Garageband

[DANZ]

I understand that Warbl was invented and refined with traditional Celtic instruments in mind, but is it a good assumption that it could also be used as a midicontroller for Garageband or other common apps like it?

Seems like it would be a matter of fiddling with the midi mapping and that some of the off the shelf instrument voices in these apps might be interesting and expressive to play from a Warbl.

Foolish idea?

[DANZ]

I now see in other parts of the forum that folks are controlling all sorts of midi devices to Warbl. So I guess my question is how likely is it that I would find success with controlling synth voices that aren't specifically crafted for breath control. A vague question I'll admit, but anyone got words of wisdom?

[gonzoB]

Synths that respond to breath control us CC2 (breath) to control the volume
Synths that are set up for keyboard control use CC11 (expression) to control volume (from an expression pedal attached to the keyboard)

You can play the keyboard type with a WARBL by setting the "send pressure as CC" function to CC11. A word of warning, however, keyboard synths tend to use the velocity value received at the note-on as the MAX volume for that note, so expressive instruments like wind instruments or violins will hit that limitation if you try to build volume above the starting volume. To fix this you need to be able to either disable the velocity/max volume link in the synth, or send max velocity (127) at note-on from the WARBL. This latter solution may mean that the attack of the note is not ideal (the synth thinks you are hitting the note hard, when you may not be)

Gonzo

[DANZ]

Really useful answer @gonzoB! Many thanks!

[admin]

Yep, great answer. You should be able to use WARBL with any MIDI app because the protocol is the same as for a keyboard, for example. I would add to the previous response that if you want to send velocity with a specific value you can use the mapping in the Configuration Tool to map the entire pressure range to a very narrow velocity range. Some synths/instruments will interpret a velocity of 127 as a specific type of attack, so there might be cases where you want to change to around 100, for example. If you don't map the pressure to velocity but turn off the "Force max veocity" switch, WARBL will send all notes with a velocity of 64.