"Omnichord" style strum emulation using a pitch bend ribbon + keyboard
Whilst experimenting with manipulating live MIDI input in Max using a Roland AX-7 keyboard controller, I’ve run into a bit of a snag as far as using the pitch bend is concerned…
I’ve managed successfully to create a patch which allows me to use the pitch bend ribbon controller to ‘strum’ a chord held down on the keyboard, with adjustable settings for the range of octaves covered by the ribbon, but of course it returns to it’s centre value whenever I take my finger off, triggering random notes that I don’t necessarily want to be played.
Does anyone know of a way to bypass this at the software end, or is it most likely built into the hardware?
The way the pitch bend wheel works is just like the mod wheel-except it has two bendable pieces of metal that keep it in the middle of its range-MIDI value 64.
You could set something up using a [past], [maximum], or [peak] object so that when you "strum" the note (when the value of the pitch bend goes up to MIDI #127) as the pitch bend wheel settles its natural position it doesn’t output.