pitch bending samples using my voice(singing) and a midi keyboad as a trigger

[Oli]

I think what you are trying to do is use your voice as the control signal, and your sampler as the audio source; is that right? Can you draw a block diagram of what you are trying to achieve?

You could look at the Sonuus i2m, and see if that does what you want. I have one. It works well enough. You generally will need to edit the MIDI afterwards though. I haven't used it with voice yet though. Tried with some other sources. It works best with gate type envelopes, and simple sounds. A gated sinusoid source generally works very well. It is monophonic. Overlapping notes cause issues for the output control signal. Not sure if you will get an acceptable level of control with your voice, and pitch bend is unlikely to be very controllable.

Is that what you were wanting to do? Not too clear from your description.

[aSn]

Hi Oli,

What i want to do is find a software or use hardware that interprets frequency of my voice/pitch and converts it into Midi note so effectively im pitch bending/singing my sample/sound.

Is this clear?


So, as an example,
I sing note c1 through the mic and the midi keyboard goes oh ok he's singing note c1, and plays my sample. (instead of me having to play the keyboard)


So, my voice is acting like an x-y controller pretty much.

I hope this is clear,

Cheers,
Andre

[Oli]

Have you checked out the i2m? As I say, it works OK, but not sure it will be good enough to track voice. How is your singing? I think it would have to be pretty close on pitch, and not overly sonorous or affected. Just guessing though, as anything which complicates the signal will make clear pitch discrimination more difficult to achieve. I think you would be better aiming for exact notes with your voice, and merging a manual pitch bend control with the note events.

[aSn]

ok i'll ask my friend and i'll get back to you.

Thanks Oli Oliver right?

[Oli]

Originally Posted by aSn

ok i'll ask my friend and i'll get back to you.

OK, now I'm curious; how does your friend fit into this?

Originally Posted by aSn

Thanks Oli

No problems at all. I'm just not sure how helpful my advice will really prove to be.

Originally Posted by aSn

Oliver right?

Yes, that's right. Do I know you from somewhere? This area does seem like a small community at times.

[aSn]

no first time here
My friend works in a local music shop and has way more knowledge than me;
i checked out the site + youtube for the im2, seems like it would work for what i want to do,plus i can modulate manually like you're saying using a trigger of some sort (foot pedal ), maybe?

What do you think?

[aSn]

these dudes are funny haha

[Oli]

Originally Posted by aSn

What do you think?

The notion seems worth a try. However, how well it can work is unknown. The i2m is designed to do this kind of function, but performance is another matter. Voice is particularly a complex wave form, which makes it more difficult to analyse, and discriminate the fundamental frequency to determine a MIDI note event.

If I get time, I may try to do this in a test. I have been meaning to try this anyway. I don't have a good mic or pre in my rig, but I can try with what I've got. That said, I'm a terrible singer, with poor pitch control, so I don't expect a great result with my voice as the audio source.

You could also check out the Roland CP40. It's older, rarer, probably costs more. Don't know how it compares for features/perfomance, though I believe it does come with a (cheapo?) mic. There may be other options too. No one else seems to be joining in on this one, but I seem to recall there was a software solution for this too. I haven't bothered to search for other solutions, but they may well exist.

[TMA1]

Hi Andre,

I understand exactly what your looking for as I am looking for the same thing myself. Have you had any luck finding what your after as I would be very interested?

I did find an iPhone / iPad app called a Thumb Jam, ThumbJam | Musical Instrument Platform for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch that has a pitch bend facility - I used an iRig mic to connect to it, though you can buy an adapter that can connect it to a regular mic to your iPhone.

The app has various instrument voices you can use, like organ, trumpet, bass etc - though with the pitch facility via a mic these 'voices' are not as effective as they are
when using the app with one's fingers.

It's not bad but it has some lag and is hard to set up to follow the pitch of ones voice as closely as one would like - there is also Voice Band, Auria by WaveMachine Labs - Voice Band which is also a iPhone app, again not really a professional rig.

What I found works pretty well though is an Electro-Harmonix Pog and I'm looking into trying out the Electro-Harmonix Synth for guitar.

Ideally I would like to use hardware like Electro-Harmonix products as opposed to software computer based or Midi based effects.

But really there is nothing out there specifically designed for using ones voice as a signal to trigger sampled sounds, that is pitch sensitive apart from using guitar stomp boxes via a vocal mic.

[FubarSnafu]

If you know any Max/MSP-ers that owe you a big favour, they might also be able to help you.