Control of CC 21

[Scott.Brownlee]

I realize this is a weirdly specific question and partially pertains to a non-Avid product. I'm hoping the community can help me with the mechanics of making this work in Pro Tools.

I have Spitfire Solo Strings. I'm reading the manual for the Total Performance Violin patch, and it states the following:

"With CC21 set to 6-127 spiccatos feature as a short attack,
whilst staccatos can be found at CC21, 1-5. The Velocity of
these short notes then determines the nature of the note
attack.
Attacks: Vel 1-9 natural attack
(CC21: 1-5) Vel 10-127 Staccato 4x RR pp, mf, ff & ‘noise’
(CC21: 6-127) Vel 10-127 Spiccato 8x RR pp, mf, ff & ‘noise’."

This implies to me that if I want a true staccato, I need my CC 21 set at a specific value of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. If I go to 6 or higher, it will become spiccato, and presumably that range is divided up equally from pp to ff.

My question is this, presuming I'm reading it correctly: How in the world can I set CC 21 to be that precise for each note? Do I need to painstakingly draw an automation curve in gigantic zoom and attempt to get the CC 21 value correct all the way through a passage?

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by Scott.Brownlee

I realize this is a weirdly specific question and partially pertains to a non-Avid product. I'm hoping the community can help me with the mechanics of making this work in Pro Tools.

I have Spitfire Solo Strings. I'm reading the manual for the Total Performance Violin patch, and it states the following:

"With CC21 set to 6-127 spiccatos feature as a short attack,
whilst staccatos can be found at CC21, 1-5. The Velocity of
these short notes then determines the nature of the note
attack.
Attacks: Vel 1-9 natural attack
(CC21: 1-5) Vel 10-127 Staccato 4x RR pp, mf, ff & ‘noise’
(CC21: 6-127) Vel 10-127 Spiccato 8x RR pp, mf, ff & ‘noise’."

This implies to me that if I want a true staccato, I need my CC 21 set at a specific value of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. If I go to 6 or higher, it will become spiccato, and presumably that range is divided up equally from pp to ff.

My question is this, presuming I'm reading it correctly: How in the world can I set CC 21 to be that precise for each note? Do I need to painstakingly draw an automation curve in gigantic zoom and attempt to get the CC 21 value correct all the way through a passage?

Seems odd that cc21 goes from 1 to 127 unless a value of 0 does something else?

It sounds like selecting staccato or spicatto is effectively an on/off state though. Simply pencil in a cc21 event and drag it all the way down for staccato or all the way up for spicatto like you would for sustain cc64 on/off.

[Scott.Brownlee]

Yeah, it seemed odd to me as well. I'm sure I am missing something here. Thanks for the reply!

[daeron80]

Odd that they chose a break point so close to the bottom of the range. But if you have a controller to assign CC21 to on your keyboard, or if you have a Korg nanoKONTROL2 or the like, just pull the fader all the way down, and wiggle it at the start of the track so it writes a handful of very low value CCs.

Otherwise, yeah, create a CC21 automation track and click the line to add a 0 (zero). I expect that, in reality, 0-5 is staccato, >5 is spiccato.

I haven't grabbed the solo strings yet, but I love Spitfire stuff, and I can tell you, you need a good CC controller of some kind. I've been loving my nanoKONTROL2! Each fader and button can be assigned to a custom CC. It opened up LABS for me in a big way, but is also super helpful for getting believable performances out of BBC SO and such. If you don't already, sub to their Youtube channel. You'll see tons of helpful examples of the use of such devices by Christian, Paul, and Homay.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Scott.Brownlee

I realize this is a weirdly specific question and partially pertains to a non-Avid product. I'm hoping the community can help me with the mechanics of making this work in Pro Tools.

I have Spitfire Solo Strings. I'm reading the manual for the Total Performance Violin patch, and it states the following:

"With CC21 set to 6-127 spiccatos feature as a short attack,
whilst staccatos can be found at CC21, 1-5. The Velocity of
these short notes then determines the nature of the note
attack.
Attacks: Vel 1-9 natural attack
(CC21: 1-5) Vel 10-127 Staccato 4x RR pp, mf, ff & ‘noise’
(CC21: 6-127) Vel 10-127 Spiccato 8x RR pp, mf, ff & ‘noise’."

This implies to me that if I want a true staccato, I need my CC 21 set at a specific value of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. If I go to 6 or higher, it will become spiccato, and presumably that range is divided up equally from pp to ff.

My question is this, presuming I'm reading it correctly: How in the world can I set CC 21 to be that precise for each note? Do I need to painstakingly draw an automation curve in gigantic zoom and attempt to get the CC 21 value correct all the way through a passage?

Use the MIDI event list to add CC 21 and the value. No need to draw in an automation curve.