Struggling to make pitchbend message work with a vst~

I'm trying to integrate softsynths into a larger midi router patching system that I've created. While I finally have a design that works for me, I'm struggling to get pitchbend to work. I am (obviously) using the 'midievent' message with data.

In a nutshell, no matter what I send, I cannot get any vst~ to respond to PB messages.

I'm using a 'midiin' connected to a 'midiparse'. If I look at the pitchbend outlet of midiparse, I note I'm only seeing a single 7-bit value rather than a 14-bit value (or two 7-bit values). Feeding those PB values into the vst~ (preceded of course by 0xE0) seems to initially cause the pitch to drop and then gets stays at the dropped value --- sending subsequent pitchbend messages has no effect.

I also tried feeding 'midiin' into an 'xbendin' object which I observed did produce a singe 14-bit value. However, feeding that directly to the vst~ doesn't work either. (I'm wondering if I need to break that 14-bit value into msb and lsb values and send a 3-byte message out)

I did search the forum but other than a few entries just talking about PB in general with vst~, I didn't find anything that suggested a solution.

Suggestions would be appreciated.

D