Sweep Filter Sound Upon Bow Pull

Vmusic

Hi,
FIRST - thank you to so many helpful people on this forum who helps those of us who are less tech savvy [that would be me]

I play electric violin and use my iPad /AUM as my fx pedalboard.

I want to pull my bow across the string, down then up, and drive or make a filter sweep sound. You know like the howling wind sound. I would be playing over a loop with music - but I can do the loop creation part on my own.
How do I play or pull the bow down and up and have it change the frequency of the filter sweep.

I guess first - is there a filter sweep AUV3 plugin that allows you to change frequency (move it up and down) "manually"? or do they all run off of MIDI LFOs?

Is there a filter sweep AUV3 plugin that allows a note frequency, rather than a MIDI message - drive the frequency of the filter sweep.

If I move my bow down and up, but the play one single note or the same note, would it be worthless? Do I have to literally change the note as I play to change the frequency of the filter sweep? On the violin this would look like sliding /gliding my finger up and down the fingerboard whilst pulling the bow.

Thanks
Vmusic

wim

It sounds as though you need a motion sensor on your wrist. There should be a device or Apple Watch app that can send a midi cc that you can use to drive a filter cutoff.

I’m pretty sure there are a few threads around here discussing such devices. Maybe you can search for them.

As for trying to do it based on the difference in tone between an upstroke or downstroke … no way that’s going to work. The closest you could get would be to use an envelope follower such as FAC Envolver to try to detect the small transient you get on an aggressive stroke. That could trigger an ADSR to drive a filter. But it would be pretty static - the same envelope no matter the length of the stroke. Not very expressive.

wim

My recommendation is to strongly consider an expression pedal. That would be simplest and the most flexible. It shouldn’t be too hard to get the hang of moving your foot in time with the bow. It would be very natural and also not tied to bow strokes unless you chose to.

CracklePot

You can setup FAC Envolver to output a CC that tracks the dynamics of your bowing. You could use soft bowing to close the filter and loud bowing to open it, for example. Not tied to bowing direction though, just dynamics.

bygjohn

@wim has covered the detection side of things - and the expression pedal is probably the simplest and most available option.

Whatever you use, you want to end up with a MIDI CC signal that can then be mapped to a filter control, either on a synth or a standalone filter. This is how MIDI LFOs work - essentially you’re making a manual LFO here.

On the standalone filter app side of things, you could do a lot worse than Filterjam, which is free. But any filter that exposes the cutoff as a parameter would do.

Vmusic

@CracklePot said:
You can setup FAC Envolver to output a CC that tracks the dynamics of your bowing. You could use soft bowing to close the filter and loud bowing to open it, for example. Not tied to bowing direction though, just dynamics.

Hhhhhmmmm.... it's like an envelope filter.

Is there any plugin that converts audio pitch to MIDI CC????

Vmusic

FIRST.... there was the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad.....

NOW introducing the iBow. Coming to an orchestra near you!!!

espiegel123

@Vmusic said:

@CracklePot said:
You can setup FAC Envolver to output a CC that tracks the dynamics of your bowing. You could use soft bowing to close the filter and loud bowing to open it, for example. Not tied to bowing direction though, just dynamics.

Hhhhhmmmm.... it's like an envelope filter.

Is there any plugin that converts audio pitch to MIDI CC????

MidiGuitar , MIDImorphosis and ThumbJam all have pitch to midi, there are quite a few AU that could convert midi notes to midi cc

mojozart

Interpreting your words, it sounds like you want a motion detector. And I've thought about attaching a WitMotion to my bowing hand, or programming gesture detection into a Bangle.js Smart Watch, and so on.

But first, I'd try using an AutoWah effect, which is a volume-activated filter sweep.

Drawing the bow creates a volume envelope...

For more customization, as others have mentioned, FAC Envolver can convert the volume envelope into MIDI CC, which can then be routed to a specific combination of effects, e.g., phaser or band-pass filter and whatnot.

But once again, as someone suggested, you could just use an expression pedal.