FL Studio Pitch Bend (non-FL plugins)

[timaeus222]

Well... I know how to pitch bend in FL, but is there a way to increase the pitch bend range? So far it only works for +/- one half step. I want to do stuff like fret slides or something at some point.

[Chiwalker]

In VSTs if you look at the top left of the VST window, there is a little gear icon that you can click.

Under Settings tab, MIDI, you can change the pitch-bend range.

[DusK]

Slides are usually done on the piano roll and can span pretty much any number of notes. Item 10 here.

[timaeus222]

Maybe I should have mentioned this. I'm thinking of non-FL plugins when I'm asking about pitch bend. The normal pitch bend method works for FL plugins, but when I try it with stuff like Spicy Guitar or Zero Vector, it doesn't go past +/- one half step.

[DusK]

Maybe I should have mentioned this. I'm thinking of non-FL plugins when I'm asking about pitch bend. The normal pitch bend method works for FL plugins, but when I try it with stuff like Spicy Guitar or Zero Vector, it doesn't go past +/- one half step.

Yes, that changes things.

[timaeus222]

It does. At this point I only know to automate pitch when the feature exists in the VST itself.

[Yami]

Have you tried the option

"Send pitch bend range" in the VST option menu (the little gear in the upper left corner)?

[timaeus222]

Yes. It has no effect.

[lazygecko]

Usually you'll have to edit the pitch bend range within the VST itself. The default is always 2 semitones.

[Kanthos]

And, many VSTs don't let you set a range, or don't let you set an uneven range (I prefer -12/+2 for synth solos in my keyboard rig, but most of the VSTs I run don't support that), so you may be stuck at -2/+2 for some instruments no matter what.

The reason for this is that pitch bend, as defined in the MIDI spec, is a code to indicate that you're sending a pitch bend message on a particular MIDI channel plus a value from 0 to 16383 (8192 is the middle point and means nothing is bending). It's up to each instrument to decide how to map those values to pitch.

[timaeus222]

The main problem I have is that I want to someday sequence a realistic electric guitar, but without pitch bends it won't work so well. I can kind of imitate fret slides, but not anything close to whammy bar effects.

I do know how to automate pitch bends with non-FL VSTs that have pitch control in them, like Zebra and Massive, but Spicy Guitar is my best free option so far for an unamped acoustic guitar, and it has no pitch modulation option for automation, unfortunately.