# Pitch bending constantly for strings and brass



## ROCKYIII (Jun 1, 2016)

Hello,

Yesterday I was trying out some things to add realism to strings and brass. I found constantly using a tiny bit of back and forth pitch bending (+/-2 or so), overshooting notes going up, undershooting notes going down on the strings and brass seemed to add to the realism.

Has anyone tried this technique? Would it work better if it were pitch shifting? Let me know.


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## wpc982 (Jun 1, 2016)

It's one of those things where the more work you put into, the better it can sound. But 'back and forth' randomly is not going to be optimal ... kind of like working with reverb, it's easy to make things worse than they were, too.


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## Suganthan (Jun 1, 2016)

What I think is, normal pitch bending changes the formant while bent. There is a kontakt(I presume you use kontakt libraries) script to correct that which can make it sound real I guess.


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## ROCKYIII (Jun 1, 2016)

Suganthan said:


> What I think is, normal pitch bending changes the formant while bent. There is a kontakt(I presume you use kontakt libraries) script to correct that which can make it sound real I guess.


Yes, I'm using kontakt libraries. Which script are you talking about?


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## Suganthan (Jun 1, 2016)

ROCKYIII said:


> Which script are you talking about?


dynamitec FormantCorrectPitchbend
http://vi-control.net/community/thr...akt-3-5-and-kontakt-4-with-full-source.19035/


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## Saxer (Jun 1, 2016)

I use the WX7 windcontroller which has a pitch sensor inside the mouth piece. Like on a real wind instrument more lip pressure gives some bending up and loose embouchure lowers the pitch. By playing with vibrato and normal human fluctuation there's always some pitch drift. So unison lines sound natural while doubling by keyboard performance just sounds like a track copy.


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## shomyca (Jun 13, 2016)

Wow, interesting stuff here.



Saxer said:


> I use the WX7 windcontroller which has a pitch sensor inside the mouth piece. Like on a real wind instrument more lip pressure gives some bending up and loose embouchure lowers the pitch. By playing with vibrato and normal human fluctuation there's always some pitch drift. So unison lines sound natural while doubling by keyboard performance just sounds like a track copy.



Do you use it on wind instrumemts only or others too? Strings and brass?


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## Saxer (Jun 13, 2016)

shomyca said:


> Do you use it on wind instrumemts only or others too? Strings and brass?


I use the WX7 for wind and brass and the TEControl for long strings.


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## shomyca (Jun 15, 2016)

Oh, but you are a wind instrument player, right?

I have the TEControl and I find that controlling dynamics with breath is somewhat difficult for me. Do you find that controlling strings with TEC adds something more to it? Aside from the fact that it is probably more intuitive for you, being a wind instrument player and all. 

Thx for response!


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## Saxer (Jun 16, 2016)

For me timing, articulation and dynamic makes the musical performance what it is (beside the writing). The main problems of real life like tone, intonation and playing together doesn't appear in a DAW. All other elements like eq and the never ending reverb discussions are just the icing on the cake but nothing elementary.
So I mostly missed the dynamic aspect of strings in my mockups. For brass I already had the windcontroller but it doesn't work for strings. With the adventure of the TEControl a few years ago I finally got the possibility to record dynamic in a way that feels natural to me. It immediately had this "finally!"-feeling! Oomph! It has probably to do with my personal history as a woodwind player but everybody breathes and sings from time to time which is more or less the same. Try to 'sing' along with orchestral recordings doing overstated dynamic (if nobody else is at home) like hooooOOO*OOOAAAAARRRR! *and do the same just with air and the TEControl.


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## shomyca (Jun 16, 2016)

Yes, certainly, I agree totally, I am chasing that dynamic expression with the mod wheel all the time, but being a classically trained pianist, breath controller and even the mod-wheel don't come quite intuitively to me. Breath controller (like all wind instruments) confuses me because of the added pressure, comparing to singing. But ofc, as with all the instruments, one has to build some skill for it. I am just wondering if it's worth practicing, do we get anything that can't be done with the mod-wheel?

At the moment I am not using TEControl at all, I can see the benefit of using it with the wind and the brass instruments where it forces me to take breaths and not holding the endless sustains which sound totally unnatural, but controlling the dynamics with it...I suck at that big time ...and it makes me feel dizzy


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## ROCKYIII (Jun 16, 2016)

Saxer said:


> For me timing, articulation and dynamic makes the musical performance what it is (beside the writing). The main problems of real life like tone, intonation and playing together doesn't appear in a DAW. All other elements like eq and the never ending reverb discussions are just the icing on the cake but nothing elementary.
> So I mostly missed the dynamic aspect of strings in my mockups. For brass I already had the windcontroller but it doesn't work for strings. With the adventure of the TEControl a few years ago I finally got the possibility to record dynamic in a way that feels natural to me. It immediately had this "finally!"-feeling! Oomph! It has probably to do with my personal history as a woodwind player but everybody breathes and sings from time to time which is more or less the same. Try to 'sing' along with orchestral recordings doing overstated dynamic (if nobody else is at home) like hooooOOO*OOOAAAAARRRR! *and do the same just with air and the TEControl.



Is there any pitch bend plugin or pitch shift that works especially well for orchestral instruments? It definitely needs to be done in a lot of cases is what I'm hearing (a slight exponential curve as the brass player pushes breath is what I'm trying now). I tried that script, and it just doesn't sound all that natural... What plugin does your controller trigger?


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## Saxer (Jun 16, 2016)

This is a picture of a Samplemodeling instrument phrase played with the WX7. You can see the vibrato on the longer notes and the small permanent fluctuations of +/- 3 of pitchbend data.


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## ROCKYIII (Jun 16, 2016)

Saxer said:


> This is a picture of a Samplemodeling instrument phrase played with the WX7. You can see the vibrato on the longer notes and the small permanent fluctuations of +/- 3 of pitchbend data.


This is super helpful, thanks!


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## Paul T McGraw (Jun 27, 2016)

The Vienna Instruments Pro software has a humanize feature that does this automatically. You can give the instruments a custom setting or use a preset. Instruments begin a note very slightly out of pitch and then zero in on the correct pitch. It is extremely effective in adding realism when each instrument has a slightly different setting.


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