Pitch Bending

[xzin]

In FL studio, I mainly use the piano roll to edit the score of anything I write, but I hear songs a lead synth will slur between notes, gliding up or down to them before holding the intended pitch. And for the life of me, I can't find out how to do that sort of thing in FL studio. Anyone have any advice/know-how?

[Tensei]

What you're referring to can be achieved through two seperate, if somewhat overlapping techniques:

- Portamento: depending on your Synth VST there'll probably be some knob marked something like Port., Portamento, or even Portamento Time. If you have your synth set to Legato play, increasing Portamento will cause the overlapping notes to 'glide' into each other.

- Pitch Bending: If you have a MIDI keyboard hooked up, the pitch wheel should automatically be mapped to alter the pitch of the tone. If not, you can access channel settings by left clicking on a channel, and using the knob marked 'Pitch' at the top. It can be automated by right-clicking it and selecting 'Edit Events'

[PROTO·DOME]

Yeah, you've just gotta have your synth set to 'mono', then adjust the glide time between notes. It can be found in the synth patch window, or in that poppy-uppy instrumenty boxy thing in one of the windows.

Then once you've set synth to mono, just overlap the notes in the piano roll.

Usually you get a saccharine-kawaii-squee~<3 sort of sound by using it repeatedly with lots of pitch bends.

Have fun with my incredibly confusing description, someone else clear this up please.

EDIT - Tensei, I don't think he's talking about portamento, I think he's talking about mono with a slow glide time, hence the post. But portamento is also awesome, do that.

[Tensei]

Oh I used those terms interchangeably. I noticed that in Zebra 2 it is called 'Glide' as well, what's the actual difference?

[PROTO·DOME]

Oh I used those terms interchangeably. I noticed that in Zebra 2 it is called 'Glide' as well, what's the actual difference?

Glide relates to portamento too. Portamento is that slide up to pitch when the note is triggered; it can be applied to polyphonic synths too, hence why it doesn't apply to mono blah blah you knew that. Glide is the time it takes to slide between notes. When applied to a mono synth, the higher the glide time, the slower it takes to slide between notes. A high glide on portamento will take longer to slide up to the note.

BASICALLY: Both portamento and mono can be used on the same synth- glide just controls the time it takes to resolve note pitch.

This all makes sense right?

[erineclipse]

Theres a button that looks like this:

[>]

[xzin]

Thanks for the responses!

Tensei, I'm using 3x Oscillator most of the time. I don't see a Portamento knob anywhere on it, and its a small plugin... What Synth do you use? PS: Nice sig.

Protodome, what do you mean by mono? You mean like, only producing one wave? Cuz I'm not seein' any specific "mono" button. o.o I like the omnomnomopeias.

Side note: given that I still have much to improve, and I'm fairly new to this field, do you have any suggestions for good (preferably free) Synth VST plugins?

[PROTO·DOME]

Tensei, I'm using 3x Oscillator most of the time. I don't see a Portamento knob anywhere on it, and its a small plugin... What Synth do you use? PS: Nice sig.

Protodome, what do you mean by mono? You mean like, only producing one wave? Cuz I'm not seein' any specific "mono" button. o.o I like the omnomnomopeias.

[xzin]

Well played, sir.