if for that specific instrument in VSL are you able to reduce the pitchbend range even further, under a semitone? Because then if you can get it to say, 50 cents, then the automation graph will still be 100% of 50 cents, in other words reducing the scale of the graph / pitch response, which could allow you to access more fine amounts in between.

That is about the extent that I know, hopefully maybe someone from the Dorico Team who knows exactly how the pitch bend values are set up can speak to this further.

5

Thank you again for all your help. I really appreciate it!

I hope anyone else who has experience with this might be able to chime in.

I tried setting the VSL pitch bend range to 0.5 and it automatically changed back to 1, so it will only take integer values between 0 and 12. And to reiterate, the -100% to +100% will work perfectly fine for me for all but one instrument.

Since the MIDI pitch bend value takes integer values from 0 to 16383, but Dorico limits me to integers between -100 and +100, it feels like Dorico put on the training wheels for the sake of ease of use at the cost of precise control. To be clear, limiting me to integers between +/-100 does not allow me to access every value between 0 and 16383. +/-100 is convenient because it does all the math conversions for me, but it takes away the precision that I need.

In my specific case, I want to bend one instrument up one octave but still have fine-tune control over it’s pitch, bending it down 14 cents for the third in a major triad and up 15 cents for the third in a minor triad. Now, I realize I can’t bend it beyond an octave, so instead I intend to bend it 11 semitones, and then adjust it for individual tuning. I’m happy to deal with the transposition of 11 semitones.

I should have mentioned this before: I am not using a MIDI keyboard, just mouse and qwerty.

6

Welcome to the forum, Stephen! I hasten to tell you that Dorico has a much better way to render just intonation and other microtones! There is no need to mess with pitch bends manually. As I replied in another thread 3 days ago:

For a primer in J.I. for Dorico, see this thread from last year in which someone wanted a Horn to play back its natural harmonic series.

Octave transposition can be done much more easily by adding a clef at the start and changing its octave in Properties.

Reply here when you have more questions!

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7

Also if you are using HALion Sonic then this responds to a VST Expression pitch message that gives greater resolution than pitch bend (and also avoids the problems where one patch may use a pitch bend range of +/-2 and another uses +/-12). Or if you use NotePerformer then this uses the VST2 detune message to do the same thing.

So as long as you are using a Tonality System that has been set up correctly then it should play back without needing to manually add any pitch bend or other controllers at all.

8

Thank you all for your replies. I have a feeling 12,000 EDO might be exactly what I was looking for. I’ll give it a try next time I have a chunk of time, and I’ll report back with hopefully good news.

Thanks again for all your help!

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Update:

12,000 EDO works perfectly for HALion. I can hear the chords lock in perfectly! That’s because HALion supports microtones. Sadly, VSL currently does not support microtones. Back in 2020, Paul mentioned it is on their to-do list: Synchron micro-tuning | VSL Forum

I never would have known any of this when I was using Finale because I was using the pitch wheel to bend the pitches. For now, I will do without altering the pitch. Eventually, either VSL will receive an update to include microtones, or I will have to resort to MIDI pitch bend.

Thanks again for everyone’s help in this matter!